There’s a chain of stores in Maine called “Mardens” that sells discounted items that other stores have been unable to move.  We visited a Mardens this summer when we were in northern Maine, and, as usual, I quickly gravitated to the book section.  Usually they have nothing that interests me, but I did get “Mark Wilson’s Complete Course in Magic” at a Mardens once, and a few other books over the years.

On this visit to Mardens last month a book caught my eye entitled “The New Atheist Crusaders and Their Unholy Grail”.  Upon reading the full title, and not knowing the author – Becky Garrison - I figured it would be a harsh, very fundamentalist attack on the growth of atheism.  While looking it over, though, I noticed a recommendation for the book from Shaine Claibourne, author of “Irresistible Revolution”.  A recommendation from Claibourne changed everything, and I spent the $1.19 that the store was asking for the book (Marked down from $14.99!)

Garrison was clear from the start that she could not be pigeon-holed.  A graduate of Yale Divinity School, she is often accused of being theologically ‘liberal’, but she was a founder of the YDS Evangelical Fellowship, leading others to call her a conservative.  She blogs on the Sojourners web site... back to liberal; but she believes in a literal resurrection… oops, now she’s a conservative.  You get the idea.

While Garrison spends time addressing topics like origins, evil, and a few other doctrinal issues, she never becomes dogmatic.  Her objectives are clearly to a)  rebut arguments against religion posed by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and others, and b) hold believers of all faiths to be fair in our stances, remembering that ‘A soft answer turns away wrath.”

In her chapter entitled “All Faithful Aren’t Fools”, she also demands that the atheists fight fair, too.  She points out that the Christians the new atheists refer to tend to be the Crusaders, the Inquisitors, Tammy Faye Baker, and the like.  She asks them to consider Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, and William Wilburforce as better representatives of the true Gospel of Jesus.  She assures them that if they do so, she will acknowledge that there are other atheists out there other than Pol Pot and Joseph Stalin.

My favorite sections are when she shares her own spiritual journey with the reader, including growing up the daughter of an alcoholic Episcopal Priest.  Using her own experiences, and plenty of historical examples as well, the author demands that believers stop giving the new atheists so much ammunition to make religion look ridiculous.  In her chapter “Rapture Ready”, for example, she points out how bad eschatology (End of time theology) has led to bad environmental and foreign policies.  The fact that so many authors and speakers have been so sure about how end times events will unfold, and have been consistently wrong only helps the atheists a stronger case.  As she points out, “Skim the Bible, and you won’t find the word ‘rapture’.”  She discusses briefly how dispensationalism   introduced this theology in just the past 300 years or so.

There is so much good about this book; I’m so glad I stumbled upon it in that day.  I recommend it to anyone on either side of the ‘Does God exist?’ debate.  It was well worth the $1.19 I paid, and may even have justified spending the full price if I hadn’t chanced upon it at Mardens.