Letter from a Christian Citizen

Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation is a runaway bestseller, competing on this list of bestsellers with several other titles dealing with atheism. In a personable, affable style, Sam Harris sets out to destroy religion and to call the attention of the American public to the destruction caused by religion. His aim is nothing less than the eradication of all religion. Letter from a Christian Citizen is Douglas Wilson's response to Harris. In a book that looks very similar and is written in a similar style, Wilson writes a response directed directly at Sam Harris. He goes point-by-point through Letter to a Christian Nation addressing Harris' claims and arguments. While never ceding any ground, Wilson is always very respectful and kind (even if he is a tad sarcastic at times). He writes in a way that will not offend or cause people to turn aside because of the form of address. Perhaps the book's closing words show most clearly his care not to provoke the reader: "May the Lord call you to Himself, on the basis of this kind of gospel. But whether He does this or not, if we ever meet, I would love to buy you a beer." Throughout the text he carefully and succinctly addresses Harris' claims, relying largely on showing where atheists are simply unable to pronounce moral judgment and where their arguments are necessarily inconsistent. Because Harris offered little by way of original argumentation in his book, Wilson's task is not particularly difficult and that value of this book is primarily as a response to a bestseller and as a short and tidy summary of the usual arguments offered by atheists. "Atheism is at its weakest when it comes to finding a decent foundation for oughts and shoulds." "You are an atheist, an evolutionist. And yet you praise the morality of utter non-violence, which would have gotten the evolutionary struggle absolutely nowhere." "Given atheism, morality reduces to personal preferences." "Atheism not only casts doubt upon the idea of a benevolent God (which it certainly does), but it also destroys the very concept of benevolence itself." "The closed system that makes up your universe is impervious to any evidence to the contrary." "One of the tell-tale signs of trouble for a theory or a paradigm is when its defenders resort to name-calling in lieu of argument and abstinately defend an ossified orthodoxy instead of answering reasonable questions." In the closing pages, Wilson makes a careful presentation of the gospel message--the only true remedy for those who deny God's existence. He calls Harris and anyone else who reads this book to repentance and to faith in Jesus Christ. He shows that the call of the gospel is not a call to religion, but a call to Christ Himself. "We need actual medicine, not the idea of medicine. And this is why we need Christ, not religion." It seems now that whenever a book releases that criticizes Christianity, a Christian response is not far behind (consider the many books that answered The Da Vinci

Pastor Douglas Wilson has done the impossible. He has not only *understood* the brilliant Christian philosopher Cornelius Van Til, as many have, but he has applied Van Til, which is something else altogether. Even more staggering, he has done so in language that the average eighth grader can understand. Wilson's argument is pretty much this: Christianity at least has a basis for ethics; atheism doesn't even have that. In the athiestic worldview, rationality is simply certain chemical processes arbitrarily declared to be "sense." On this basis, how can anything possibly make any difference? As Wilson wrote elsewhere with another atheist, "Why should anyone listen to your jeremiads against weirdbeards in the Middle East or fundamentalist Baptists from Virginia like Falwell? On your terms, you are just a random collection of protoplasm, noisier than most, but no more authoritative than any--which is to say, not at all. ... As a Christian discussing this with an atheist, I have sought to show in the first place that atheism has nothing whatever to say about this topic---one way or the other. If Christianity is bad for the world, atheists can't consistently point this out, having no fixed way of defining "bad." If Christianity is good for the world, atheists should not be asked about it either because they have no way of defining "good." " Wilson's whole book is the fleshing out of this point--on the atheist's terms, *why* are they railing against Christianity, *why* is their position better than anybody elses, and, ultimately, *why* does any of this matter? Pol Pot, Ronald Regan, Hitler, and Mother Teresa are all just bits of protoplasm acting against other bits of protoplasm. Eventually, we all go back to the dirt, the sun goes out, and we realize nobody cares. So, on the atheist's terms, again, there *is* no reason to care besides arbitrary decision, and if the atheist can arbitrarily decide there is no God, someone else can just as easily arbitrarily decide the atheist is wrong, and the atheist can say *nothing* about it. Both decisions are arbitrary. That is, if atheism were true. Basically, the argument restated is that in order for the atheists to argue the way they do, that there is morality and believe in things like "good" and "evil," they must steal wood from the Christian's woodpile in order to do so. They have to unconsciously assume that a Christian view of the world (order, meaning, right and wrong) exists in order to consciously deny it. Not a molehill I'd want to defend. Wilson's book is easily read, brief, to the point, and is an example of apologetics in action. It is not enough to talk about defending the faith. As Wilson's son has written, "We talk about our foundations, but C.S. Lewis built on his. We wave our hatchet from behind a lectern, arguing cogently that it is sharper than our opponent's. Lewis crosses the stage and lops a head or two."

Doug Wilson isn't trying to make a complete and full argument for Christianity. All he's saying in this book, is that on many counts, atheism is far more unbelievable than Christianity. And, that, most of all Atheism is just chock full of complete contradictions. At least Christianity can arrive at a basis for moral absolutes. This is a very interesting and funny read. Wilson did a great job of just pointing out, over and over, the cornucopia of contradictions in Harris' line of thought.

Douglas Wilson has yet again brought both satire, humble apologetics, and excellent writing skills to the table of philosophical inquiry that only "atheists" are allowed to sit at due to their "neutrality." I promised to not write anything on here until reading both Sam Harris' book and Wilson's. Upon reading one would be forced to conclude that Wilson is ahead in the debate do to raising fundamental ontological necessities for moral critiques of worldviews, which Harris never addresses. Harris must address these fundamental questions or cease to attack a worldview without establishing a foundation on which to argue. Intellectual honesty is a must in a dialogue about existence and Harris seems to be afraid of this, not that he is unintelligent, but that he fails to understand this problem.

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. At a time when atheists are becoming more and more militant in the culture wars, 'Letter' is a very readable, very understandable, and very effective response to Sam Harris' diatribe 'Letter to a Christian Nation'. Wilson exposes Harris' fundamentalism for what it is and shows how it is utterly inconsistent with his atheistic paradigm. The book itself is somewhat small and quite readable in one sitting. I suggest getting a copy, reading it, and passing it on to a friend. It's just that good.