Over the weekend I finished one of the most unexpectedly delightful books I’ve encountered in a long time. I remember picking it up, on a whim, really, in a book shop in Seattle. That was last summer. That is how far behind I am in my TBR pile! But I am glad I got to it.
The title is The Air We Breathe and was written by Glen Scrivener. Scrivener is an Australian minister in the Anglican Communion and he writes with a definite lean toward England yet he is clearly well versed in Western culture as a whole and seems to know a great deal about the American experience.
The opening chapter is the weakest. It is an introduction that tries to tie the title, the idea of breathing, and the context of advocating for Christianity. He seems to belabor the point at the onset, which is something no one really needs. The point he belabors is Christianity and Christian values have defined modern sensibilities. He likens this to the air we breathe — we all breathe Christianized air. And of course, he is right. The building blocks for the modern world are Christian. No other blocks could do it.
Once I got past that rather pedantic opening chapter, the book opened up. From there we have another sort of introduction which is much better, and then each chapter covers the different values cherished by most all modern people: Equality, compassion, consent, enlightenment, science, freedom, and progress. The book finishes with two conclusion chapters, the strongest of which is the first. Indeed, the more I think on it, as wonderful as this book is, it would be better if the first and last chapters were both lopped off. It would read just fine without those and be much tighter.
But don’t let that minor criticism make you think it too terribly problematic. It is not. Scrivener writes with a witty, informed, and classical approach that is right in my proverbial wheelhouse. He quotes modern news stories as well as ancient Romans with ease and skill, weaving it in a way that is compelling. What he is doing is high level concept apologetics. Rather than arguing, say, a Christian apologetic against evolution, he takes the higher road and says we would’t even have the scientific principles upon which Darwinian thought rests without the Christian worldview that we all take for granted.
This argument is particularly compelling on issues of equality. Scrivener invites us to consider why we think we should be fair to anyone? The ancients wouldn’t have thought anything of it. No, it was Christianity, and Jesus’ teachings, that taught us fairness. Thomas Cahill makes a similar argument, though briefer, in his book, The Gift of the Jews. Scrivener takes it from a more faith filled position and expands the scope significantly.
He is at his best when he holds up the problems within modern Christianity and says, justly so, how awful it is that priests are aggressive sexual predators and then protected by church law, and then points to how the way we think of them as being so awful is actually a Christian ideal — we judge ourselves by our own values.
He says he has three audiences for the book, but in my mind it is a book primarily written for those who are ‘deconstructing’ their faith. The book gives reasons why no one should abandon the Christian movement, because the Christian movement has already set he agenda for the categories of the world and that can’t be deconstructed. Jesus is already ‘baked into’ just about any conversation you could ever have. It is to these young people in their 20s and 30s he is writing to – that is his audience – those people who are sorely tempted and persuaded by the world that says, ‘abandon your faith and come be real with us’. Scrivener provides an apologetic that says such talk is nonsense, for our faith is already the ‘air’ everyone breathes, whether they know it or not.
I highly recommend this book. It would be ideal as a gift to recent high school or college graduate, or perhaps as a curriculum study of sorts for church small group, particularly one that is youngish or who cares about their youngish children and grandchildren.