Thoughts on Charles Murray's "Taking Religion Seriously"
By James Anthony
American Thinker
April 6, 2026
I am using Western modernity as shorthand for all the ways in which life in the last hundred years has shielded many of us from the agonizing losses, pains, and sorrows that were part of human life since the dawn of humankind. - Charles Murray
Social scientist Charles Murray, coauthor of the forthright lightning rod The Bell Curve on the impact of intelligence in our society, understands many of the ideas that lead people to doubt religion.
In Taking Religion Seriously, Murray offers a compact, engaging memoir and survey of various ideas he has gradually warmed up to across his lifetime, as he has learned more from people who, like him, were thoughtful and evidence-driven but further along in Christianity.
An unfamiliar word creeps in by the close of the introduction-transubstantiation (the doctrine in some traditions that when people receive communion, the bread and wine become Christ's physical body and blood)-but don't be put off. This uncommon language isn't foreshadowing; it's just one of the very few strays that Murray and his editors didn't trim. Murray writes the same way he would talk informally to anyone interested in his concerns about religion, especially those who share them.
Like me, when Murray was sure that Christian beliefs couldn't be true, he had people in his life whose strong Christian faith made that faith feel attractive-even though he was certain they believed things he could never accept. He quickly introduces his wife's faith journey, which exerted that pull on him, and then backtracks to introduce his own.
Following along on his journey, I, too, find it valuable to consider why there is something in the universe rather than nothing.
I'm not especially persuaded by observations that the universe is finely tuned to allow life. Since one universe, in all its size and complexity, clearly can exist, why couldn't untold numbers of universes exist, with ours simply being the one in which the stars aligned to allow the life we now see ? Extremely large or intricate realities create possibilities that we humans struggle to comprehend-and yet they exist.
I'm more persuaded by the fact that long ago, men who didn't know modern science wrote a creation account in which the sequence unfolded uncannily like what we have only recently learned. More generally, I'm awed that God presents so many facets of Himself to each of us. It seems that each of us is certain to find some that help persuade us. At every turn, God, while doing what is good, also does much that draws us closer to Him.
Murray notes that near-death experiences and terminal lucidity are well supported by evidence. Considering this, he concludes that there may be more to our consciousness than our brains-that we may have souls.
While working on Human Accomplishment, Murray found, to his surprise, that "[i]n a very real sense, the Scientific Revolution was sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church." Further, the great contributions of individual Christians to the arts and sciences suggest that they may have understood things about Christianity that today's Western moderns do not.
Murray then discovered C. S. Lewis, beginning with Mere Christianity. He was persuaded by the universality of the moral law. I found this persuasive as well, long ago.
As I read Lewis, I was further encouraged to remain alert for any small sign that God might exist. For me, this took the form of a kind of relief I hadn't experienced any other way but felt strongly when I prayed. Murray had experienced something similar much earlier.
Murray's discussions of the Gospels' authorship, dates, and reliability are particularly strong, given his social science rigor. As an added bonus, readers see that scholarship can be shaped by investigators' interests and limitations-and sharpened by outsiders' "cold-eyes reviews," such as Murray's.
Overall, this slender volume offers multiple useful perspectives from which to begin forming faith. Murray's journey is idiosyncratic and is shared gently and forthrightly. Even the smallest spark from such sharing is a gift, especially for thoughtful readers.
If some of the opening forays don't resonate, the value deepens as the book progresses, and the brief diversions are worth continuing through. In fact, it is the later content-where Murray most closely examines Jesus-that, for me, offers the greatest solidity and encouragement.
Not long ago, people's grief and fear would quickly lead them to seek God. Today, premature death, disease, and disaster have receded for many. Yet Christian faith has proved uncannily congruent with insights from physics, biology, health, neuroscience, economics, and human flourishing. Murray touches on enough of this modern understanding to encourage readers to take the subject seriously for themselves.
Lewis and others mentioned by Murray provide more targeted guidance than most people we meet in person ever could. These gifted teachers can be gateways to richer lives. And to this distinguished group of literary companions, we can now add Charles Murray.
That is quite an achievement-especially for someone like Murray, who describes himself as having a deficit in perceiving spiritual realities. His experience suggests that with religion, as with cognitive therapy, when we change our thoughts, our feelings follow. The surest wellspring of faith may simply be to gain an increasingly true understanding of how God and Jesus have left their imprint on the hearts of those who came before us, then on those around us, and ultimately on us.
This article was originally published on The American Thinker and was reprinted with the author's permission.