Posts Tagged ‘Douglas-Wilson’
Douglas Wilson takes on the new atheism
In recent months, Doug Wilson has wielded his pen against the new atheism in several ways:
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Wilson wrote a series of posts on his weblog in response to Sam Harris’s book, Letter to a Christian Nation. These posts are no longer available for reading online; they have been collected into the book Letter from a Christian Citizen.
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He has similarly reviewed and responded on his blog to Christopher Hitchens’ book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. These posts are still available on his blog and you can read them here: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapters 7 and 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18 and Chapter 19.
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He also had the opportunity to debate Christopher Hitchens online, courtesy of Christianity Today. Their debate is in six parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6.
Wilson makes two apologetic moves that you should watch closely. First, he consistently and very deftly pieces apart the atheist’s small little world and shows it to have no foundation, and therefore no meaning, and therefore no force or life or joy. This is well-played presuppositional apologetics. Second, and more importantly, in his personal interaction with Hitchens it is clear that Wilson does not see apologetics as an end in itself. Rather, he repeatedly uses apologetics as a means of disarming his opponent so that he can preach the gospel. It is vital that our practice of apologetics always points to Christ.
Joy at the End of the Tether
Wilson, Douglas. Joy at the End of the Tether. Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 1999.
This book is a conversational walk through the book of Ecclesiastes. Douglas Wilson helped me to see for the first time the depth of wisdom and truth in Ecclesiastes. It is not exaggeration to say that Wilson has revolutionized my understanding of Ecclesiastes.
Previously I saw Ecclesiastes as portraying a world of emptiness and hopelessness, with an occasional disjointed glimmer of hope that there was some escape from the wasteland. But Wilson shows, conclusively I think, that Ecclesiastes is a unified whole. The world is full of vain repetition. But the message is not that we should become ascetics, forsaking the vain repetition of the world, for to do so rightly we would have to go out of the world! The message, rather, is that we should walk in faith, receive our lot as a gift from God, with appropriate joy and gratefulness. To the one who walks in unbelief, the vain repetition of this life brings nothing but despair. But to the one who walks in faith, trusting in God’s sovereignty and goodness, even the vain repetition of this life is a gift from God to be enjoyed.
This book has been tremendously helpful in encouraging me to walk in faith through difficulty and even tedium, challenging me to cultivate real gratefulness rather than a worldly gritty perseverance. This is part of faith’s growing in seeing all of life as being before the face of God (coram Deo).
I recommend this book very highly.
I’ve also encountered John Reisinger’s series titled “Thoughts on the Book of Ecclesiastes”. I don’t know much about Reisinger, nor have I yet done more than skim these articles. But Reisinger references Kaiser frequently, who was also one of Wilson’s primary sources. I’m retaining links to these articles for my reference; I don’t know yet whether I can recommend them: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8.
I gotta have my orange juice. 