Book Review: The Last Christian on Earth by Os Guinness

Pages: 254
Pub­lisher: Regal Pub­lish­ers
Year: 2010
Author: Os Guinness

For­merly known as the Gravedig­ger File, The Last Chris­t­ian on Earth is a Screw­tape Let­ters “style” book (though it did not draw its inspi­ra­tion from C.S. Lewis’ work), which comes through as a series of let­ters between a direc­tor of the “gravedig­ger the­sis” and one of his top oper­a­tives. The “gravedig­ger the­sis” is an out­line of how the church (espe­cially in the West) has been sub­verted through cul­tural, intel­lec­tual and insti­tu­tional methods.

By and large, the book is a wake-up call. What I found most sig­nif­i­cant about this book is that it was orig­i­nally pub­lished in 1983, and this re-issue (accord­ing to the book) does not sig­nif­i­cantly alter it’s core mes­sage, but only the exam­ples to make them more “up to date”. I find that both incred­i­ble (from an authors mes­sage point of view) and dis­turb­ing, but not wholly unsurprising.

I found the book both inter­est­ing and cheesy (though I imag­ine it would be hard to come off as any­thing but cheesy with the faux-spy for­mat), and the analy­sis to be unex­pected and just about spot on most of the time. Some of the expla­na­tions for the shift in cul­ture (such as the inven­tion of the watch) were entirely unex­pected, as I had never heard any­thing like that before. At the same time, some of the analy­sis seems to be some what super­fi­cial. For exam­ple, Guin­ness links the “super­star” men­tal­ity found in Evan­gel­i­cal­ism to Hol­ly­wood, and while this prob­a­bly does have some part to play in the men­tal­ity, I’m of the opin­ion that it was the Great Awak­en­ing which inspired the “star” men­tal­ity, which was taken over by Hol­ly­wood. In the over­all scheme of the book, this really isn’t all that sig­nif­i­cant as the analy­sis still seems spot on to me.

Aside from that, the writ­ing is clear and easy to fol­low. The book is log­i­cal in terms of pro­gres­sion, and doesn’t require any back­ground knowl­edge in the areas dis­cussed to under­stand what is being said.

This is a book intended for every­one, and every­one should read it. Not enough peo­ple under­stand the rea­sons for the decline of the church (and the sub­ver­sion of the church), and in a cul­ture where peo­ple aren’t crit­i­cal thinkers, it’s that much more dangerous.

Many thanks to the peo­ple at Regal Pub­lish­ers for pro­vid­ing a copy of this book for review pur­poses.

Related posts:

1. Book Review: Bioethics and the Chris­t­ian Life by David Vandrunen
2. Book Review: Liv­ing As A Chris­t­ian by A.W. Tozer
3. Book Review: The Chris­t­ian Delu­sion ed. John W. Loftus
4. Book Review: “Chris­t­ian Apolo­get­ics” by Dou­glas Groothuis
5. Book Review: Get­ting the Ref­or­ma­tion Wrong by James Payton