Ebook: Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense

Francis Spufford's Unapologetic is a wonderfully pugnacious defense of Christianity. Refuting critics such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the "new atheist" crowd, Spufford, a former atheist and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, argues that Christianity is recognizable, drawing on the deep and deeply ordinary vocabulary of human feeling, satisfying those who believe in it by offering a ruthlessly realistic account of the grown-up dignity of Christian experience.

Fans of C. S. Lewis, N. T. Wright, Marilynne Robinson, Mary Karr, Diana Butler Bass, Rob Bell, and James Martin will appreciate Spufford's crisp, lively, and abashedly defiant thesis.

Unapologetic is a book for believers who are fed up with being patronized, for non-believers curious about how faith can possibly work in the twenty-first century, and for anyone who feels there is something indefinably wrong, literalistic, anti-imaginative and intolerant about the way the atheist case is now being made.

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From Publishers Weekly

Unapologetic rhymes with splenetic, and that&'s one aspect of British writer Spufford&'s (Red Plenty) rhetorical tour de force, in which he not only takes on the new atheists but also the secularism of his own culture (6% of Britons regularly attend church, the author notes early on). Spufford stakes out ground for arguing the value of Christianity that is neither ontological, teleological, or any-ological. God, he asserts, is the ground of being, experienced emotionally, as one might experience Mozart&'s Clarinet Concerto. Having moved the boundaries of the argument, Spufford has at it, swearing, skewering, and bringing a sense of humor to bear on the question, Why bother to be Christian? A gifted writer, the author is closer to the American William James, who grasped the psychological payoff of religious belief, than he is to fellow Englishman and revered Christian apologist C.S. Lewis. The rhetorical pileup is wearing at times, as are so many contemporary arguments about religion. Spufford&'s style is as bracing as a cup of real English breakfast teastrong enough to satisfy believers. (Oct.)

From Booklist

Spuffords defense of Christianity is as unique as it is refreshing. We humans have the potential to really screw things up and too often do. We could use some help. Against the backdrop of human frailty, Spufford retells the story of Christianity: that of a loving and merciful God who seeks us out and leads by example. No one is unforgivable; no one is forgotten. God challenges us to act the same toward others and ourselves, however difficult it may be, and is always there to encourage us to try again when we fail. Because this story of hope, forgiveness, and redemption makes so much emotional sense, Spufford embraces Christianity and proceeds as if God is there, even if it all may not be literally true. This latter admission allows him to refute many of the claims and characterizations of contemporary atheism. With unrelenting passion and honesty throughout, this book successfully accomplishes what it sets out to achievenamely, making the case for the intelligibility and dignity of Christian faith. --Christopher McConnell