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 agnostics 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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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
It's about time an informed, Bible-believing Christian explained to the growing number of skeptics and gnostics and relativists how America, the freest country in the history of the world, could only have been birthed and sustained through a Christian worldview. If you want to bring this great experiment in human liberty to a screeching halt, the fastest way is to eliminate the salt and light contributed by Divine inspiration of our heavenly Father and His Word through His children. --Joseph Farah, Editor and Chief Executive Officer of WorldNetDaily.com Inc.
Douglas Wilson has written a book that can give Christians a place to stand in regard to Sam Harris book Letter to a Christian Nation. The primary usefulness of Wilson's book is that it gives readers a point-by-point response to the arguments advanced by Harris in an engaging and compelling way. --Dr. Leland Ryken, Professor of English at Wheaton College
Douglas Wilson has done the near impossible. He made me glad that Sam Harris wrote his anti-God tract because it provided an occasion for Doug to write such a literate, compelling, and engaging response. I hope Bible study groups and Sunday school classes across the country set aside their normal lessons for a few weeks and gather together to study and discuss Wilson s Letter from a Christian Citizen. --Craig J. Hazen, Ph.D., Director, Master of Arts Program in Christian Apologetics, Biola University, La Mirada, California
Douglas Wilson has written a book that can give Christians a place to stand in regard to Sam Harris book Letter to a Christian Nation. The primary usefulness of Wilson's book is that it gives readers a point-by-point response to the arguments advanced by Harris in an engaging and compelling way. --Dr. Leland Ryken, Professor of English at Wheaton College
Douglas Wilson has done the near impossible. He made me glad that Sam Harris wrote his anti-God tract because it provided an occasion for Doug to write such a literate, compelling, and engaging response. I hope Bible study groups and Sunday school classes across the country set aside their normal lessons for a few weeks and gather together to study and discuss Wilson s Letter from a Christian Citizen. --Craig J. Hazen, Ph.D., Director, Master of Arts Program in Christian Apologetics, Biola University, La Mirada, California
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
314 of 411 people found the following review helpful
By Swift
This book is basically nothing that it claims to be. It is emphatically NOT a response to Sam Harris' book other than in title. Rather, Wilson essentially ignores all the hard issues that Harris raises, and instead goes on the standard nonsensical CS Lewis "Mere Christianity" line of argumentation, which basically goes that "look at what a wonderful society we have. Only Christianity could have produced this therefore Christianity is true," which, to anybody who bothered to actually be honest would realize that this argument is false on many levels.
One of the other reviewers wrote:
"Pastor Douglas Wilson's book 'Letter from a Christian Citizen' should be
a staple of any apologetics program and is great for Christians learning to defend their faith."
Notice how the reviewer is not interested in TRUTH. What's more important is "defending the faith." Truth is secondary to making sure that their team wins. This is a key distinction between the reasoned discourse that Harris presents, and the would-only-convince-the-choir contortions that this book is made of.
This book has no interest in truth, nor rebuttal, as there simply is no such thing. It makes a generic argument and has packaged it in a title to try to latch on to the sales of Harris' popular book. There's nothing new here but just more preaching the same old tired arguments. Most of the faithful will continue to believe them (and doubtlessly mark my review as 'not helpful', since it's mostly the faithful who find these things on amazon anyway) as they read this book and convince themselves that Harris' devastating critique is somehow rebutted, when nothing of the sort happened.
One of the other reviewers wrote:
"Pastor Douglas Wilson's book 'Letter from a Christian Citizen' should be
a staple of any apologetics program and is great for Christians learning to defend their faith."
Notice how the reviewer is not interested in TRUTH. What's more important is "defending the faith." Truth is secondary to making sure that their team wins. This is a key distinction between the reasoned discourse that Harris presents, and the would-only-convince-the-choir contortions that this book is made of.
This book has no interest in truth, nor rebuttal, as there simply is no such thing. It makes a generic argument and has packaged it in a title to try to latch on to the sales of Harris' popular book. There's nothing new here but just more preaching the same old tired arguments. Most of the faithful will continue to believe them (and doubtlessly mark my review as 'not helpful', since it's mostly the faithful who find these things on amazon anyway) as they read this book and convince themselves that Harris' devastating critique is somehow rebutted, when nothing of the sort happened.
