Sunday, March 1, 2009

What's So Great About Christianity?

I just finished reading the book by Dinesh D’Souza, What’s So Great About Christianity?.

This is basically a book in response to the writings of people like Daniel Dennett, Steven Weinberg, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, (Canadian) Steve Pinker, E.O. Wilson, Victor Stenger and William Provine. Praise for the book comes from Ravi Zacharias, Francis Collins, Dallas Willard and even the atheist Michael Shermer. The book is remarkable because it comes across as aggressively offensive (in the sporting sense, not in the distasteful sense) instead of the apologetically defensive style of writers like John Haught and Alister McGrath. This is the book response that I have been waiting for since the books from that ‘unholy trinity’, Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens. It sacrifices some rigor for conciseness and completeness, but otherwise is a masterpiece. It also responds well to the question of ‘What’s so great about Christianity?’ Here is just one gem:

“The Bible says that salvation is the gift of God. Many people – even many Christians – understand this to mean that God is offering us salvation as a gift. But the Bible doesn’t say that salvation is the gift from God. Rather, it says that salvation is the gift of God. God Himself is the gift. Heaven is best understood not as a place but as a description of what it is like to be with God. To be with God requires that we want to be with Him, that we accept His present of Himself.”

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