God's Funeral: The Decline of Faith in Western Civilization Hardcover – June 1, 1999

A most valuable contribution to the intellectual history of the West. It is not, as some reviewers have claimed, an argument against the existence of God. If anything, the book shows the reluctance of the author to accept the objective evidence, in an almost 'credo quia absurdum'. The author marshalls an impressive amount of valuable data and presents it in a very readable, informative and entertaining fashion.A pleasure to read. A must for anybody interested in understanding the intellectual climate of the XIX and XX Centuries in the Western World. One factual mistake (p. 249, bottom paragraph): Freud did not die in 1931. After reading this, I would like to read other works by the author. If they are half as good as God's Funeral, they are certainly an excellent read.And worth buying.

I was engrossed by this book, not so much because the premise was worth studying, i.e., the Western and Victorian response to Darwin, the Documentary Hypothesis, etc., but rather to reaquaint myself with old friends from philosophy class. It was wonderful to sit with and enjoy the philosophical problems that truth engenders. However, if you do not have a good background in Western philosophy, parts of this book may be somewhat dry. Still, even if you don't you will gain much from this volume.
I have no problem with the premise of the book, namely, the challenge to faith that discovered truths create. As some background, please know that I am a rabbi but that never means that Biblical myths are taken by me to be literally true. In my mind, religion is a search for truth and not mere adherence to myths and stories that satisfy the imagination but not the intellect. Clearly Darwin, Kant, et al certainly opened our minds to these realities and truths. Wilson, the author, is the messenger of their message.
It is true that he has something of an axe to grind against blind and oft-times prejudicial religious faith but that should not interfere with your enjoyment of the book.
Read it and say 'hi' to some old friends you haven't spoken with since school!

A smart reviewer of this book in an academic journal points out that one can find many contrary cases to the emphasis on the regret and melancholy that Wilson sees as the dominant response to the waning of the sea of faith. I am glad to bear that in mind as I read. But Wilson has provided a readable book, packed with interesting tidbits--good for a general audience.

This book gave me a perspective on religious changes in the Victorian era. The book reads like a text book. For me tough, this book was valuable. The downside was the language which contains a lot archaic English which I was not familiar. Perhaps if I was a theologian or Literature grad, I might have been able to understand some of the language quicker. Maybe it was written for serious scholars on the subject. However, I found this book thought provoking and interesting. I got through it, and felt it was worth the effort. I learned from this book.

A.N. Wilson again proves himself one of the best social and cultural historians writing in English. Not for casual readers, but highly recommended for anyone willing to make the effort.

Arrived in excellent condition. I am very pleased with this book.

but at the time, was new in the Faith, and being so, allowed the intellectual acrobats of yesterday and today to cause me to question the very reality of the Lord. But reading Scripture, clears the confusion. The faithful have always been in the minority and the worldling the majority. Duh!

I love this book because I hate it so much. When I read this for the first time almost 2 decades ago, I was both horrified and fascinated by the subject, by the message that so many readers who have commented here found so worthless or vile. The story Wilson follows, the death of God in the minds of so many respected thinkers of the 18th and 19th century, is a story that is still ours. The denouement that many found to be quite undramatic and proof of nothing more than Wilson's then-unbelief was for me powerfully compassionate and even kind. Although I first felt resentment and bitterness permeating in the text, the book also seemed to be Wilson's own admission that there were aspects of God that he also desperately wanted to believe but couldn't find substance to trust outside of what he manufactured inside his own head, what seemed to these thinkers and to Wilson in essence unreliable, unscientific, and ultimately untrustworthy. Given his change in professed belief a decade later, I suspect that his interest in these men's lives reflected many of his own doubts and desires of the time as well. As such, this book represents a modern dilemma, a tension that perhaps peaked in the Victorian era but which continues for Wilson and others. Wilson himself felt compelled to turn away from God, even as these thinkers had, and his mourning and frustration are, I think, the threads that humanize the main characters' struggles for readers. This book contextualizes the modern struggle of faith & doubt in a world that expects answers for every question and evidence for every truth--an expectation that anticipates more than modern science or knowledge has ever or can ever fulfill. In fact, I found it much more humanizing than the intellectual enterprise Wilson worked at in Jesus: A Life.

A word of caution on the subject matter: This isn't strictly history or literary criticism. If you want an academic analysis, head elsewhere. But if you find academic treatises dry and cautious, you may find more life in this text. However, you have to know your own doubts and your own hopes, and you have to be at the very least curious about why people then (or now) cared so much about God. If you don't care, you must possess at least some basic compassionate for others in general so that you can empathize if sympathy is beyond the capacity of your experience. Beginning here, Wilson's book may help you grasp the limitless gulf of pain and loss that they felt, so that you understand the funeral march they followed in Wilson's narrative. It is not a apologetic for or against religion, though as others have pointed out, the skepticism, bitterness and anger vibrating through its pages have provoked many to dismiss it. Imagine, rather, finding yourself at a wake, sitting next to a friend or mentor or respected teacher without comment or comfort. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it. If you haven't even imagined the enormity of the problem of these men in the face of a vast emptiness of a world without God--the death of an idea, an age, and a hope--then you may have a hard time entering into this text. If you have, but you're unwilling to tolerate the consequences of "what if" that comes with asking the questions and facing the doubt, then you may have a hard time getting out of it. This will not answer your doubts or solve your problems; it is a way sign to indicate that you are with companions who ache with you and not alone.

I hate this book for touching on so many painful things I care about more than anything--the things that give me hope, the questions I can't answer in sufficiently satisfying ways. But I love it for giving me space to wrestle with who I am and the legacy I live in. And I respect Wilson a great deal for the care and heart he put into his task in telling these peoples' story. I am grateful that he could take a sliver of my own story and tell it back to me more richly and deeply.