"Everyone should buy a copy of this book. . . . If you think science disproves faith, or faith can ignore science, read why you are wrong."

– Sam Berryprofessor of genetics, University College London

"The New Flatlanders [is] a wonderful achievement. . . . I really hope it has the attention it merits as a tool for making sense of faith to young people."

– Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury

"A charming and provocative little book. . . . It is the Sophie’s World of the religion-science field."

– Philip Clayton, Ingraham Professor of Theology, Claremont School of Theology

"[S]erves as an intriguing consideration of how traditional religious beliefs may not be incompatible with modern science after all—at least at the outer fringes of scientific speculation, where the known limits of empirical certainty have yet to constrain the miracles and mysteries of faith."

– Tom Huston, What Is Enlightenment?—Issue 39

"This book originated in a series of discussions between a Christian scientist teacher and some of his students about the nature of the universe and the place of human beings within it. In a question and answer format, the large themes of cosmology, physics, biology and psychology are explored and explained. The students come from a number of perspectives, ranging from the skeptical to the intuitive—hence they are more or less open to various aspects of the discussion as it unfolds. They question the author’s understanding of Jesus which he sympathetically explains. It is clear that the understanding of the students expands in the course of the book, and a parallel process would surely occur in other young people reading it. General readers will also find that the treatment helps clarify their own views. However, much of the material will be familiar to readers of this review."

– The Scientific and Medical Network—Winter 2008

"The first three chapters provide a quick overview of big-bang cosmology, quantum mechanics, standard-model particle physics, and string theory. These chapters can be read as a useful but all-too-quick tour of modern physics for the scientifically uninitiated. Their more useful function is to point out the metaphysical indeterminacy at the heart of all scientific understanding. The fourth and fifth chapters serve as a fulcrum in the discussion: here Middleton looks to Plato’s allegory of the cave and Edwin A. Abbott’s Flatland novella for analogies that will provide leverage for prying into the metaphysical possibilities that have opened up.

The explicitly Christian message, which first takes shape as the group discusses the Flatland story, is filled out in subsequent chapters that are organized around themes including the anthropic principle, evolution, consciousness, the question of other religions, and the problem of evil. The discussions draw frequently, and for the most part winsomely, from the Flatland analogy in order to broker a philosophical deal between different modes of understanding. A well-placed chapter on “Chaos and the Hidden Order” describes the visualization methods and graphing techniques adopted in complexity research. It is surprisingly successful in reinforcing the Flatland analogy, to the extent that Jesus can be compared with a strange attractor without the discussion jumping the tracks of orthodoxy. It refreshed me to see the gospel creatively but faithfully proclaimed in an introductory science-and-religion book.

If I find myself in such a setting again, I will suggest to my fellow seekers that we read The New Flatlanders together, and I will expect us to enjoy some long and rewarding conversations as we do."

– Matthew Walhout, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith—Vol. 60, No. 4