We live in a day of what some are calling the "new atheism." Books and interviews with such atheistic authors as Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris are seizing the attention of North Americans. Thoughtful youth workers will know this much already. What they might not know is a great resource to respond to this challenge. Psychologist David Myers is speaking up for thinking Christians with a friendly letter of response.
Myers' style is not to discredit or mock anti-religious skeptics so much as to invite them to consider some of the validity of their own claims. He does this by demonstrating through scientific, sociological and intellectual history the value and impressive social results Christianity has produced.
If you have listened to or read Harris, Dawkins and others, you know they make numerous claims that will strike you as distortions of the truth. Reading Myers will not set to rest all the incongruities or failures of Christianity; but it will demonstrate, in a thoughtful and readable format, that God is good and that to follow in the steps of Jesus your soul will become bigger, better and more gracious.
Jossey-Bass, 2008, 136 pp., $16.95
