Response to Letter to a Christian Nation

Harris, Sam. Letter to a Christian Nation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.

I originally wrote this commentary for a friend who told me that this book had inspired him to leave Christianity.  The fact that someone could, over a decade after it was written, point to this book as a primary factor in their decision to reject Christianity shows that there is still value in providing a response to its arguments.  I present this commentary here for anyone, Christian or non-Christian, who might be interested in reading a refutation of one of the New Atheist’s attacks on Christianity, and along the way potentially learning some things about Christian theology, Christian ethics, and biblical interpretation.

Introduction

Harris begins his book with an attack on Christians who have communicated with him in an uncivil manner, claiming that “such hatred draws considerable support from the Bible” (vii).  It is deplorable that some people who call themselves Christians would act in a way that directly contradicts the example of Jesus, the teachings of the New Testament, and the teachings of the Christian Tradition, but, of course, that says absolutely nothing about the truthfulness of Christianity.  Later in his introduction, Harris argues that the Christian hope in the imminent return of Christ to bring about the renewal of all of creation will somehow make people not care about making the world a better place (xi-xii).  But for a genuinely biblical Christianity, the exact opposite is the case.  Because Christians have the firm assurance that God’s plan to reconcile all things to Himself in heaven and earth through Christ will ultimately be victorious, they are motivated to do everything they can, as agents of God’s reconciling work, to advance God’s Kingdom of life, love, joy, peace, and justice in the present.  As the first fruits of God’s New Creation, Christians are called to live out their identity by always working for the renewal of God’s creation, regardless of the timing of Jesus’ return. It is true that many Christians believe things will get very bad before Jesus returns, but that will be in spite of the tireless efforts of Christians to work for good in the world, not because of their complacency.^[1]For more on this, see Surprised by Hope by New Testament scholar N.T. Wright (New York: HarperOne, 2008).

Harris claims that “every devout Muslim has the same reasons for being a Muslim that you have for being a Christian” (6). But he merely assumes this, rather than actually examining and comparing the evidences for Islam and Christianity.  Muhammed never performed any miracles, he did not vindicate his claims by rising from the dead, and, there are no credible claims from the modern period of dramatic miracles taking place in the name of Muhammed. Jesus performed many miracles, there is strong historical evidence that he vindicated his extraordinary claims about himself by rising from the dead, and there are many credible claims from the modern period of dramatic miracles taking place in the name of Jesus.  I have personally met numerous reliable eyewitnesses of such miracles, and many credible eyewitness accounts of Christian miracles have been collected and recorded by scholars.^[2]See, for example, Miracles: What they Are, Why they Happen, and How they can Change your Life by Eric Metaxas (New York: Dutton, 2014); also, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts … Continue reading  Harris goes on to say that Christians must think it “obvious” that the beliefs of Muslims are false (7).  But it does not necessarily follow that if a Christian disagrees with someone, then they think it must be “obvious” that they are wrong.  Intelligent, educated, sensible people sincerely disagree about important issues of every sort of topic, including religious questions. These disagreements call for civil and respectful discourse that takes seriously the beliefs of others and genuinely tries to understand what they believe and why they believe it, instead of dismissing and ridiculing the beliefs of others, as Harris does.  As a Christian, I can be confident in my belief that Islam is false, while at the same time recognizing that a Muslim might have reasons for believing Islam to be true that are convincing to them, even though they are not convincing to me.  

Ethics

Harris moves on to offer a critique of Biblical ethics, beginning with a number of Old Testament commandments that he finds problematic.  Since Harris repeatedly resorts to this tactic of citing Old Testament texts wildly out of canonical context, and then arguing that they show that Christian ethics are problematic, it will be helpful to pause here to give a brief explanation of how Christian biblical hermeneutics works.  What we find in the Bible is not a collection of abstract rules and principles; rather, what we find is a story, the story of God’s relationship with His creation through His covenant people. It is a story in six “acts”: 1) Creation, 2) the Fall, 3) Israel, 4) Jesus, 5) the Church, 6) the New Creation.  The Bible records the first four “acts” and the beginning of the fifth, and then tells us basically what is going to happen in the sixth “act.” Christians are then called to faithfully “improvise” the rest of the fifth act; this requires that they both pay careful attention to everything that has been established in the story so far, and that they do not live as if they are back in one of the previous “acts.”  All this to say, the Christian belief that the Old Testament is the very Word of God does not entail that everything in it directly applies to present-day Christians; many Old Testament commands do not apply to Christians at all, although they may have some indirect relevance (e.g. telling us something about the Holiness of God). During Old Testament times, when God’s covenant people were identified with a particular ethnic and political nation, God’s people were called to use violence both to defend their national boundaries and to punish the unfaithful in their midst.  In the New Testament era, God’s people are the Church, a voluntary community of people from every nation, called to bring God’s reconciling work across all national boundaries, and to use excommunication, rather than violence, to discipline the unfaithful in their midst. In the Old Testament, God partially revealed what it means for human beings to be holy and moral, but in the New Testament, God fully reveals in Jesus Christ what it means to be fully and genuinely human, which includes always showing nonviolent love for all human beings, including one’s enemies.  

