Modern Mere Christianity

In 1952, a well-known public intellectual named C.S. Lewis published Mere Christianity, a small and accessible book in which he made a case for the Christian faith in response to a particular set of objections that were becoming increasingly prevalent in the United Kingdom and continental Europe after the Second World War. Although an Anglican, Lewis’ project was not to draw converts to his church (though he would, of course, welcome them), but to offer an intellectually compelling account of what he believed are the central tenets of the Christian faith held in common by Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox.

Seventy-three years later, another well-known public intellectual, Ross Douthat, has published his own small and accessible book in response to a particular set of reasons for unbelief that find their salience among those who dominate the elite culture of this present age. In Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious (Zondervan, 240 pp.), the New York Times columnist offers a more capacious defense of the reasonableness of religious belief than did Lewis in his original volume. Although a Catholic Christian, Douthat’s project is not to draw converts to Rome or even to Christianity (though he would, of course, welcome them), but to offer an intellectually compelling account of the philosophical, experiential, and historical credentials of the worldview and attitude shared by the world’s leading religious bodies. For Douthat, although certain forms of religion are closer to the fullness of truth (Christianity) than others, he argues that it is better for someone to embrace and practice an imperfect religion than to reject religion in toto. Better to be an observant Muslim or Buddhist than a disciple of nihilism.

Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious Ross Douthat

Some Christians will bristle at this approach, thinking Douthat is suggesting a kind of sloppy interreligious ecumenism that dilutes the urgency of the gospel message. But that’s not a fair reading of Douthat, who is writing for a particular audience: educated, secular skeptics with virtually no acquaintance with serious faith or sophisticated responses to the pieties of intellectual atheism. To introduce such critics to the Good News, you have to first make a case for why it is reasonable to believe that there is more to the world than matter in motion. You need to offer good reasons to think that a transcendent source of being exists, along with a moral law, immaterial souls, and benevolent and malevolent spirits. Because the universe is far more enchanted than elites in the West have led us to think, Douthat argues it is perfectly normal to believe the restlessness in our hearts (as Augustine would put it) longs for something beyond what the material world alone can satisfy. For this reason, we have an obligation to cultivate that inclination, explore how we can achieve its rightful end, and most certainly not gainsay its reality.

American philosopher William James once said that unless a religious commitment strikes one as a genuine option—an option that is live, unavoidable, and momentous—conventional preaching that promotes what its listeners see as an alien doctrine is likely to fall on deaf ears. Lewis’ target audience in 1952 consisted almost exclusively of readers who, despite their unbelief or nominal religiosity, were born into Christian countries tightly tethered to confessional traditions that were fairly easy to identify. Lewis crafted his apologetic accordingly. The members of Douthat’s target audience are secularists fully ensconced in a globally connected, instantaneously communicating, highly pluralistic, and largely irreligious milieu.

Believe’s first chapter challenges conventional reasons for unbelief attributed to advances in modern science. The Copernican and Darwinian revolutions, we are told, made traditional religious worldviews less plausible. After all, to cite one example, if natural selection working on random mutation can adequately explain the magnificent complexity of living organisms, there is no place for a designer. Douthat deftly points out that this stance ignores the existence of an underlying natural order necessary for the Darwinian process as well as other areas of science, such as cosmic fine-tuning and the Big Bang theory, both of which arguably lend strong support to belief in God.

Chapter 2 addresses the hard problem of consciousness: Although neuroscience tells us that there is a connection between our brain states and our mental states, there seems to be an irreducible first-­person aspect to consciousness for which the physical brain cannot account. We possess forms of subjectivity, including direct awareness of logic, morality, and other universal concepts, that cannot be accounted for by some physical theory and are inaccessible from a third-person perspective. This hard problem confirms what traditional religions have taught for centuries: We are not purely material beings. In Chapter 3, Douthat shows that despite modern secularism’s promise of progressive disenchantment, the world is teeming with credible claims of miracles, mystical experiences, and divine encounters.

Chapters 4-7 focus on the challenges of making a religious commitment. While offering practical guidance, Douthat suggests that the secular seeker would be wise to only consider long-­established religions with identifiable traditions and practices. He also says it makes sense to initially gravitate to a faith with which one is familiar given one’s intellectual, cultural, and temporal limitations. Among the other issues Douthat addresses are the problem of evil, the existence of wicked religious institutions, and why religion seems so hung up on sex. In answering each challenge, Douthat reframes the query and provides his reader with real insight.

His final chapter explains why he is a Christian, with an emphasis on Jesus’ indelible mark on history, the reliability of the Gospels, and the resilience and attractiveness of Christianity’s strangeness. Some Christians will be disappointed that Douthat does not conclude with a triumphant altar call. But there is more than one way for a Christian writer to invite a reader to consider the gospel, especially if it is likely that the reader harbors doubts about all religions. In the spirit of the Apostle Paul, Douthat has “become all things to all people, that by all means [he] might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22).

What makes Believe particularly effective is Douthat’s unusual combination of deep intelligence, firm religious conviction, intellectual modesty, and an understanding and conversance with the strongest contemporary arguments for unbelief. Believe is truly a Mere Christianity for the 21st century.

—Francis J. Beckwith is professor of philosophy and church-state studies and associate director of graduate studies in philosophy at Baylor University