Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies,
by David Bentley Hart, Yale, 2009, 249pp.
I took this one on holiday with me back in August and finished it a week or so after we got home. I usually read something by John Grisham when we go away. But after reading The Associate last year I began to grow a little tired of legal pot boilers and fancied a change. Not that reading theology is much of a change, but there we are. Then again, I don't often read stuff by Eastern Orthodox theologians so it was kind of different. You can tell that Hart isn't an Evangelical because he says that he isn't out to convert anyone to anything. Can you imagine John Blanchard saying something like that? Probably not.
What's Hart trying to do then? Well he's having a pop at the new atheists for rejecting the Christian faith, while at the same time piggy-backing on the remnants of Christian morality in Western society. You see, lots of the things that even atheists think are good, like holding to the unique value of every human life, are in fact the product of what Hart calls the "Christian Revolution". By the "Christian Revolution" the writer means the paradigm shift in values that superseded classical pagan thought and set the moral tone for the best part of two thousand years. New atheists such as Richard Dawkins "who - despite his embarrassing incapacity for philosophical reasoning - never fails to entrance his readers with his rhetorical recklessness" and Christopher Hitchens "whose talent for intellectual caricature somewhat exceeds his mastery of consecutive logic" often fail to face up to this inconvenient truth. Oh, and if you think Hart was being a little rude to Dawk and Hitch, then that was nothing compared to his withering scorn for Dan Brown author of The Da Vinci Code, which the writer describes as "the most lucrative novel ever written by a borderline illiterate." Fun, eh?
But it's not all jokes at the expense of vocal sceptics. In fact Hart keeps the knockabout to a minimum. This book isn't a specimen of Punch and Judy apologetics. The theologian offers a serious and telling critique of post-Christian society where human freedom has become the freedom of consumer choice with little regard for the morality of our choices. He faces head on some of the claims routinely made by the fashionable enemies of the Christian faith. It is often said that early Christians suppressed the intellectual achievements of Greek culture, leading to the "night of reason" that was only dispelled by the Enlightenment. Further, many sceptics routinely insist that Christianity has stifled scientific progress. Hart details why these charges simply do not stick.
Hart is aware that especially since Church and State were aligned under Constantine that Christianity hasn't always lived up to its highest standards. Christian civilisation has been guilty of intolerance and bloodshed. Given what the Bible says regarding human sinfulness, this isn't too surprising. But the record of Christendom on this score, shameful though it may be, is as nothing compared with the millions of lives lost in the secular conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Some atheists writers try and suggest that all was fine and dandy in the ancient pagan world before those pesky Christians came along with their hang ups over human physicality. Hart addresses this point, exposing the "glorious sadness" at the heart of pagan life and experience. Heretical Gnostics may have had hang ups over human physicality, but not the orthodox, who believed that the Word was made flesh. Christianity constituted a great rebellion against the false gods of paganism and the pitiless indifference to human suffering that often characterised pagan thought. The central tenet of the Christian faith, that he who was in the form of God took the form of a servant and died for sinners conferred a new dignity on each and every human being, slaves included.
The Christian message constituted a new vision of humanity, in which all human beings, regardless of wealth and status were viewed as persons. That is fully paid-up members of the human race. This was a truly revolutionary idea, for in pagan thought groups such as slaves and the disabled were regarded as faceless non-persons. Slaves could therefore be owned and mistreated. Disabled infants could be left to die. The notion of human personhood and its concomitant, universal human rights, was a specifically Christian development. Against the Arians who denied the full deity of the Son, the orthodox Christian faith confesses that there is one God in three co-substantial persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In the incarnation the person of the Son took human nature. God became man so that man might partake of the divine nature. Hart weakens the biblical evidence for orthodox Christology by translating John 1:1 as "the Logos was with God and the Logos was a god" (p. 204). But his account shows that the very idea of human personhood was an offshoot of the theological reflection of the church. Given that this is the case, Hart worries that a post-Christian culture "will also, ultimately become post-human" (p. 215).
