This brisk, inviting introduction to Christian Deism, published posthumously, finds Lindell (author of Deism and the Human Jesus) making the positive case for the “natural” and “practical” religion of founders like Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, a belief system rooted in the teachings of Jesus as set down in the gospels, plus human reason. Jefferson argued that the essence of these teachings had been “disfigured by the corruptions of schismatizing followers," and Lindell notes many doctrines that Deists have since the 17th century rejected: “original sin, divinity of Jesus, substitutionary atonement through the death of Jesus, and punishment of non-Christians by torture in ‘hell.’”

Readers unfamiliar with Deism may wonder what, then, is left. “The everyday practice of Christian Deism means following the natural way of love or compassion, for all people,” Lindell writes. He introduces three key ways that Deists “show our appreciation to God for the gift of life”: “(1) by respecting the value of our own life, (2) by respecting the value of life in other persons, and (3) by respecting the value of the natural resources of the Earth on which life depends.” Lindell sources each principle in the gospel teachings—“In the parable of the Good Samaritan, we see two kinds of ‘failure to love’”—and he draws rousing support in well-selected excerpts from Paine and Matthew Tindal, the Enlightenment era English Deist.

Newcomers may find the most powerful material here to be Lindell’s breakdowns, in the second half, of how Deism fits into contemporary life today, especially its calls for loving one’s enemies, practicing mercy, protecting the planet, and taking steps to curb overpopulation. The book’s earlier passages are similarly welcoming, offering compact accounts of Deism through the centuries and of Deists’ understanding of Jesus’s own development as a thinker, leader, and humanist. Even as these accounts find Deists at odds with “trinitarian Christianity,” Lindell resists, in the spirit of a dogma free belief system, any dogmatic approach. Instead, he welcomes readers into the fold.

Takeaway: Welcoming introduction to Christian Deism, emphasizing love for self, others, and God.

Comparable Titles: Kerry Walters’s Revolutionary Deists, Anthony Flew’s There Is a God.

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