Harris claims that the Bible’s teachings are “muddled and self-contradictory” (11), allowing Christians to justify either love or violence.  But if this is really the case, one wonders why virtually all Christian thinkers were absolute pacifists prior to the time when Christianity became the established religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century.^[3]See Ceaser and the Lamb: Early Christian Attitudes on War and Military Service by George Kalantzis (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2012).  Deplorable violent episodes in church history, such as the Crusades and the Inquisition, were a result of the corrupting influence of political power on the church, not a result of any lack of clarity in the teachings of Scripture.  Strangely, Harris argues that the teachings of the New Testament about the Final Judgment and the wrath of God can be used to justify Christians using violence (13-14). The exact opposite is true. It is our hope in the justice and wrath of God that allows us to be freed from our desire to retaliate against evildoers and allows us to break the endless cycle of human violence.

Harris next criticizes the Bible for not explicitly forbidding slavery (14-17).  The Old Testament Law does not establish or advocate the practice of slavery; it assumes its existence (slavery existed in virtually every ancient culture) and provides some regulations in order for it to be practiced in a relatively just manner.  These regulations should not be understood as presenting an ethical or socioeconomic ideal; they merely provide guidance for a particular people at a particular time for maintaining the minimum standards of conduct necessary for God’s presence to dwell in their midst.  The New Testament epistles do not in any way endorse slavery as an institution; written to Christian communities within a society where slavery was a reality, they provide guidance for how all people, regardless of their socioeconomic status, are to demonstrate love, kindness, and gentleness to all people in a way that transcends the world’s divisions of economic and social status.  The principles of Christian theology and ethics make slavery a highly dubious socioeconomic system; consequently, slavery eventually died out in Western society under the influence of Christianity after it gained greater numbers. In the modern period, pro-slavery advocates succeeded in overturning a millennium of Christian moral teaching and revived slavery in order to sustain European colonial empires.  Later, Christian abolitionists such as William Wilberforce were able to convince Western Civilization to turn back to the old Christian teaching that slavery is a bad idea.  

The historical fact is, it is only because of Christianity that the institution of slavery was ever called into question and abolished.  Harris argues that we don’t need Christian theology to tell us that unjust slavery should be abolished because it is “easy” for anyone to see this (19).  Well, obviously it is “easy” for Harris to see this, but only because he lives in a historical context where such ideas taken for granted, thanks to the tireless work of previous generations of Christian activists whose abolitionist convictions were based on sound and coherent Christian theological principles.  If Harris lived in a time and culture where slavery was accepted, he undoubtedly would claim that it is “easy” to see that there is nothing wrong with slavery.

Harris next presents a critique of the relevance of the Ten Commandments.  He claims that commandments 1-4, which are about duties toward God, have “nothing whatsoever to do with morality” (20).  But for Christians, love for God is the very foundation and center of morality, the very definition of what “morality” means.  Harris then complains that we can find most of the rest of the commandments in various other cultures as well (21). It is not clear what his point is in saying this.  Obviously, all human beings have a God-given conscience, and all human societies have standards of justice that are necessary for those societies to continue to function; no Christian has ever denied this.  And no Christian believes that the Ten Commandments are the highest or clearest statement of genuine morality; we believe the highest statement of genuine morality is found in Jesus’ example and teachings. The Ten Commandments were part of the Torah given to ancient Israel to help guide them to live out their identity as God’s holy people in that time and place; obviously, they were never intended to be part of the legal system of a modern secular nation-state.  But the Torah, which the Ten Commandments symbolize, has had a profound, foundational influence on the moral and legal thought of Western civilization, and thus a profound influence on the formation of the American legal system; this, Harris certainly can’t deny. The American political system obviously isn’t “Christian” in any direct sense; it is, however, clearly founded upon many ideas that are borrowed from the Judeo-Christian worldview.

