Daniel P. Coleman is an evangelical Friend who in this book pushes hard for an agenda that many liberal Friends will heartily embrace, though I suspect to the discomfort of the bulk of his fellow evangelicals. Based on his own experience at the nexus of Christianity, Quakerism, and Buddhist inspired meditative practices, his thesis, in short, is that the heart of true religion is a mystical, pre-rational (and thus pre-discursive) connection with Reality (perhaps a synonym for “God”), which is the essence of all religions once the superficial, thought-based particularities of doctrine are stripped away. His hope for the revival of religion in the twenty-first century lies in the recovery and popularization of the meditative/contemplative practices that have been developed by the esoteric few (mostly monastics) of all religions throughout their histories, and that are the pathway into this transformative experience of Reality
