SOURCE: “All Roads Lead to Rome,” in New Statesman & Society, March 15, 1996, pp. 32-33.

In the following review of The Quest for God, Stanford appreciates Johnson's spiritual humility and moving personal sentiment, but finds fault in the book's infallible and combative tone.

Paul Johnson has had more stabs at defining his personal philosophy than Zsa Zsa Gabor had at finding wedded bliss. In their restless and very public search for happiness, both have ended up as comic—and sometimes tragic—figures, Gabor preening like an extra in the Golden Girls and Johnson understudying for Victor Meldrew in the pages of the Daily Mail.

In political terms, Johnson has swung from left to right and then back again. Once editor of the New Statesman, he was bowled over by Margaret Thatcher—referred to reverently in The Quest for God as “this Queen of Politics.” Latterly, however, he has been seen...