….he believes that there are good reasons to challenge simplistic accounts of Christianity’s rise and fall. For a start, it is enjoying significant numerical growth globally and, closer to home, the crises engulfing organised religion do not necessarily translate into an equivalent embrace of atheism or wholesale rejection of Christian beliefs and values. The contribution made by Christian agencies to aid and development work around the world is immense even if seldom acknowledged. He robustly challenges secularisation theories prevalent among sociologists since the 1960s. He maintains that we are “metaphysical animals . . . unlikely to abandon age-old quests for a fundamental and inclusive context of meaning”.
Nevertheless, “mainstream European culture is hurtling forward largely without the fuel that Christianity has historically supplied”. This has disturbing consequences acknowledged even by avowed atheists. But the question remains whether Christianity’s credal credentials can enable it to fuel a sustainable culture into a future threatened by complex existential crises facing humanity and the environment.
Shortt responds to such a challenge, first, with an exposition of just how shallow and insipid so much atheist polemic has been of late. He eloquently defends both the meaning and the mystery of Christian beliefs founded upon scripture and tradition as objectively credible even if, as the biblical critics and liberal theologians for whom he has little affection attest, it is ultimately unfathomable. Shortt entitled one of his books The Hardest Problem and tackled head-on the problem of evil with appropriate humility. while confident that it does not hole Christianity below the water line — a case that he succinctly summarises here.
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"He believes that there are good reasons to challenge simplistic accounts of Christianity’s rise and fall."
— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) September 21, 2024
John Saxbee reviews The Eclipse of Christianity: And why it matters by Rupert Shortt https://t.co/oRYQTpKpas