Book Review: Atheism Remix by Albert Mohler

Pages: 108
Pub­lisher: Cross­way
Year: 2008
Author: Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr.

Sent to me by the nice folks over at Cross­way, Athe­ism Remix by Dr. Albert Mohler is a brief intro­duc­tion to and overview of the “New Athe­ism” phe­nom­e­non of the last few years. Based on the W.H. Grif­fith Thomas Lec­tures deliv­ered in 2008 at Dal­las The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary¹, Mohler’s aim is to bet­ter equip and make aware Chris­tians to the (new) chal­lenge pre­sented by the new athe­ism, and its major proponents.

This is an intro­duc­tion to the new athe­ism in two ways. Firstly, it is a brief out­line of the rise of sec­u­lar­ism in our soci­ety (Mohler dis­cusses “Sec­u­lar­iza­tion the­ory,” explic­itly cit­ing Max Weber, Charles Tay­lor and John Som­merville), which leads into a com­par­i­son between the “old” athe­ism and new atheism–particularly the “cul­tural cheer­ful­ness” of the lat­ter. Sec­ondly, it is an intro­duc­tion to the (cur­rent) major play­ers of the new athe­ism, giv­ing some bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Den­nett, Sam Har­ris and Christo­pher Hitchens ². This is what really sets this book apart from oth­ers on the subject.

Unlike other books writ­ten on the new athe­ism, Athe­ism Remix isn’t intended to be a refu­ta­tion of any of the claims being made by new athe­ists. In the open­ing chap­ters (chap­ters one and two) Mohler gives an out­line of the pro­gres­sion of athe­ism; in the lat­ter chap­ters (chap­ters three and four), Mohler moves from out­lin­ing the pro­gres­sion of athe­ism, to bring­ing his read­ers up to speed on the cur­rent (as of 2008) debate. As the hot topic at the time was Richard Dawkins The God Delu­sion, this is the book he focuses the major­ity of his atten­tion on, though he does briefly men­tion Daniel Dennett’s Break­ing the Spell: Reli­gion as a Nat­ural Phe­nom­e­non, Christo­pher Hitchens god is not Great: How Reli­gion Poi­sons every­thing, and Sam Har­ris’ The End of Faith and Let­ter to a Chris­t­ian Nation. In lieu of address­ing the argu­ments of the above books, Mohler ref­er­ences what oth­ers have said of the above, notably, Chris­t­ian philoso­phers Alvin Planti­nga (God and Other Minds) and Alis­tair McGrath (The Dawkins Delu­sion?). Mohler closes his analy­sis by dis­cussing the opin­ions of other (lib­eral) the­olo­gians on the mat­ter, mostly by dis­agree­ing (and I think rightly), with their pub­lished analy­sis of the new atheism.

For those who are won­der­ing what all the fuss over the new athe­ism is about, Athe­ism Remix is an excel­lent, if brief, intro­duc­tion to the debate. If you’re look­ing for an in-depth analy­sis of the argu­ments pre­sented by new athe­ists, then although Mohler will point you in the right direc­tion, this prob­a­bly isn’t the book you’re look­ing for. You might instead want to try William Lane Craig’s Rea­son­able Faith (which, although not writ­ten explic­itly for the new athe­ism, addresses many — if not all — of their argu­ments) or the more recent God is Great, God is Good (which I’ll be review­ing later on). With the above in con­sid­er­a­tion, Athe­ism Remix is a rec­om­mended read.

Related posts:

1. Book Review: God is Great, God is Good
2. Mohler: Chris­t­ian, Mus­lim Dialogue
3. Book Review: The Mak­ing of an Athe­ist by James Spiegel
4. Book Review: The Chris­t­ian Delu­sion ed. John W. Loftus
5. Book Review: The End of Evan­gel­i­cal­ism? by David E. Fitch