Perhaps Hart's scenario is closer than we might think. Atheist thinkers such as Peter Stringer have openly argued for infanticide in the case of severely disabled babies. The production and then destruction of human embryos for stem cell research purposes is another indication that the Christian view of human life is being abandoned. As is the widespread use of abortion as a means of birth control. Others go still further and advocate the use of genetic engineering that breaches the gap between humans and animals. A man with canine hearing, anyone? Welcome to the brave new post-Christian world.
Hart writes with great verve and panache. He has a deep knowledge the religion, thought and culture of the classical period. His learning is skilfully deployed to refute the sloppy arguments of the new atheists. Evangelical readers won't be able to go along with everything that he says. By "Christian" Hart basically means the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Protestants don't get much of all look in, although the abolitionist William Wilberforce is mentioned in passing. Readers will need to look elsewhere for a fuller presentation of the Christian gospel. However, Hart has ably demonstrated that the Christian Revolution transformed the moral outlook of the ancient world. To an extent that is not always recognised we have all been beneficiaries of this love-fuelled, wonderfully humanising revolution. We turn our backs upon Christian faith and values at our peril.
Hart is aware that especially since Church and State were aligned under Constantine that Christianity hasn't always lived up to its highest standards. Christian civilisation has been guilty of intolerance and bloodshed. Given what the Bible says regarding human sinfulness, this isn't too surprising. But the record of Christendom on this score, shameful though it may be, is as nothing compared with the millions of lives lost in the secular conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Some atheists writers try and suggest that all was fine and dandy in the ancient pagan world before those pesky Christians came along with their hang ups over human physicality. Hart addresses this point, exposing the "glorious sadness" at the heart of pagan life and experience. Heretical Gnostics may have had hang ups over human physicality, but not the orthodox, who believed that the Word was made flesh. Christianity constituted a great rebellion against the false gods of paganism and the pitiless indifference to human suffering that often characterised pagan thought. The central tenet of the Christian faith, that he who was in the form of God took the form of a servant and died for sinners conferred a new dignity on each and every human being, slaves included.
The Christian message constituted a new vision of humanity, in which all human beings, regardless of wealth and status were viewed as persons. That is fully paid-up members of the human race. This was a truly revolutionary idea, for in pagan thought groups such as slaves and the disabled were regarded as faceless non-persons. Slaves could therefore be owned and mistreated. Disabled infants could be left to die. The notion of human personhood and its concomitant, universal human rights, was a specifically Christian development. Against the Arians who denied the full deity of the Son, the orthodox Christian faith confesses that there is one God in three co-substantial persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In the incarnation the person of the Son took human nature. God became man so that man might partake of the divine nature. Hart weakens the biblical evidence for orthodox Christology by translating John 1:1 as "the Logos was with God and the Logos was a god" (p. 204). But his account shows that the very idea of human personhood was an offshoot of the theological reflection of the church. Given that this is the case, Hart worries that a post-Christian culture "will also, ultimately become post-human" (p. 215).
Perhaps Hart's scenario is closer than we might think. Atheist thinkers such as Peter Stringer have openly argued for infanticide in the case of severely disabled babies. The production and then destruction of human embryos for stem cell research purposes is another indication that the Christian view of human life is being abandoned. As is the widespread use of abortion as a means of birth control. Others go still further and advocate the use of genetic engineering that breaches the gap between humans and animals. A man with canine hearing, anyone? Welcome to the brave new post-Christian world.
Hart writes with great verve and panache. He has a deep knowledge the religion, thought and culture of the classical period. His learning is skilfully deployed to refute the sloppy arguments of the new atheists. Evangelical readers won't be able to go along with everything that he says. By "Christian" Hart basically means the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Protestants don't get much of all look in, although the abolitionist William Wilberforce is mentioned in passing. Readers will need to look elsewhere for a fuller presentation of the Christian gospel. However, Hart has ably demonstrated that the Christian Revolution transformed the moral outlook of the ancient world. To an extent that is not always recognised we have all been beneficiaries of this love-fuelled, wonderfully humanising revolution. We turn our backs upon Christian faith and values at our peril.
