The New Atheist Quartet of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris have been relatively quiet lately. Although they were rather loud and boorish for a brief period during 2007-2008, they have mostly put down their fiery pens and computer keyboards. Or maybe they are simply gearing up for another frontal attack of Christianity—using different tactics—because it can be fairly simply stated that the flurry of 400-page books that the New Atheists released during their two-year onslaught have been deftly answered by one small book by a relatively unknown author from Idaho.
When Sam Harris released his second book, Letter to a Christian Nation, it came with a marketing storm that immediately made the book a national phenomenon. Harris’ first book, The End of Faith—while better argued and more comprehensive than his second—made it seem as though religion in general was his primary target, however Letter made it clear that Christianity was his real objection. Just as Phil Zuckerman recently did in his book, Society Without God, Harris conveniently accepts the prevailing logic that America IS a Christian nation (which atheists usually dismiss with fervor) in order to use it against her.
Just when it seemed as though Harris’ atheistic propaganda was going to steal the show, author Douglas Wilson quietly submitted his 100-page manuscript to the publisher. The resulting book, Letter from a Christian Citizen: A Response to Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris, made mincemeat of the shallow and logically fallacious arguments employed by Harris in his tirade. Wilson calmly and cleverly reveals the shaky foundation of Harris’ humanism, and destroys forever the atheistic claim to moral superiority.
What Wilson has done for the Christian community in his short book is to provide a living breathing example for us of what apologist Greg Bahnsen called the “impossibility of the contrary.” Wilson shows, page after page, how Harris must assume Christianity in order to argue against it. Bahnsen’s mentor Cornelius Van Til referred to this as “stolen capital.” He meant by this that unbelievers use the worldview building material of Christianity to construct their own worldviews, but then deny the True Foundation, which is Christ. Wilson understands this principle instinctively and uses it to great effect, exposing Harris’ hypocrisy and theft on nearly every page of his Letter.
What makes Wilson’s little book such a valuable investment for Christians (and non-Christians for that matter), is the fact that he uses a simple method to “answer a fool according to his folly” (Prov. 26:4-5). If all Christians could catch the simplicity of this “presuppositional” thinking, they will never be fooled by the slick marketing techniques and propaganda machines of the Christ-denying world. Although Sam Harris and the rest of the New Atheists are certainly well-educated and good writers, their brilliance becomes an intimidation to most Christians, who would be fearful of being “shaken in their faith” if they read one of their books. This is due in large part to the church not teaching its people HOW to think, choosing instead to teach WHAT to think. Christ has not given us a spirit of fear. He has given us the principles of truth in His Word and we should fear no man. Douglas Wilson has done a great service to the church in writing his little book, but now we need to take the time to read it and apply it.
