Despite earnest goals, this attempt at apologetics unlikely to persuade skeptics
Book review: ‘Believe: Why Everyone Should be Religious’ by Ross Douthat, ★★★☆☆
The big problem with much of Christian apologetics is that while it can reinforce belief among those who are already committed to the faith, it is seldom convincing to the skeptic. Often that is because apologists tend to come from the fundamentalist, or at least very conservative, wing of the faith who tend to see little nuance and often don't have any real understanding of those who see things differently than they do on fine points of doctrine, much less than with those of non-Christian religions or no religion at all.
But the latest book-length apologetic attempt didn't have the problem, for it was written by New York Times columnist Ross Douthat and former senior editor of The Atlantic, someone fully familiar with American intellectual culture. And he’s not even a Protestant evangelical, the most common affiliation of popular apologists, although he does describe himself as a fairly conservative Catholic.
And so I was hoping that his new book, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, might succeed whether other apologetics efforts have failed. I did find the book to be a fresh approach, one that avoided the fundamentalist trap of first trying to prove a literal six-day creation or other too-challenging-to-defend beliefs in an attempt to justify Christianity. And while I found parts of Douthat's book to be reinforcing of my own Christian beliefs, and while the two of us share an experience of the Christian gospel speaking to us on a deep personal level, I'm not sure he met his goal, which can be found in the title, to encourage people to adopt a religious belief or practice, preferably but not necessarily Christianithy.
Douthat, as the book's title implies, finds value to religion in general. That's not necessarily any religion, for there are plenty of religions that have little to offer and may even be toxic. But when he looks at the historic world religions, he sees the development of time-tested principles that have inspired people for centuries and provided value to millions. While Douthat acknowledges that there may or may not be one "true" religion out there, the historical religions, as he see it, offer a better chance of conveying some degree of truth.
In his words:
Your choice might be the wrong one ultimately but the right one for you in that moment, or the wrong one but with enough that’s right in it to make an important difference in your life. And if, in the end, your initial conversion doesn’t convert you to the true faith, the religion you enter will have hopefully acquired enough truth and wisdom in its long development to make a ladder upward, from the mire of meaninglessness and the snares of indecision toward whatever the full plan of your life is meant to be.
I happen to agree with Douthat here; I think God is less concerned about the nature of our creeds than about whether we follow the example of Christ, regardless of religious affiliation, in loving our neighbors as ourselves and following the Golden Rule. But even after reading Douthat's explanation, I'm not sure why that has to involve alignment with a religion.
What Douthat offers is an empirical approach: Look for what inspires you, he suggests, finding good across the religious spectrum. And Douthat's beliefs work very well for him, as he acknowledges that his Catholic framework suits his personality. Douthat would be pleased to see you turn out to become a practicing and growing Christian, but if you turn out to be spiritually alive Buddhist, that's OK too. But will all people find something that works for them if they take that approach? I'm not sure.
Despite my concerns about this book, I can recommend it for those seeking some sort of intellectual validation for what they already believe. He offers a modern variation of traditional arguments for the existence of God, such as the argument that there are signs of a designer, and adds to that his view that even the nature of human consciousness points to something that isn't readily explainable by a universe filled with purposeless randomness.
I found the most thoughtful part of the book was his answers to the timeless questions sometimes used to refute religion: How could a good and all-powerful God allow so much evil in the world? Why do religious institutions do such terrible things? Why are traditional religions hung up on sex? Douthat isn't satisfied with pat answers to those questions, and he recognizes why the questions have validity for so many.
In the end, however, Douthat's innovative approach, one that allowed different answers for all those seeking something greater than themselves, wasn't quite enough. But I'm not sure what I would do to improve the book. Douthat's answers to the ultimate questions in life have worked extremely well for him, but that doesn't mean his empirical approach to testing religion would be a good fit for all.