Book Review: Why God Won't Go Away

I recently finished the book, Why God Won’t Go Away by Alister McGrath. It deals with some of the challenges and problems with the New Atheism. This is a quick read that is easy to understand and a good handling of this topic.

His chapters deal with how New Atheism began, and how it is different than ‘traditional’ atheism (primarily the angry attack on religion and religious believers) He takes three chapters to deal with some of the issues New Atheists (Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett are the chief proponents) bring up, such as violence done in the name of religion, logic and reason, as well as science and belief.

McGrath does a good job outlining the actual views, using many quotes, references and endnotes. He also takes some time to point out the problems with the views of the New Atheists. He treats his opponents’ views fairly and accurately. He deals with them with an ease that shows that he has done his homework. He never comes off too academic even though he obviously knows his stuff. His Endnotes section is about 40 pages!

If you want an easy to read, but not “dumbed-down” treatment of this current and sometimes confusing or intimidating topic, this is a great book to start with. Personally, I would have liked to see him more specifically contend for the Christian worldview, but I appreciated that he stayed focused on the purpose of his book, which was to explore the movement and critique its views and methods.

To that end, this is a fine book. I highly recommend this.

(Disclosure: In exchange for an honest review, Booksneeze had provided me with a complimentary copy of this book.)

DB