Last year, Sam Harris made headlines and topped bestseller lists with his angry and honest Letter to a Christian Nation. At its heart, this little book was an atheist complaint against Christians: Harris pointed an accusing finger at the church, telling Christians that they weren t as nice as they thought they were and warning fellow atheists that the Christians were out to get them. Prominent intellectuals and anti-Christians were quick to praise this little book; as one Harvard professor wrote, Reading Harris Letter to a Christian Nation was like sitting ring side, cheering the champion, yelling Yes! at every jab. In response, Douglas Wilson has written his own little book: Letter From a Christian Citizen. As Gary DeMar writes in the foreword, Douglas Wilson has taken the operating assumptions of Sam Harris seriously and has shown what life would be like if the world were consistent with atheistic assumptions. Walking through Harris claims step-by-step, Wilson dismantles his arguments and demonstrates that honesty lies on the side of the Christians, not the atheists.
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Editorial Reviews
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Douglas Wilson provides a good-natured but devastating point-by-point rebuttal to Sam Harris s Letter to a Christian Nation. --Phillip E. Johnson, Professor of law emeritus, University of California, Berkeley, author of Darwin on Trial
Douglas Wilson s Letter from a Christian Citizen has enough bite to ridicule, enough compassion to inform, and enough facts to persuade. Sam Harris has more than met his match. --Dr. Larry Schweikart, Professor of History, University of Dayton
Douglas Wilson s Letter from a Christian Citizen has enough bite to ridicule, enough compassion to inform, and enough facts to persuade. Sam Harris has more than met his match. --Dr. Larry Schweikart, Professor of History, University of Dayton
About the Author
Douglas J. Wilson is a Senior Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College, a permanent member of the College s Board of Trustees, and a member of the College s Executive Council. At other colleges, he has taught both ethics and logic. He received a B.A. in Classical Studies, and a B.A. and an M.A. in Philosophy, all at the University of Idaho. He was also a founder of Logos School, a K-12 institution that pioneered the current classical Christian school movement. Today more than three hundred schools around the country (and countless homeschools), model their curriculums on the classical instruction used at Logos. Wilson is also the editor of Credenda/Agenda magazine, a small Trinitarian cultural journal known for its humorous and satirical flavor, and has authored numerous books. These include several titles related to education and worldview: The Case for Classical Christian Education, Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning, The Paideia of God, and Excused Absence: Should Christian Kids Leave Public School? His works on theology and culture include Mother Kirk, Reformed is Not Enough, Angels in the Architecture and To a Thousand Generations. He has also written A Serrated Edge: A Brief Defense of Biblical Satire and Trinitarian Skylarking as well as several children s books and biographies. Wilson has been the pastor of Christ Church, Moscow, for more than 30 years. He and his wife, Nancy, have three grown children and a bunch of grandchildren, some of whom live in Moscow, and some who currently dally in Oxford, England.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
66 of 93 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Too readily refuted to be serious,
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This review is from: Letter from a Christian Citizen (Paperback)
Having read Sam Harris' "Letter to a Christian nation", I purchased Douglas Wilsons books in the hope of a convincing rebuttal.
I was to be profoundly disappointed. I have no desire to descend as Mr Wilson does occasionally into smug snideness but his philosophy and logic are about as deep as the average puddle. When he speaks in reference to deriving morality out of evolutionary theory he comes across as a person who has spent his entire life in a small town who presumes to wax lyrical about the back alleys architectural wonders of a city like London. Any number of books have been published on precisely this issue, Dawkins "The Selfish Gene" is but one example (see also "The Origins of Virtue" Matt Ridley, "The Altruism Equation", Lee Alan Dugatkin, "The Science of Good and Evil" Michael Shermer). We are told that any moral sentiments the atheist feels derive from some sort of Christian detritus, in fact, "every aspect of our being was polluted in the fall. We do not just do bad things; we do them because we are bad people." (pg 104). This leaves me wondering how people who never heard of Jesus, living under a secular system e.g. Confucian China manage to be anything other than rabid beasts. Christianity in short is not responsible for our moral sentiments. If this is accepted, many of Mr Wilson's contentions evaporate. Mr Wilson claims that atheists can have no reason to object to things like the holocaust. He neglects one of the obvious answers, enlightened self-interest. That the Bible is the inerrant word of God he seems to accept as axiomatic based upon faith but faith is not evidence rather it is the substitution of emotion for evidence, a nice way of saying ones subjective feelings. This book is too readily refuted to be aimed at the sceptical rather it seems it preaches to the converted.