Harris claims that we do not need to believe in any kind of transcendent reality in order to have objective moral truth because “For there to be objective moral truths worth knowing, there need only be better and worse ways to seek happiness in this world” (23).  However, in saying this, he is engaging in blatant circular reasoning, since his statement already assumes what he is trying to prove: that we should care about the happiness of others, that selfishness is objectively wrong, and that compassion is objectively better than cruelty.  Harris believes these things because he lives in a culture that has been heavily influenced by Christian moral teaching, but, as an atheist, he has no logical or coherent explanation for why anyone should believe that there are objective moral truths. Harris argues that even an atheist can engage in self-sacrifice for someone they love (24).  That may be true, but no atheist will be willing to suffer and die in order to show love to strangers and to their enemies, as the gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to be willing to do.

Harris attacks Christian ethics for affirming the virtue of chastity and for honoring the sanctity of human life, rather than restricting itself narrowly to the single goal of relieving suffering (25-29).  Christians believe that suffering is an evil that we should seek to reduce whenever we can, but we also believe that there are things worse than suffering, and we are committed to showing love to God and to our fellow human beings, even when it means we will have to suffer.  We do not believe that there is anything wrong with God’s good gift of sex, but we believe that lust is a distortion of this good gift that conflicts with love of God and fellow human beings, and it should be avoided even if it is difficult to do so. In a society in which there is an epidemic of broken homes, sexually transmitted diseases, and sexual violence against women, maybe it would be a good idea to listen to the teaching of Christianity that chastity is an important virtue.  

Christians are not willing to compromise with the methods of the world and to use violence against our fellow human beings, whatever their age may be, even in order to relieve the suffering of others.  We believe we should choose to give life and hope to others even if it means we might have to suffer or die, as Jesus did for us on the cross. Harris mocks the idea that a tiny preborn human being could have a “soul” that gives them inherent dignity and value (30-32).  But, even if Harris’s arguments against preborn human beings having souls were convincing (they are not), the Christian belief in the sanctity of human life is not in any way based on the idea that human beings have “souls”; it is based on their status as being created in the image of God.  And if Harris really believes that human life has no inherent value and that the ends justify the means, then, logically, he would kill himself so his organs can be harvested to relieve the suffering of multiple other people.  

Harris criticizes the position of the Catholic Church that artificial contraception is always forbidden under all circumstances as contributing to human suffering (33-34).  This is a controversial issue within the Christain church, and many Christians would agree with Harris on this, so, even if Harris’s critique here is valid, that says nothing against the truthfulness of Christianity.  He then criticizes Christian opposition to abortion (36-37). I wonder how Harris would have liked to have been slaughtered in his mother’s womb? Is Harris willing to look an adult abortion survivor in the eye and tell her, “You should be dead; your life has no value or meaning.”?  There is no relevant difference between killing a preborn human being and killing a baby who has been born; if killing babies is murder, then so if abortion.  Harris seems to think that opposing violence against preborn human beings must be a distraction from the task of relieving human suffering (36-37). But why on earth should this be the case?  It should seem obvious that opposing violence against all human beings and working to relieve the suffering of all human beings go hand in hand as part of a holistic ethic. Harris tries to justify using violence against preborn human beings by pointing out that many pregnancies end in abortion or miscarriage naturally (38).  Using this kind of logic, all murder should be legal, since many adults die of diseases and medical complications. In fact, according to Harris’s definition of morality as restricted to relieving suffering, any murder, as long as it is quick and painless, is morally permissible, since dead people can’t suffer. Such is the nihilism to which Harris’s atheist convictions lead.  

Harris states that “if you are right to believe that religious faith offers the only real basis for morality, then atheists should be less moral than believers” (38-39).  But this does not necessarily follow at all. If I point out that it is incoherent for an atheist to believe in objective morality, this demonstrates that their beliefs are self-contradictory and therefore false, but it doesn’t necessarily mean I think they are an immoral person.  An atheist may be a virtuous person in many ways, even though, given their worldview, they do not have any logical or coherent way of explaining why those virtues are objectively good. Many atheists, thankfully, do not follow their beliefs to their logical conclusions in terms of how they live their lives.  

