A secular scholar spends a year in the world of religion.

In 2021, psychology professor and atheist Niki Harré spent a year as a self-appointed secular priest. She attended church, immersed herself in Christian writing created bespoke vows, and delivered regular Sunday services.

It didn’t go as planned. Her secular friends largely stayed away. She formed new relationships. And she slowly developed a sense of what it means to regularly turn towards humility, the unknown, reflection, listening to and caring for the other, and an awareness of the world as it is rather than as we wish it was: qualities of a religious orientation as she experienced it.

The Calling details Niki Harré’s year as a priest without God. A year does not last forever, but it is long enough to gain a sense of what it is to see and live in the world differently from the way one did before.

Author

Professor Niki Harré is a community psychologist and head of the School of Psychology at the University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau. She has published over 200 scholarly articles and chapters and is the author of Psychology for a Better World: Working with People to Save the Planet and The Infinite Game: How to Live Well Together, both published in 2018 by Auckland University Press.

Endorsements

‘This is a brave book, and a riveting read, by a lifelong atheist about an audacious year-long experiment in faith. As a Christian, I found it moving and humbling to see faith through the eyes of an outsider / fellow traveller. Believers of all kinds will be encouraged to learn that a longing for duty, community and love can draw a long-time sceptic and academic into the hinterlands of faith. Everyone, believer or not, will be challenged, but also informed, about the practices and commitments of religious community.’
– Dr Nicola Hoggard Creegan, author of Animal Suffering and the Problem of Evil (Oxford University Press, 2013)

‘The Calling is a beautifully written, insightful blend of biography, ethnography and spiritual reckoning. Harré’s reflections on God, ministry and hospitality are intimate and expansive, while the final chapter evokes enchantment and mystery, with some irony given her atheist lens. A deeply thoughtful and enchanting read, the “new language” Harré seeks – for those who do not possess the God “shortcut” to love, connection and compassion – remains both a vital observation and a complex, unresolved challenge in the twenty-first century.’
– Richard Egan, Associate Professor, University of Otago, Ōtākau Whakaihu Waka