David Marshall (2) (1961–)

A Break from the Meanness

After being disappointed with Alister McGrath's The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine, I went shopping for a more satisfying response to the recent atheist bestsellers and stumbled upon this one. Its middling reviews made me think about looking for something else, but the ferocity of some of the attacks on the author eventually awakened in me a contrarian sympathy for him, so I bought a copy.

Certainly, this book is not perfect. The author sometimes lets his rhetoric overwhelm his logic, and he occasionally comes across more like a preacher than a reasoner. Still, I found this a quite satisfying read. Both sides in the atheist/theist debate often act like they think that the winner will be whoever is the meanest. (McGrath's style is more passive-aggressive, but the silly sniping is still there.) While your mileage may vary, I didn't get that sort of vibe from Marshall.

Sometimes those who strive to be irenic end up either skirting the issues or talking down to the reader, but I think Marshall avoids both pitfalls. This book isn't much bigger than McGrath's, but it feels like it has a lot more substance, and it does give brief but meaningful responses to some of the difficulties of the Bible, Christianity, and religion in general. One of the ways he packs that substance into this slim volume is by assuming that his reader is moderately well-informed, so he doesn't bother explaining everything from scratch when he doesn't have to.

I'm glad I read this book, and I recommend it to you.… (más)