Book Review: The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God, Justin Brierley, Tyndale Press

Before I delve into TSRBG and review its excellent content, please indulge me as I comment on the cover…and how it feels in the hand! 

Everything about this book: the feel in the hand; the cover’s font size; colour of the typeface; the wash of surf on an incoming wave covering the deep blue-green of the sea…all of it is somehow just right. You’ll enjoy having this in your bag, rucksack, or suitcase, or just carrying it around, putting it down, and picking it up again.

Not since Michael Green’s Runaway World (w. 1968) has a popular apologetics book for Christianity sold as many copies or received so many well-deserved plaudits.

It is, of course, a book of its age. Justin Brierley is well known for his podcast Unbelievable? - a thing unknown in the pre-online days of 1968 – in which he has pitted atheists and Christians against each other discussing issues of the day e.g. September’s offerings so far: Should we edit the human genome? and Is AI replacing humanity?

Justin’s contention is that the popularity of atheism is waning and that the the arguments of the New Atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchins, are losing popular support. He cites example after example of intelligent atheists, philosophes, scientists, and artists, who have, in recent years, turned their back on atheism and are either re-evaluating their former disparaging views about spirituality and belief in God, or experiencing full conversions to Christianity. A good example is Jordan Petersen. You can find further examples in the book but also directly from the podcasts: Why I believe | Unbelievable (premierunbelievable.com)

Brierley’s seven chapters are full of quotes from individuals who are reconsidering their atheism, as they tackle such themes as the basis and case for morals, consciousness, deficiencies with materialism and determinism, the limitations of the rational mind to encompass all truth, the reliability of the New Testament, and evidence for the historical existence of Jesus.

 Some quotes:

 ‘Science progresses one funeral at a time’

 ‘We men of knowledge of today, we godless men and anti-metaphysicians, we, too, still derive our flame from the fire ignited by a faith millennia old, the Christian faith’ Friedrich Nietzsche

 ‘To my disquiet, I began to realise that the evidence for atheism was much weaker than I thought’ Oxford emeritus professor of Science and Religion, Alister McGrath

 ‘I think his (Daniel Dennett) position is wholly inconsistent: he says that consciousness is an illusion, but I would point out that for it to be an illusion, there must be a consciousness to be ‘illuded.’ ’  Iain McGilchrist, Oxford Don researcher of psychiatry and brain science.

I found the whole book very readable. It is an intelligent work that somehow avoids being ‘intellectual’ or plagued with unnecessarily inaccessible technical language.

Michael Green’s Runaway World dealt with atheistic determinism and materialism very convincingly – it served, in fact, as the final nail in my agnostic coffin a few weeks before I capitulated to Christ. I’m sure The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God will serve a similar purpose in 2024 for those willing to re-examine their agnosticism or atheism, and, if you are a Christian believer already, it will put you back in the ring for a few combative rounds with the arguments from atheists even if they are turning towards Christ.

TSRBG also appeals to me as I grew up in Whitstable, Kent, just a few minutes away from the beach, so Matthew Arnold’s, Dover Beach, which Brierley questions and challenges, hits home.  

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round Earth’s shore

Lay the folds of a bright girdle furled

But now I only hear

Its melancholic, long, withdrawing roar

Brierley quotes goes on to quote Douglas Murray (The Madness of Crowds): ‘The interesting thing about the Sea of Faith is there’s no reason why it can’t come back in. The sea doesn’t only withdraw. You know, it’s the point of tides’

On a personal, and highly subjective note, I will bring this review to an end remembering walking along the shoreline at Lyme Regis a few summers ago and looking out to sea at low tide. A voice seemed to say to me: the tide is on the turn.