Olasky’s Books For March: ‘The Augustine Way’ And Other Considerations
Baker Academic
(REVIEW) My prime recommendation this month is “The Augustine Way” (Baker, 2023). Authors Joshua Chatraw and Mark Allen first set the scene by showing that the great thinker grew up in a sinking society not all that unlike our own: highly sexualized and solipsistic, with philosophers viewing Christians with condescension and saying we should self-authenticate our own truths.
Augustine’s evangelical method could be summarized in medical metaphors: What will make you whole again? Which doctor are you trusting? (Maybe a witch doctor.) How’s that working out for you?
Augustine learned to speak within a culture’s dominant narratives, show that those stories are deficient and ultimately insufficient, and point to Christ those who recognized their need. In the process evangelists did not have prove that Christianity is true, just plausible. Pagans becoming Christ-followers sometimes went through four stages: I wish it were true, it could be true, it probably is true, it’s true. We ask prospective church members to make a profession of faith, but it’s often a profession of hope.
READ: ‘Life In The Negative World’ Establishes A Sober Framework For A Post-Christian America
Coming to church, in short, is like an athlete enrolling in a U.S. college. The athlete needs some confidence in the training he’ll receive, but he’s far from a finished product and can always enter the “transfer portal” that will bring him to a different school. He’ll be influenced by his teammates: That’s why Augustine at one point begged his congregants “to win over those who haven’t yet believed by leading good lives.”
Two other books I read early this year implicitly supported this Augustinian way.
“Coming to Faith Through Dawkins” by Denis Alexander and Alister McGrath (Kregel, 2023) includes twelve personal accounts by followers of Richard Dawkins who looked at Christian faith with the goal of disproving it—and found themselves captivated by it. Eric Schwitzgebel’s “The Weirdness of the World” (Princeton, 2024) is not a great piece of writing, but it’s useful in its central claim: “We live in a bizarre cosmos that defies ordinary, conventional understanding. The world is weird at root.” That means to me a willingness to accept that Christianity is weird, with our doctrines of one God in three persons, and Jesus as both fully divine and fully human. Instead of countering with No, it’s not weird. Here’s rational argument 1, 2, 3, we can admit the weirdness and note that what quantum physicists are saying now is even weirder.
Along those lines “Parfit: A Philosopher and his Mission to Save Morality” by David Edmonds (Princeton, 2023) is a useful scholarly book about the little-known British thinker who believed in an objective morality not anchored in God. Derek Parfit became “increasingly disturbed and alarmed by the number of good philosophers who just assumed that there couldn’t be any normative truths.”
Edmonds writes that Parfit kept pressing his case because “If morality was not objective, life was meaningless. His own life was meaningless, and every human and animal life was meaningless.” Exactly—but Parfit, from a missionary family, had turned his back on Christian faith and was never willing to accept the intellectual consequences.
Thomas McCall and two Friedemans, Caleb and Matt, defend “The Doctrine of Good Works” (Baker, 2023): They don’t get us into heaven but they may inspire those with heads down to look upward. Christopher Wright’s “The Great Story and the Great Commission” (Baker, 2023) helps us to avoid flipping channels to make our lives a drama of our own devising. Instead, we have the joy of “participating in the Biblical Drama.”
We’re in for drama of a different kind if the dire forecasts in “Preparing for War” (Broadleaf, 2023) come true. Bradley Onishi reports on those who believe “the United States has a covenant with God that trades obedience and loyalty for protection and blessing. The nation’s perceived decline is, in their view, a result of the United States breaking its covenant with God.” Christian nationalists have now taken the “short step about apocalyptic thinking about elections to the demonization of your political opponents.”
Onishi describes the new religious right’s fondness for Vladimir Putin and shows what could have been: Christians could have emphasized the importance of peace in the wake of our January 6, 2021, insurrection, but instead some are pushing us toward a new civil war.
Karl Zinsmeister’s “The Brothers” (Mountain Marsh Media, 2024) vividly describes life before the Civil War of the nineteenth century. He shows how three lively Tappan brothers during the years before the Civil War fought despair, energized the anti-slavery movement, and developed a variety of Christian philanthropies.
Briefly noted easy reading: People excited by the day’s challenges don’t need it, but for those who aren’t it’s good to keep on hand Alan Noble’s “On Getting Out of Bed” (IVP, 2023). Dane Ortlund’s “Surprised by Jesus” (Evangelical Press, 2021) succinctly emphasizes “subversive grace” and opposes legalistic “disobedient obedience.” Elissa Weichbrodt’s “Redeeming Vision” (Baker, 2023) is a clearly-written text for an introduction-to-art class.
Briefly noted harder reading: Jack Kilcrease’s “Justification by the Word” (Lexham, 2022) has meaty chapters on justification in the Old Testament, in Christ’s teaching and ministry, in Paul and the early church, in Augustine and medieval thinking, and in the Reformation and beyond. Readers studying the history of Christian doctrine will find useful Douglas Sweeney’s “The Substance of Our Faith” (Baker, 2023).
Note: My history book, “Moral Vision: Leadership from George Washington to Joe Biden,” came out from Simon & Schuster on Feb. 13. In it, I look at 19 American leaders and show how some put themselves first, others put their tribe first and still others had a moral vision based on biblical principles. I let readers make their own determination of where to place each leader: The book emphasizes showing, not telling.
On March 13 P&R publishes a personal history, “Pivot Points,” that goes into my early journey from Judaism to atheism to communism to Christ, and my later running toward (and sometimes walking away from) adventures: University of Texas tenure, compassionate conservatism, a Christian college in the Empire State Building, and World magazine editing. It’s a story of big dreams, small disappointments, and eventual contentment with what God ordains.
Marvin Olasky, editor in chief of World from 1992 to 2021, reviews books on religion here and books on other subjects at Discovery Institute’s Olasky Books Newsletter.