Former priest John McLaughlin is hardly alone in his pessimism about religion’s future. A spate of bestsellers—The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins; The End of Faith by Sam Harris; and God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything  by the late Christopher Hitchens—argues that religion, as we’ve known  it, no longer serves the needs of people with a modern education and a  global awareness.

Books like these have spelled out religion’s shortcomings and I see no point in piling on. Rather, in a series of posts, I’ll make the case that, in the long view, both religion and science come off as godsends (forgive the pun). And that, looking ahead, both are indispensable to letting go of old predatory practices and creating a fair, just, and peaceful world. If religion can see its way clear to making a mid-course correction and science can get off its high horse, John McLaughlin’s prediction c