God and the New Haven Railway

and Why Neither One Is Doing Very Well

George Dennis O’Brien

In this disarmingly witty look at the disrepair of the divine, George Dennis O’Brien offers a guide for finding the sacred in the everyday. Christopher Lasch called the book, first published over twenty years ago, “an astute analysis of our spiritual malaise.” God and the New Haven Railway, with a new preface by the author, speaks to us still with humor and hope because neither God nor the railroad seems to be running much better today.

George Dennis O’Brien is president emeritus of the University of Rochester. He is the author of a number of books, including Finding the Voice of the Church (University of Notre Dame Press, 2007).

Reviews

“This is a wonderful book with stunning insights. It is clear that O’Brien has thought deeply about God, the human condition, and religion. . . . O’Brien prefers to see God in the texture of weekdays, not in the spectacle of Sunday.” — National Catholic Reporter

“In God and the New Haven Railway [O’Brien] has wrought a delightful tour de force, in which he gazes with a philosopher’s eye, and a jaundiced one at that, upon the forces at work in individuals and communities that both generate and challenge religious commitments.” — Christian Century

“O’Brien . . . a remarkably nimble thinker, abandons the railway simile from time to time, but he is never at a loss for a clever figure of speech in this brief examination of the faded state of modern belief.” — Boston Globe