Of course, the fact is that all the greatest perpetrators of evil in human history have been atheists, and they carried out these evils in the name of their atheistic ideologies.  Harris tries to deflect from this fact by saying that these dictators were not “rational” (40). Were the perpetrators of the Inquisition, which Harris repeatedly brings up in order to criticize Christianity, “rational” to torture and kill heretics in the name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace who clearly taught us to love our enemies?  The difference is, the Inquisitors clearly acted in direct contradiction to the basic essence of Christianity, while atheists like Hitler and Stalin acted in a way that was perfectly consistent with their atheistic worldview. Since atheism can provide no coherent explanation for the existence of objective morality, an atheist cannot logically say that anything Hitler or Stalin did was objectively wrong.  

Harris argues that Nazi anti-Semitism came directly out of medieval Christianity (41-42).  But in fact, Nazi anti-Semitism was a secular racist ideology that had nothing to do with religion, and the Nazis worked hard to undermine and eliminate the influence of Christianity in Germany, especially among the youth.  It is true that the German churches did little to resist Hitler, but that was because they were afraid of the massive persecution they would inevitably have suffered if they had done so, not because they supported the Holocaust.  Harris tries to argue that, compared to religion, atheism is relatively harmless, asking, “When was the last atheist riot?” (39). But right now, Marxist militias in Latin America and elsewhere are massacring innocent civilians and Communist governments are brutally oppressing their citizens in the name of their atheistic ideology.  In contrast, in order to criticize Christianity as violent, Harris has to reference the Inquisition, an event from centuries ago which the Catholic Church long ago strongly repudiated and repented from as contrary to the essence of the gospel.  

Harris next points to some statistics showing that the relatively secular societies of some European countries are healthier in a number of ways than American society, which is relatively more religious (43-44).  There are two responses to this. First of all, European countries have a strong Christian heritage; even if many individuals in them have turned away from explicit Christian faith, they are still heavily influenced by Christian ideas which have shaped their culture.  Secondly, there are many other factors which may account for these statistics. For example, ethnic conflict is often a primary source of societal problems, and the United States is very ethnically diverse, while European societies tend to be relatively ethnically homogeneous.  In any case, no one has ever claimed that merely “believing in God” makes people less likely to sin, any more than believing that the U.S. government exists makes people less likely to commit crimes. It is not “believing in God,” but surrendering one’s life to Christ as His genuine disciple that gives one the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit to overcome sin.  Needless to say, most people who call themselves “Christians” are not genuine disciples of Jesus Christ.  

Harris claims we don’t need the Bible as a basis for moral truth because we can just rely on our moral intuitions (49-50).  The moral intuitions of Southern slave-owners made them sincerely believe that brutally oppressing black people was good and right.  The moral intuitions of the Nazis made them sincerely believe that exterminating the Jews was good and right. Basing our moral beliefs on our moral intuitions is a recipe for disaster.  Just like anything else, our moral beliefs must be based on facts, logic, and evidence. Christians don’t believe Christianity is true because of their moral intuitions about Christian ethics; they believe Christian ethics are true because Christianity is true.  Harris attacks Christian ethics as confining us “to a first-century conversation as it is preserved in the Bible” (50), and ignoring the scientific and philosophical insights of the past 2,000 years.  Is Harris somehow unaware of the deep, rich, thoughtful, and critical discussion about theological ethics that has taken place in the Christian Tradition over the past 2,000 years of church history? Christian theological ethics does not at all mean slavishly repeating what the first-century New Testament explicitly says; it means using a Biblically rooted and theologically formed wisdom to faithfully analyze and navigate the complex moral dilemmas confronting Christians in their contemporary situation.  

The Problem of Evil

Harris next turns to the problem of evil, arguing that it clearly shows that there is no God.  Harris wonders how Christian “survivors of a catastrophe can believe themselves spared by a loving God,” while many other innocent people die (54).  But this belief actually makes perfect sense, if one understands the Christian doctrine of the Fall. As Jacques Ellul eloquently put it, “To us things are normal when they are going well.  Health, affluence, peace—these things are normal, so convinced we are of our own righteousness, of what is our due. But Scripture teaches the very opposite. Unfortunately, what is normal now that man is separated from God is war and murder, famine and pollution, accident and disruption.  When there is a momentary break in the course of these disasters, when abundance is known, when peace timidly establishes itself, when justice reigns for a span, then it is fitting. . . that we should marvel and give thanks for so great a miracle, realizing that no less than the love and faithfulness of the Lord has been needed in order that there might be this privileged instant.”^[4]Jacques Ellul, The Politics of God and the Politics of Man, translated and edited by Geoffrey W. Bromily. (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1972), page178.  

