FAMILYFANS Books & Comics

WHAT'S SO GREAT ABOUT CHRISTIANITY

by Dinesh D'Souza

(Regnery Publishing)

Reader Appeal: Adults

Genre: Christian Apologetics

In recent years we have seen a barrage of “anti-God” books such as The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens surface as darlings of modern culture. Naturally this has set the stage for Christian response books. Dinesh D’Souza’s What’s So Great About Christianity? is one of the few of such book that has risen to the top of both the New York Times and the Amazon.com bestseller lists.       

There are many elements of What's So Great About Christianity? which commend themselves. D’Souza is a precise thinker who deftly and civilly outlines his arguments. He effortlessly borrows from the worlds of science and philosophy to make his case for Christianity.

One of his more creative arguments for Christianity can be found in Chapter Two: “The Survival of the Sacred.” The author points to recent studies on health and birth rate and suggests that it is the religious and not the atheists who are flourishing as a human species. D’Souza, who espouses theistic evolution, suggests that spirituality is the more adaptive trait from an evolutionary point of view. Naturally, some Christian critics will take exception to D’Souza embracing a Darwinian model, and atheists will protest that D’Souza is playing free and loose with the birth rate statistics to make his own case. Regardless, the trap is set for the Darwinian Atheist: If religion has no benefit, why does it persist in our species?

D’Souza updates arguments for the possibility of miracles, and reminds us that, contrary to Humes, the laws of nature aren’t proscriptive but descriptive. Simply put, a so-called Law of Nature can tell us what has happened in the physical universe but doesn’t rule out the possibility that a supernatural being could intervene in the physical universe.

Some of D’Souza’s chapters were not as satisfying. I found the author’s argument that our private property laws were derived from Christian thought to be incomplete. It seems shortsighted to attempt to closely align Christianity and capitalism. If this is an argument for God in the West (and I’m not sure that it is), then it’s a decidedly an anti-Christian argument in a socialistic society. I fear that D’Souza is confusing the Kingdom of God with our own political kingdoms when he makes these arguments.

D’Souza also attempts to minimize Christianity’s culpability in human rights atrocities such as the Crusades. Pointing to fingers away from our crimes and toward the Stalins and Hitlers of our world is no defense of the faith. Neither is quibbling over whether religious hatred claimed more lives than it’s atheistic counterparts.

Still, even with these shortcomings, What’s So Great About Christianity? is a challenging and worthwhile read. Though unlikely to persuade the confirmed atheist, it could move a skeptic across the line of faith.

FAMILYFANS RATING: B

--LS

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