Phill Sacre

Tag: book review

  • Review: The Atheist Who Didn't Exist

    I’ve just finished reading “The Atheist Who Didn’t Exist” by Andy Bannister. The book is subtitled “or the dreadful consequences of bad arguments”, and that’s a pretty good summary of the book: examining various arguments made by writers such as Richard Dawkins (who else?) and the like to see whether they stand up. The point of the book is not to demonstrate the truth of Christianity per se, just to demonstrate the issues contained within the arguments made by these atheist writers.

    The thing which makes this book stand out for me compared to the multitude of other books which have been written in response to Richard Dawkins and the so-called ‘New Atheists’ (not that they’re particularly new any more, but still): the scope. What this book does is distil a number of arguments and try to deal with the precise objection in each case. In many cases, he presents arguments in a clear and concise way, and they are well illustrated: for example, each chapter starts with an imaginary (and usually humorously absurd) conversation to introduce the topic.

    For me the real strength of the book is its analysis of the logical arguments: Bannister is able to boil an argument down to its precise form and then examine it to see whether it stands up. I’d go as far as to say that this is the best book I’ve read from that perspective (although I haven’t read very many, so that’s not really much of an accolade). But I think too often Christians simply leap to the defensive when someone comes up with questions, rather than saying: “Well, let’s take a step back and look at the question itself. How would that logic work in other situations? Are you being consistent?”

    I would recommend this book to a Christian who wants to be strengthened in their understanding of apologetics, or to an atheist who wants to examine some Christian answers to their objections. I think it would be hard to find a book which examines so many arguments so comprehensively and clearly – it’s very understandable.

    The only downside? The constant footnotes! There are plenty of humorous footnotes throughout the book, but personally I found them something of a distraction. It’s a matter of personal preference, though – you don’t have to read them.

    (Although, my blog is footnoted in one of the footnotes – brownie points to anyone who can name which post. It’s not the reason I read the book though – I haven’t seen a penny of royalties. Not one…)

    One of the problems with the so-called ‘New Atheists’ is that they are strong on rhetoric but weak on actual argument. I hope this book is widely read and helps to illuminate the problems for many people.

  • Review: Wise Counsel

    I’ve just finished reading “Wise Counsel” – John Newton’s letters to John Ryland, Jr. And when I say John Newton, I do of course mean that John Newton – he of Amazing Grace fame, the former slave trader turned Church of England minister. Although Newton is probably best known today for Amazing Grace, at the time he was most famed as a letter writer – many of his letters were published, and he admitted himself that his letters were where God seemed to use him the most.

    And his letters are well worth reading: I started reading the book just before ordination, as I thought it might be beneficial to read as I started pastoral ministry. I was not disappointed.

    As I said, John Newton was a minister in the Church of England, and John Ryland Jr. was a Baptist minister. The two corresponded for many years, and it’s wonderful to see the growth of their friendship through these letters. Grant Gordon – editor of the book – has provided a very helpful biographical introduction, as well as notes at the end of each letter explaining the circumstances of the next one.

    For me, the real highlights of the book were:

    • Newton’s “wise counsel”. It is an appropriate title for the book – Newton was clearly someone who had a lot of Godly wisdom in various situations. Obviously the situations were specific to Ryland at the time, as was the counsel given, but it’s worth reading simply for Newton’s approach. In particular, Newton was someone for whom theology and the Scriptures were not just an academic thing: they applied in real situations. That is what was so helpful about the book for me – seeing how he took the theology he knew and applied it to the situations he was given. His letters are soaked in Scripture and Scriptural references.
    • Similarly, he was not someone who courted controversy. He was charitable in his dealings with those of different theological persuasions whilst at the same time knowing when to stand firm.
    • I would recommend the book to any Christian, nonetheless they were originally written to a pastor of a church, and as someone now in a similar situation I think the letters were especially relevant to someone in Christian ministry.
    • Finally, what I particularly enjoyed was seeing how many of the situations Newton and Ryland were facing that I could relate to: it’s surprising how little has changed in the last 200 years. It was actually encouraging to think about some of the issues that they were facing in the 18th Century, and how the church has survived those challenges – it gives me confidence that the church will survive today. God has kept the church through many changing times, and he continues to work today.

    All in all, this is a book I heartily recommend!

  • “Lexicon” by Max Barry

    LexiconAs some of you may know, I’m a fan of the author Max Barry. The first book I read of his was “Company” (it’s his third book, so I was a bit out of sequence); then I read Syrup and Jennifer Government. More recently he wrote Machine Man – all are excellent books and I can recommend them (and I’ve written about them elsewhere on this blog). Recently his latest novel “Lexicon” was released, and I bought a copy and finished reading it a couple of days ago.

    At this point, for the impatient among you, I will give you the short version of the review: it’s utterly compelling, and you will be thinking about it for days afterwards… go and buy it now.

    The book itself has a fascinating premise: I don’t want to give too much away, but the book focuses on words used almost as weapons. What if, using the right words, someone could be persuaded to do … anything? The astute among you will notice that this is actually not far from the truth. In the world as it stands, people are persuaded with arguments constructed with words. Using words is a legal way of bringing someone round to your way of thinking (well, unless something like blackmail or some other form of coercion is involved, but let’s leave that aside for now). What Lexicon does is explore the possibility of a world where words can be taken a step further: words don’t have the power to just persuade someone of the truth of an argument; they actually can compel a person to do a particular thing – overriding the will of that person.

    (more…)

  • Atheist Delusions: The Review

    Recently I mentioned that I was reading through “Atheist Delusions” by David Bentley Hart, and I said I would write up a review of it when I’d finished reading it. Well, I’ve finished reading it now, and really enjoyed it. Quite a lot of the book deals with the same kind of things I’ve been talking about with regards to atheism/secularism, although he takes it from a different angle. Essentially, Hart is going on a journey through Christian church history, and along the way correcting a lot of misperceptions about the past and how our society relates to that. From that perspective, I think he does brilliantly: he writes like he knows what he’s talking about – he’s done the reading and interacted with what we know historically (unlike a lot of the so-called ‘New Atheists’, who seem to basically ignore it). His basic contention is that the New Atheist reading of history is completely back-to-front, when Christianity arrived on the scene it changed the world in ways which are hard for us to imagine now.

    Speaking of the New Atheists, it’s written in a fairly robust style in that he spares no love for the likes of Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett and Harris – although in general they (and especially Dawkins) spare no love for Christianity in their books so it’s like for like. And most of the book is spent not so much on interacting with their arguments directly but interacting with history and various views on it. My main problem with the style of the book was that it is fairly dense prose, which isn’t really good when you’re trying to read it late at night! It’s definitely a book which you really need to be fully awake for to read properly, but it’s worth it.

    What I’d like to do is pull out some of his arguments about secularism, which should both tie in with what I’ve said before as well as give you a flavour of what the book is like. This all comes from the last quarter of the book, the previous three-quarters being groundwork for it. (I apologise that it’s a bit long… skip to the end for my tl;dr!) I’m going to do this in two sections – firstly about Christian morality as opposed to the pagan morality which preceded it, and then secularism.

    (more…)