7 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Letter Refuting Underlying Problems of Non-theism,
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This review is from: Letter from a Christian Citizen (Paperback)
This compelling book is a rapid read due to its brevity (109 pages - Sam Harris' book, Letter to a Christian Nation, was just as short) and its likable style. This is one of the finest assessments of Harris' anti-theistic charges available. In response to Harris' indictment that Christianity is "divisive, injurious, and retrograde" Wilson leaves no apologetic stone unturned. The book demonstrates the necessity of biblical theism by constantly employing the moral argument in refuting the atheistic worldview. The author assesses what Harris was attempting to maintain in his moral attack against theism and turns it against atheism.
Wilson's Letter addresses: - OT/NT view of slavery (p. 20) - The supposed biological basis for morality (p. 29) - The absurdity of Bach and Moral Law being products of chance - Autonomy, the nervous system and fixed ethics (p. 37-39) - The charge of OT genocide - The positive fruit of Christianity in forming Western Civilization - The problem of reducing morality to personal preferences (p. 46) - The truth of the wrath of God and how to avoid it - The ultimate solution to the problem of evil - The defense of the Virgin birth (p. 68) - The old canard that Solomon formulated pi incorrectly (p.72) - Alleged bible contradictions and errors Since Wilson is responding to Harris' book he doesn't offer additional complex formulations of theistic arguments in any detailed depth. Thus this is not the book you would want if you only had a couple apologetic books in your library. However for those who want a charming and pithy volume that defends Christian ethics as it counters atheist moral grounding, this little work is for you. Even if you do not hold to the presuppositional method of apologetics, this book is still an engaging text to read to gain a better understanding of the rational tools needed to defeat the new atheists. Learn to utilize moral absolutes as you counter alleged bible difficulties. by Mike A Robinson author of: God Does Exist and other apologetic books: Truth, Knowledge and the Reason for God: The Defense of the Rational Assurance of Christianity or Letter to an Atheist Nation: Presupositional Apologetics Responds To: Letter to a Christian
5 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wilson argues that Harris' atheism is sentimental and a hodge-podge of Christian leftovers,
This review is from: Letter from a Christian Citizen (Paperback)
Douglas Wilson has written a trilogy of 100-page responses to three recent books by the village atheists, which attack religion in general and Christianity in particular. _God Is._ responds to Christopher Hitchens' book, _God Is Not Great_. _The Deluded Atheist_ responds to Richard Dawkins' book, _The God Delusion_. The subject of this review is _Letter From a Christian Citizen_, which offers a response to Sam Harris' book, _Letter To a Christian Nation_.
In the foreword, Gary DeMar says this about the "new atheists": "It's old atheism wrapped in a new package. The same tired arguments that have been answered convincingly by any number of Christian writers over the centuries have been trotted out again in the vain hope that atheism will find a new audience." (pp. ix-x) Indeed, Wilson responds to old and familiar arguments that belong to the categories of epistemology, ethics, and science. One of the central problems Wilson highlights in Harris' book (as well as in Hitchens' and Dawkin's respective books) is the lack of an adequate justification for his grievances against Christianity given his their world-and-life view, to wit, materialism/reductionism. Says Wilson, "You are raising far more questions than you are answering, and yet you are raising them as though they were already answered." (p. 29) This in response to Harris' bizarre belief that Jainism represents a superior morality to Christianity. Wilson highlights another chink in the atheist's armor as it relates to the question of theodicy. Wilson takes Harris to task for not being fully consistent with his materialist world-and-life view. While Harris will admit that atrocities will never be put right in the future, he refuses to take the next logical step and admit that such atrocities are not wrong now (p. 54). In other words, Harris doesn't live within his own world-and-life view at this juncture. He is unwilling to "embrace the ramifications of what [he] claim[s]." (p. 60) What makes Wilson's responses to Harris et al. so insightful is his presuppositional approach to their arguments and grievances. He doesn't trade "brute facts" with them but calls them to live within their own world-and-life view of materialism. When they put a foot in another world-and-life view, Wilson calls them on it. Near the end of the book, Wilson says, "...when you talk about ethics, spiritual experience, and concern over suffering, you give the game away. That is not atheism, but rather residue from your culture's Christian past." (pp. 99-100) To Wilson, Harris' belief system is nothing more than "sentimental atheism" and "a hodge-podge of Christian leftovers." (p. 61) I think a concise, yet compelling case has been made in this small book to justify that pronouncement.
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