43 of 58 people found the following review helpful
By Doug Indeap
Sam Harris's bestseller "Letter to a Christian Nation" compresses into fewer than 100 pages pointed arguments that (1) religion in general and Christianity in particular are false in that they fail to prove claims of god(s), (2) they burden society and retard the pursuit of knowledge by fostering irrationality and immorality, and (3) with the increasing prospect that motivated religionists may employ modern warfare technology to press their views, they pose a danger to civilization. Douglas Wilson's "Letter from a Christian Citizen" offers a thoughtful response of roughly equal length.
Wilson says little about the first point, arguing mainly that the Bible's accounts of historical events/miracles serve as sufficient evidence. Those taking to heart Carl Sagan's admonition that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence will likely find this (well worn) argument wanting.
Wilson offers an interesting counter to Harris's observation that Christians understand "what it is like to be an atheist with respect to the beliefs of Muslims," since "[i]sn't it obvious that Muslims are fooling themselves?" As Harris puts it: "Understand that the way you [i.e., Christians] view Islam is the way devout Muslims view Christianity. And it is the way I view all religions." Wilson argues that this is a false analogy, since both Christians and Muslims at least understand that some god created the universe while atheists don't. He doesn't explain why it matters that Christians disbelieve both what Muslims and atheists think, but for different reasons since they think different things. Wilson seemingly acknowledges Harris's point later in the book, stating that "I believe that Islam is a false religion, and I believe that the people who adhere to it are deluded."
Wilson focuses most of his attention on Harris's attacks on the morality of Christianity. Rather than directly defend and explain the morality of Christian dogma, he mainly disputes whether or how an atheist can question the morality of anything, arguing that without reference to the Bible, no standards exist by which to judge the morality of anything. To the extent that Harris displays some sense of morality, Wilson argues, it is "a hodge-podge of Christian leftovers." Harris, on the other hand, argues in his book that it is the other way around--Christianity didn't invent morality and instead borrowed from an innate sense of morality common to humankind, adhering to it in some particulars and deviating from it in others.
With respect to Harris's third point, Wilson passes it off as largely a problem only with the "false religion" of Islam.
Wilson presents a variety of arguments (only a few of which are mentioned in the foregoing summary), and while I found them unconvincing, he presents them clearly and generally offers explanations, examples, and/or references to support them. He plainly displays considerable knowledge of his subject matter. I read "Letter from a Christian Citizen" out of curiosity about what responses could be offered to Harris's various arguments. While others undoubtedly can and will expand on those advanced by Wilson, his book offers a good sample of the thinking of some unconvinced by Harris.
Wilson says little about the first point, arguing mainly that the Bible's accounts of historical events/miracles serve as sufficient evidence. Those taking to heart Carl Sagan's admonition that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence will likely find this (well worn) argument wanting.
Wilson offers an interesting counter to Harris's observation that Christians understand "what it is like to be an atheist with respect to the beliefs of Muslims," since "[i]sn't it obvious that Muslims are fooling themselves?" As Harris puts it: "Understand that the way you [i.e., Christians] view Islam is the way devout Muslims view Christianity. And it is the way I view all religions." Wilson argues that this is a false analogy, since both Christians and Muslims at least understand that some god created the universe while atheists don't. He doesn't explain why it matters that Christians disbelieve both what Muslims and atheists think, but for different reasons since they think different things. Wilson seemingly acknowledges Harris's point later in the book, stating that "I believe that Islam is a false religion, and I believe that the people who adhere to it are deluded."
Wilson focuses most of his attention on Harris's attacks on the morality of Christianity. Rather than directly defend and explain the morality of Christian dogma, he mainly disputes whether or how an atheist can question the morality of anything, arguing that without reference to the Bible, no standards exist by which to judge the morality of anything. To the extent that Harris displays some sense of morality, Wilson argues, it is "a hodge-podge of Christian leftovers." Harris, on the other hand, argues in his book that it is the other way around--Christianity didn't invent morality and instead borrowed from an innate sense of morality common to humankind, adhering to it in some particulars and deviating from it in others.
With respect to Harris's third point, Wilson passes it off as largely a problem only with the "false religion" of Islam.