Harris does not understand how a Christian can, with logical consistency, look at something like a devastating tsunami and not interpret it as being the wrath of God that has come in judgment for a particular evil (47-48).  But anyone who has read the Bible knows that it teaches that suffering and death are a result of sin in a cosmic sense, while at the same time the Bible strongly repudiates the idea that there is a direct correlation between an individual’s sin and the suffering they experience.  In a Fallen world, sometimes the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper.

While Christian theology does not answer all of our questions about why particular instances of evil happen, it does allow us to make sense of the problem of evil by thinking about it within this theological framework: 1) God did not create evil; evil is the result of sin chosen by human free will. 2) On the cross, God Himself was willing to humble and humiliate Himself and enter into the deepest depths of suffering, Godforsakenness, and death, suffering and dying with us and for us, so that we could be freed from the power of evil and be with Him forever; it is this which gives us the assurance that God truly loves us and is truly with us, no matter what we are going through. 3) The powers of sin, suffering, and death have already been defeated through the death and resurrection of Christ; when Jesus comes again, He will fully consummate His victory over the powers of evil, ridding God’s good Creation from every taint of evil and bringing it to the perfection that God originally intended for it.  There is obviously a lot more that could be said about the problem of evil, but this is not the place for a full, in-depth discussion of this issue.  

The Bible

Turning to the topic of Jesus’ Virgin Birth, Harris tries to argue that “the dogma of the virgin birth, and much of the Christian world’s resulting anxiety about sex, was a product of a mistranslation from the Hebrew” (58), referring to Matthew’s citation (1:23) of Isaiah 7:14, which uses the Greek term parthenos (virgin) to translate the Hebrew term alma (young woman).  But given that there is nothing in Isaiah 7 that indicates it was a Messianic prediction, Harris’s interpretation of this part of Matthew’s gospel is extremely unlikely.  Matthew was claiming a typological, not a predictive fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14 by Jesus, and so he must have cited the Greek text about a “virgin” conceiving because he already knew that Jesus was born of a virgin, not the other way around.  Harris then repeats the old argument that Jesus’ Virgin Birth must not be true because it is only mentioned in Matthew and Luke in the New Testament (58).  This is not a very good argument, but even if it were true that the Virgin Birth is a myth, would that somehow prove that the Christian gospel is not true? Of course not.  And Christians do not have “anxiety” about sex. The teaching of the Christian Tradition that celibacy is superior to marriage is based on the fact that single people, not being tied down by family responsibilities, are free to devote more time to doing the Lord’s work, not because Christians think there is anything problematic about sex.  And this teaching about celibacy is not in any way based on the fact that Jesus was born of a virgin, but on other Biblical teachings (e.g. 2 Corinthians 7). Harris then brings up a couple of other alleged errors in the Gospels (58-59). There are a variety of possible explanations for the difficulties he raises, but, even if Harris is right that there are a few (or even many) minor discrepancies in the Bible, would this somehow prove that the Christian gospel is false?  Of course not.  

Harris next engages in an extended criticism of the Bible for not containing scientific information or very specific predictions about the future (59-62).  This is a strange argument. God’s purpose in creating the Scriptures was to establish and maintain His relationship with His covenant people, not these other things.  We can figure out scientific questions on our own; we don’t need Divine revelation for that. The purpose of prophecy is not to “predict the future.” The purpose of prophecy is to deliver a relevant message to God’s people in the present; this message may refer to future events (threats or promises), but usually the fulfillment of these future events is dependent upon the response of those who hear the prophetic message.  Harris’s argument that the Bible contains a mathematical “error” because it approximates π as three (61) is so blatantly absurd that it doesn’t even deserve a response.   

