The Western world’s relationship to the Christian religion is sort of a movie star marriage—sophisticated.
At one stage, our tradition’s rejection of its ancestral religion has by no means been so enthusiastic, so full, so aggressive. It seems, for all intents and functions, like an acrimonious divorce. And but our world stays deeply Christian.
We proceed to make use of the convictions, the thought types, and even the metaphysics of the religion we’re so eager to reject. Our apparently self-evident commitments to equality, progress, and compassion are Christian artifacts, whilst our relationship with the religion that bequeathed them to us comes unstuck.
If these values are Christianity’s youngsters, their paternity is contested. Their household resemblance to the religion of Scripture isn’t acknowledged as a result of the picture of their father has grow to be so grainy and low-resolution in our minds that no reminiscence is jogged. Our collective ignorance of Christianity’s affect is so full that we don’t even cease to surprise the place these values got here from. We think about these items are simply there. Like a fish in water. Just like the air we breathe.
Enter Glen Scrivener’s new e-book, The Air We Breathe.
Debt to Christianity
Scrivener offers a compelling, well-researched, and assured account of the West’s debt to Christianity normally and to Christ particularly. He calls out the negligent dad and mom, produces the DNA check, and gently suggests to the readers a few of their choices in mild of the outcomes.
We proceed to make use of the convictions, the thought types, and even the metaphysics of the religion we’re so eager to reject.
Glen Scrivener is an Australian-born evangelist and apologist, now primarily based within the U.Okay., whose suite of sources consists of some good spoken-word evangelistic movies on matters equivalent to Halloween and Christmas, which I typically share throughout the related seasons. His newest e-book has been broadly acclaimed, profitable each The Gospel Coalition’s and Christianity Right now’s 2022 e-book awards within the evangelism and apologetics classes.
With regards to the West’s unusual silence on the supply of a lot of its most treasured values, Scrivener joins a rising host of whistle-blowers. Tom Holland’s Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (Fundamental Books, 2019) is a magisterial account of comparable area from a secular perspective. John Dickson’s Bullies and Saints: An Sincere Have a look at the Good and Evil of Christian Historical past (Zondervan, 2021) comes from the attitude of a Christian historian, and David Bentley Hart’s Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Trendy Enemies (Yale College Press, 2009) from a theologian. Scrivener is available in as a straight-up evangelist. And it really works. Brilliantly.
The writing is stuffed with pluck and heat. Regardless of its mental rigor, the e-book’s tone is extra that of an animated late-night argument in a pub— pleasant however with no holds barred. It’s written to be learn. And the possibilities you’ll end it having began it are extraordinarily excessive. The hard-to-put-down pressure is powerful with this one.
Blended Viewers
Scrivener has three audiences in thoughts: the “nones,” the “dones” and the “wons.” The “nones” are that growing group who reply “none” when requested about their faith. These are the e-book’s main goal group—these (typically left-leaning) secular Westerners who’re concurrently essentially the most smitten by many uniquely Christian values and the least more likely to know the place these values got here from. These “nones” typically carry an unreflective assumption that the equality of all people, the worth of compassion, and the hope of progress are self-evident. Scrivener means to disabuse them of this assumption.
The “dones” are those that have been as soon as Christian or Christian-adjacent however at the moment are performed with all of it. This depressingly fast-growing group (like their secular progressive counterparts) doesn’t often wander away into some post-ethical wasteland. As a rule, they double down on specific values, equivalent to freedom and concern for individuals on the margins, whilst they think about themselves “performed” (for no matter causes) with the religion that first gave these values prominence.
And the “wons” are those that have been gained by Christ. For this final group (which most likely consists of nearly all of these studying this assessment), Scrivener means to fortify our hearts and fill our cups with confidence and evangelistic spunk.
Haunted by Christ
Scrivener explores seven deeply held ethical or epistemic convictions: equality, compassion, consent, enlightenment, science, freedom, and progress. In every case, he demonstrates that these values, removed from being as self-evident as “the air we breathe,” are the merchandise of Christianity. He explores how Christ continues (as Flannery O’Connor places it) to hang-out our tradition.
The argument is compelling and communication type vivid and energetic. The chapters transfer roughly chronologically from the start of Christianity to the current day. We start with an image of the traditional world, and, like a printing press including one colour after one other, the e-book slowly composes a wealthy image of how we acquired from the classical world to our world.
How did we come from a world through which equality was unthinkable, compassion undesirable, and consent unimportant to 1 through which, on Might 25, 2020, the demise of George Floyd despatched us into collective convulsions of ethical outrage? Such a response was, within the classical world, unimaginable. By 2020 it was inevitable. Why? The rationale, in a phrase, is Christ.
Scrivener means to fortify our hearts and fill our cups with confidence and evangelistic spunk.
Some books on this matter are written in service of the tradition wars, offering a theological argument for why the “West is Greatest.” This isn’t that e-book.
Others on this style will be overly timid, addressing the trendy, secular individual as if Christianity was the beta model of the ethical certitudes progressive secularists now take pleasure in. “Christianity wasn’t fairly feminist, or LBGT-affirming, or one hundred pc in opposition to slavery, however, hey! Have a look at the trajectory! Can we please have partial credit score?” This isn’t that e-book both.
Scrivener’s e-book is neither cultural warrior nor apologetic apologist. It’s evangel. It’s pugnacious, assured, and prepared to name out the assumptions and blind spots of its reader. It leaves us neither sentimental about our previous nor smug about our current. It challenges us, calling the reader (respectfully and generously) to be extra evidence-based, extra crucial, and fewer vulnerable to the form of magical considering that claims these items simply are.
The Air We Breathe is a swashbuckling journey experience of a e-book. It’s academically grounded, culturally attuned, and stuffed with evangelistic chutzpah. I’d put this into the palms of any of my secular associates in a heartbeat.
Editors’ observe:
This text is customized from Rory Shiner’s e-book assessment of The Air We Breathe, which seems in Themelios 48, no. 1 (April 2023). Entry the total journal on-line.
Adblock check (Why?)