This spiritual autobiography is a work of deep scientific, philosophical, and theological learning. Steve Nichols, a practicing psychiatrist and Methodist layman, has struggled to reconcile faith and reason, religion and science for most of his life. Ultimately, he discerns that scientific and religious truth need not exist in tension and antagonism. Both are essential as separate, different expressions of a greater truth. As a spiritual pilgrimage, "Modern Life, Ancient God" recounts the authors discovery that it is possible to be a rigorous scientist and an authentic mystic. The quest to live in communion with an ancient God while preserving the intellectual honesty required by modern life can bring, as it has to Nichols and to his fellow searchers, deep joy and profound connection.