Customer Reviews

In the Presence of Mystery: An Introduction to the Story of Human Religiousness

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In the Presence of Mystery is a great book for introducing the study of religion to college students. I used this text for several years and I appreciated its accessibility to a wide variety of students.

The most valuable function of the book is that its evolutionary interpretation provides students with a set of non-subjective categories to use as tools. Students apply these categories to many expressions of religion and discover that they can analyze religions without feeling compelled to compare other religions to their own sets of beliefs and practices.

Paradoxically, the freedom to be objectively analytical in their approach to religion provides many students with opportunities to revisit their own sense of religiousness. It supplies a useful and safe context for meaningful class discussions and for individual papers.

Both the young-adult college students and the older students seem to find a lot to identify with in In the Presence of Mystery. The younger students tend to be open to (and opened by) the book's perspective. The older students tend to be enthusiastic about interpreting their own life experiences through the book's themes and categories.

The style of the book is engaging and informal. I have not found another text that can do as much as well and I highly recommend it as an introduction to religion.

This book was a real page-turner for me. Not because of the vast information it holds, nor because of its logical introduction to the methodology of proper evaluation of religion. But most importantly because it provokes the mind and makes you reevaluate your own belief system and the way you handle it in your everyday life. A real eye-opener. Barnes' style was also easy to read, I did not stop for once to look up the terminology used in the dictionary, he had them all thoroughly defined and explained. Every penny spent on this book was well worth it; in fact I recommended it to many of my friends

We are using the book as a text for a small class of non specialists in our retirement community taught by Gene Best, a fellow resident who is an retired professor with a PhD.in theology. He chose the book and we are all happy with it. I find it clear and comprehensive, covering what could be difficult material in a readable and interesting way.