Wilson presents a variety of arguments (only a few of which are mentioned in the foregoing summary), and while I found them unconvincing, he presents them clearly and generally offers explanations, examples, and/or references to support them. He plainly displays considerable knowledge of his subject matter. I read "Letter from a Christian Citizen" out of curiosity about what responses could be offered to Harris's various arguments. While others undoubtedly can and will expand on those advanced by Wilson, his book offers a good sample of the thinking of some unconvinced by Harris.
64 of 92 people found the following review helpful
By M. Esposito
Wilson launches a predicable broadside to Harris' thorny "Letter to A Christian Nation." His central thesis - which he has showered on atheists from Hitchens to Dawkins and now Harris - is that in constructing a belief system, one must necessarily make value judgments about actions and ideas. To do so, Wilson argues, a standard such as Christian morality must be used to measure conduct, otherwise one person's personal belief is as valid as another's. Wilson totally eschews the collective innate morality argument made by Harris, and wonders by what standard can such a nebulous concept ever be measured. His answer is that Christian morality is preferable as it provides a dogmatic "bright line" between good and evil and devoid of individual idiosyncracies. Wilson's flaw is his implicit assumption that Christian morality is a unified, consistent belief system that inevitably provides uniform moral judgments on conduct. Unfortunately for Wilson, Harris anticipates and skewers this position with quotations directly from the Christian Bible, whose passages provide divine approval for such disparate things as love, compassion, self-sacrifice, freedom, slavery, genocide, fratricide, and sexual perversion. Christian morality, it seems, is in as great a state of flux as atheistic moral relativism. Perhaps more damning is Wilson's reluctance to take on Harris' main objection to religious dogmatism, namely that there exists no good evidence to suppose that its central tenets are true. Bertrand Russell's orbiting teapot analogy provides the most serious challenge to Wilson's arguments since it illuminates Wilson's fallacy of requiring Harris to prove there is no god-which of course is logically impossible. Harris properly points out that the burden of proof is on the proponent of such an extraordinary claim to support it with extraordinary evidence. Though forcefully and gamely attempted, Wilson cannot possibly meet this burden and ultimately fails in answering the skepticism that Harris so painstakingly articulates.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
OK But Could Be Better...
As a Christian, I must confess I was both pleased and disappointed with this book.
One of the biggest strengths of the book is that it points out the overall... Read more
One of the biggest strengths of the book is that it points out the overall... Read more
Published 16 months ago by the write stuff
1.0 out of 5 stars
Pure tripe
That which can be said of this "rebuttal" to Sam Harris' scathing and brutally accurate "Letter To A Christian Nation", I have said in the title of this review. Read more
Published on March 25, 2011 by Douglas Bishop
1.0 out of 5 stars
Letter from a Christian Citizen... about what?
I thought this book was supposed to be in response to Sam Harris. Where are the actual responses to his arguments? Read more
Published on January 11, 2011 by portapeeps
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wilson argues that Harris' atheism is sentimental and a hodge-podge of...
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. Read more
Published on September 18, 2010 by Joel Barnes
1.0 out of 5 stars
Oh, god help me!
It seems that Mr. Wilson dod not read Mr. Harris' book all that well. His arguments were not a well thought out rebuttal, but actually an affirmation as to what Mr. Read more
Published on July 5, 2008 by M. Parrish
1.0 out of 5 stars
Review
This book was really awful. I mean, if coherence and thought-out argumentation are criteria for a book to be good, then this book was really awful. Wow.
Published on March 17, 2008 by Phillip J. Torres
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Must-Buy for every commited Christian!
A wonderfully-articulated rebuttal to Sam Harris's "Letter to a Christian Nation." This book asks many questions of Harris, the most prominent being, "Where do you get your... Read more
Published on March 7, 2008 by Rylan M.
1.0 out of 5 stars
When reason is replaced with Dogma...
That is the only explanation for praising work like this. To agree with the writer would require the willful suspension of disbelief, because the "arguments" are unsound on every... Read more
Published on December 17, 2007 by Jason Breede
1.0 out of 5 stars
Just read the other reviews to know this book is garbage
See the 1st editorial review, which claims this country was "birthed and sustained through a Christian worldview". First of all, this was never set up to be a Christian nation. Read more
Published on August 19, 2007 by M. Wood
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Letter
I think anyone coming to this book (or at least most of us) will already have decided whether or not we will "like" the book. Read more
Published on August 14, 2007 by G. Davison Jr.
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