Harris goes on to claim that there is some kind of fundamental, “unavoidable” conflict between science and religion, due to their differing methodologies (63).  But most people’s (including Harris’s) beliefs on most topics are not based upon science, but upon other methods for gaining knowledge; this does not make them unreasonable or untrue.  Science itself is based upon certain philosophical assumptions that can never be proven scientifically and are accepted by faith, and most of our beliefs about scientific topics are based on faith in scientific authority figures who have told us these things.  There can be good reasons for believing things other than scientific reasons. What is not reasonable is Harris claiming that science and religion inevitably conflict, without providing any actual evidence to back up this claim. Harris mocks the Catholic Church for discussing the highly speculative topic of limbo (65-66).  But scientists also sometimes engage in speculation about topics for which we have no real evidence (e.g. parallel universes). Christian theologians may occasionally engage in unwarranted speculation about certain topics, but this does not mean that there are not good reasons for believing that the core doctrines of Christianity are true.  

Science and Religion

Next, Harris delivers a long attack on young-earth Creationism (68-71).  The great majority of educated Christians are not young-earth Creationists.  The Bible has nothing to say about the age of the earth. The creation story in Genesis, when correctly understood within its historical and cultural context, is not about the material origins of the universe, but about God bringing about order in the cosmos.^[5]See The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate by John H. Walton (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009.  There is thus no conflict at all between biblical faith and modern scientific theories about the age of the earth and the evolution of life.  After critiquing young-earth Creationism, Harris then dismisses Intelligent Design as “a program of political and religious advocacy masquerading as science” (72).  This is not the place for a long discussion of and defense of Intelligent Design, but it will suffice to say that any thoughtful, informed atheist will agree that Harris’ comments about it here are completely false and display gross ignorance.^[6]See Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design by atheist Bradley John Monton (Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2009).  

Modern science has established beyond any doubt that it is impossible that life could have originated naturally on earth.  Harris ignores this fact which undermines his worldview by saying that the origin of life is a “mystery” (71). Similarly, he dismisses the cosmological argument for God’s existence by saying that we just don’t know how the universe came to exist (73-4).  What if a young-earth Creationist were to say about the overwhelming geological and fossil evidence for an old earth, “Well, how to explain this is a “mystery”, but I still believe in a young earth.”? How would Harris respond to that? If someone wants to be a rational person with rational beliefs, they cannot just play the “mystery card” every time they encounter truths that disprove their beliefs.  The cosmological and teleological arguments for God’s existence are strong, strong enough to have persuaded renowned atheist philosopher Antony Flew, after decades of arguing for atheism, to change his mind and become convinced that there is, in fact, a God.^[7]See There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind by Antony Flew (New York: HarperOne, 2007).  

Harris points out that, even if successful, the cosmological argument for God’s existence would not prove that the Biblical God exists (72-73).  But no Christian has ever claimed that the philosophical arguments for God’s existence prove everything that we know about Him from Scripture, only that they prove there is some kind of Supreme Being.  Harris tries to argue that, if God created the universe, then something would need to have created God as well (73). But God, the supremely perfect being, is eternal and self-existent, while the universe, obviously, is not.  Harris tries to argue that examples of “bad design” in nature disprove the idea of Intelligent Design (75-79) . But Intelligent Design theory merely claims there is evidence of intelligent design in nature; it says nothing about who that designer is or whether they would want to produce optimal or suboptimal designs in certain cases.  We know what things would be like if there were no designer, but we cannot assume we know what kind of designs an intelligent designer would make. “Bad” design, after all, is still design.   

After spending his entire book dismissing and ridiculing the sincere, deeply-held convictions of millions of intelligent, educated, sensible people, Harris then claims that it is “arrogant” for Christians to believe and proclaim the gospel (74).  Is it “arrogant” for a starving beggar to tell another starving beggar where they have found bread? It is not “arrogant” for followers of Christ to believe that they are saved purely by grace, by no merit of their own, and to live lives of love and service to God and to other human beings in gratitude for this unmerited gift.  Christians do not believe that they have the truth; they believe that the Truth has them. It is not “arrogant” for followers of Christ to joyfully proclaim the good news of the gospel, desiring all people to be transformed by this wonderful message of love, eternal life, and hope for all of God’s Creation.  

