D B Hart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bentley_Hart) has set out on a conquest to liberate the citizens of Hithchensdom, Dawkinstown, Harrisville and Dennett-upon-Tyne. Hearkening to the mouns and cries of the people locked away in these villages and towns with walls of towering grey concrete, D B Hart has taken upon himself to rescue them. He will blow apart the grey wieldy shackles that incarcerate the people locked away behind these walls, that they may be interred no more in a two-dimensional flat-land of drabness and boredom. And he will do this through the publication and dissemination of his most recent book, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies.
In short compass, Hart sets out to detonate, with sublime style and a glistening vocabulary (evidenced in the use of exotic words like "farraginous", "scabrous" and "friability") the myths that currently hold a sizeable amount of the Western world capitive and benighted. Yes, in the mere spread of a single chapter he fells the four great horsemen of the atheist apocalpyse; the shambling ideological artifice erected by Dawkins, Dennet, Hitchens and Harris crashes to the ground as Hart blows the project of scientism apart - effortlessly.
As the debris settles in the aftermath, he levels his mortar gun at the unexamined myths that have been perpetuated by the ancestors of those still dwelling in the like of Dawkinstown and Hithensdom: the myth of church suppression and hatred of pagan learning and philosophy in the early centuries of the Common Era, the myth of the Christian suppression of scientific truth (No, Galileo was never asked by the church to recount his theories on the basis of an appeal to an outdated cosmology - ie. that the earth was flat - no; patiently, Pope Urban VIII asked Galileo that he recount a theory that was embarrasingly simplistic in its dogged adherence to an outdated model Copernicus had developed - read more on pp. 63-66!), the myth that links the witchhunts of early modernity to the church, the myth of the fanatical Christian church resisting "enlightened" secular ideals - by jove, you'll find it all here! And what a job Hart does of gleefully tearing them all apart!
Gallantly Hart blows apart the myths that have blinded generations of citizens in Hitchensdom and Dawkinstown, holding them in bondage to a maddeningly simplistic and two-dimensional view of reality. Now, slowly, the grey walls are coming down as Hart pummells them with the mortar bombs of honest history writing, sound reason, readable prose and a clear presentation of the absolutely radical, unexpected and profund nature of Christian truth!
Be part of the revolution - pick up a copy now: David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies. I got a hold of mine in Hodges & Figgis on Dawson Street for under 20 euro.
As time permits, I'll paste up some of the gleaming prose from the book itself -
Until then,
The Scribbling Apprentice
It sounds very interesting!
ReplyDelete