Examining basic Christianity, this thesis explains that society is living through the second of two great revolutions. The first, that of the scientific method that emerged in the 16th and 17th centuries, was disastrous for the human spirit. The current revolution is constructive, however, because it allows society to see where secularism went wrong, making the 20th century an era of violence, not progress, and rendering the institutions of contemporary culture unstable.

Huston Smith is a world authority on the history of religion and the philosophy of comparative religions. He is a professor at the University of California-Berkeley and is the author of many religious studies, including The Big Picture, Buddhism, The Forgotten Truth, Islam, and Why Religion Matters.