Religion and Violence

Harris argues that the division of the world into different religious communities is the cause of conflicts and violence around the world (79).  But being a faithful member of the Christian community means demonstrating a love that transcends the world’s racial, social, economic, national, and religious divisions, and even embraces one’s enemies.  Harris then goes on a long attack against Islam for being violent (83-86). Strangely, Harris seems to think that if he disproves Islam, then that will make Christianity less likely to be true. The exact opposite is the case.  If Islam were to be disproven, that would actually make Christianity more likely to be true, since a prominent rival worldview would be eliminated. So, even if Harris’s argument against Islam here were successful (it is not), it would not in any way constitute an argument against Christianity.  In any case, let us examine Harris’s attack on Islam here and see how reasonable it is.  

Harris wants us to believe that the 9/11 terrorists traveled to the other side of the world and gave their lives in an attack on the United States simply because, well, they’re Muslims.  To this kind of thinking, William Cavanaugh insightfully comments, “The myth of religious violence allows its users to ignore or dismiss American actions as a significant cause of hatred of the United States because the true cause is located in the inherent irrationality, absolutism, and violent tendencies of religious actors. . . . This kind of self-serving nonsense generally passes in the United States for informed and sober analysis of global reality in the post-9/11 world.”^[8]The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009), pages 227-228.  Leading up to 9/11, the United States, through its political and military meddling in the Middle East, had made itself guilty of the deaths of thousands of innocent Muslims, and the brutal mistreatment of many others.  The 9/11 terrorists were fighting back against the violence that had been inflicted on their fellow Muslims by American foreign policy. Harris tries to make a big deal of the fact that the 9/11 terrorists themselves had not directly experienced oppression (82).  But if it is reasonable for an American to use violence for the sake of other Americans who have been mistreated, why isn’t it reasonable for a Muslim to use violence for the sake of other Muslims who have been mistreated?  

When an atheist criticizes Islam for being violent, when a secularist warns against “religion” for producing violence, this can only be labeled as absurd.  During World War II, the United States of America used a combination of nuclear and conventional bombing to massacre hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese civilians.  If you added up all the killings that have taken place in the name of Islam in its many centuries of existence, they would not add up to the number of murders of innocent civilians carried out for the secular cause of American empire over the course of a couple of centuries.  And this, of course, is nothing compared to the tens of millions of innocent civilians murdered in the name of the atheistic ideology of Communism during the twentieth century.  If you added up all the killings that have taken place in the name of all religious ideologies combined throughout all human history, it would not add up to the number of murders committed in the name of atheistic ideologies during the course of one century.   If there is one worldview that can be legitimately criticized for being dangerous, destructive, and violent, it is undoubtedly atheism.

Conclusion

Looking back over Harris’s book, one can see that it is not so much an attack on the Biblical Christian gospel as it is a diatribe against the Religious Right.  There are many critiques of the Religious Right that can be made from a Biblical perspective. For example, the idea that the United States is a “Christian nation” is heresy; there is only one “Christian nation”: the church.  Nation states operate on the basis of coercive violence, which is antithetical to the nature of God’s Kingdom, so by definition a nation-state cannot be “Christian.” If there are problematic aspects of the Religious Right, this says nothing against the truthfulness of biblical, orthodox Christianity.  Pointing to the many problems in the world caused by religious movements such as the Religious Right, Harris offers as a solution that we all turn to atheism (87-91). But given that atheism logically leads to the belief that there is no meaning in the universe and that there is no objective moral truth, his proposed “solution” is a very poor one indeed.  

Harris believes that it would be a good thing to eliminate religious beliefs from the political sphere.  To this kind of thinking, Barack Obama insightfully comments, “Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square.  Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King – indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history – were not only motivated by faith but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause.  So to say that men and women should not inject their “personal morality” into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.”^[9]“Call to Renewal Keynote Address,” June 28, 2006. http://obamaspeeches.com/081-Call-to-Renewal-Keynote-Address-Obama-Speech.htm.  

 In a pluralistic, democratic society, working together for the common good in the public sphere requires that people of various beliefs and worldviews come together, say what they believe and why they believe it, and then engage in the hard work of finding where we have common ground, where we can compromise, and where we need to agree to disagree.  This requires a civil and respectful discourse that repudiates the disrespectful, intolerant attitude that people like Harris and some members of the Religious Right demonstrate. Ironically, Harris states in his conclusion, “We desperately need a public discourse that encourages critical thinking and intellectual honesty” (87); I agree with him, but that is the exact opposite of the kind of discourse that Harris displays throughout his book.