I recently started reading The Monthly to be better informed about Australian politics, society and culture. Like many people I am interested in the current debate about religion and its place in the modern world. Therefore it was with some interest that I approached Amanda Lohrey's review of several recent books written by atheists (‘Letter to a Young Friend on God and the Question of a Good Lunch', June 2007). Unfortunately I now regret having wasted precious time reading her review and find it disappointing that a quality journal such as The Monthly would publish a review that was so silly and succeeded in trivialising an important subject.

It is not possible to offer a critique of Lohrey's analysis, but one of her most bizzare claims is that atheists "have gone into pamphleteering overdrive" on the basis of three books, and accuses them of manufacturing a religious revival. This seems a most strange perspective given that a visit to any major bookshop in Melbourne would reveal whole sections devoted to the promotion or sympathetic explanation of religion.

I hope that The Monthly will soon provide four pages of its valuable space to a more intellectually rigorous contribution to the subject of religion in contemporary western society.