Book review: God is Good For You
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Book review: God is Good For You
12 November 2018
Believing in God is entirely rational and it is atheism that is odd and intellectually indefensible.
As a work of popular apologetics, Greg Sheridan’s God is Good For You has much to commend it.
Written in a clear, lucid style, as one might expect from a seasoned journalist, it sets out the argument that the decline of Christianity in Australian society is having a negative impact on our social capital.
The book attempts to do what apologists like C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton have done in bringing some theological reflection to a non-specialist audience, though without the same degree of intellectual weight.
In one sense it’s a reply to the New Atheists like Richard Dawkins who write for a popular audience to argue that religion is a very, very bad thing for human beings.
Sheridan is fair-minded in his dismissal of this approach and manages not to come across sounding dogmatic. The first part of the book argues for the values that Christian faith has brought to society.
Believing in God is entirely rational and it is atheism that is odd and intellectually indefensible.
Widely held modern values such as human rights, feminism, social justice, and secularism are seen to have their origins in Christianity. Sheridan is not unaware of the problem of evil and of the Church’s chequered past, but does not see these as obstacles to faith.
The Old Testament, popularly dismissed as primitive, violent, and inhumane, is recommended by Sheridan as a book rich in sublime stories that embody the best and worst of human behaviour yet is a work of genius that is “infinitely rewarding” to the reader. The second part of the book takes the form of testimony.
Over several chapters Australian politicians are interviewed (somewhat reluctantly) about their faith. Two later chapters recount the lives of church leaders who have impressed Sheridan. While noting (and perhaps at times overstating) the marginalisation of Christian faith in Australian society, Sheridan also looks for signs of new life.
He is impressed by the youthfulness, energy, and sheer size of Pentecostal churches such as Planetshakers, but also notes the smaller scale and persistent attraction to ancient monastic life among contemporary Australian Benedictines and Cistercians.
He closes with a description of the positive benefits of the minority status the churches now find themselves holding in Australian society and argues that Christians should keep telling their truth with boldness, kindness, and intelligence.
That seems like good advice to me.
God is Good For You is available online and at most bookstores.
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