This book isn't easy for an atheist who actually likes Frank Schaeffer to review. He's critical of the New Atheists, whom I actually have a fondness for even while I, too, sometimes think their rhetoric gets a bit strident. But he doesn't just criticize what they have to say. For example, he calls Richard Dawkins a "t-shirt salesman". And it is kind of true. You can get some swag on the Richard Dawkins website.
But why not? I think it's just possible that swag might just be an important community-building tool. After all, if you saw the red "A" on my site that says I'm running with the atheists, how different is that from the icthys of the early Christians? My own know me this way. Or think it about it in "fish" terms, we have our "Darwin fish" in answer to the vehicular icthys. Maybe the need to proclaim or witness (or irritate) via t-shirts and bumper stickers is an emotional need atheists also feel.
He also mentions that Christopher Hitchens has a bit of a reputation. He does mention that Hitchens isn't really exceptionally versed in Christian thought. He doesn't acknowledge that part of Hitchens' promotion of his book God is Not Great has actually concentrated upon offering himself for debates particularly in the Bible Belt and particularly with evangelicals.
He submits that Bill Maher could've have done a more serious movie about religion, featuring more seriously intellectual religionists. Of course, Bill Maher being a comedian, I'm not sure that a more serious movie would have been as well done by him, nor been as effective. Sure he could've interviewed an Updike or some other thoughtful believer--but this would not be funny. And also, I don't think it would have been representative of where so many believers actually are--not intellectually wrestling with the questions of faith--what and how to believe. They believe without thinking, and that's what Maher was on about! He was offering these commonplace unthinking beliefs up for ridicule to let people see that the unexamined faith just might not be worth having.
Also, and this is one of those particular grouses of mine, Schaeffer crossed my particular personal Rubicon--the "Atheists like Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot..." meme. It's very rare someone steps on this tripwire of associating these various modern genocides with specifically atheism, and earns something less than my eternal enmity.
Here's how Schaeffer gets away with it (and not because I'm a cultural Christian, and simply sigh "Oh forgive him, Father, because he knows not what he does....") It's because I think that meme is still partially ingrained in his reaction to atheism, but in terms of his actual thinking about faith and morality, he gets that morality was formed by people as a means for living together as opposed to being revealed by God and also recognizes that atheists on the whole are moral creatures.
And also he's similarly critical of the dangerous attitudes that he sees some believers as having, particularly religious leaders who are hypocritical or attention-seeking, or prefer power to truth.
This book is, in a lot of ways, about his own path between the rocks of faith and doubt. He is a very adept writer at capturing moods and using examples from his own history to illuminate how he views things. Although he criticized the New Atheists in general, he had nice things to say about Daniel Dennett--I felt like recommending to him Dan Barker and Victor Stenger, if he never read them. (His familiar style kind of makes one feel like one knows him well enough to suggest reading material. Or that could just be my own overbearing way of pushing atheist authors on people.)
I did like the book, even if it made me feel the need to rebut the New Atheist criticism a bit. Also--some of the atheist crit was actually funny, in a "to see thysel' as others see ye" kind of way.
I'd say if you like his pieces on Huffington Post, or are a happy agnostic, or liked his other books, you'll find a lot to like about this. Some atheists might find it touchy.
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