The Air We Breath - How We All Came to Believe in Freedom. Kindness, Progress, and Equality
Book reviewed by Jane Walters
Glen Scrivener, an Australian who has lived in the UK for many years, is director of Speak Life and works to provide equipping resources for the church.
He opens his latest book with the illustration of a goldfish, suggesting that, just as the goldfish is surrounded by water but unaware of what water actually is, so a westerner would fail to recognise that Christianity is all around us. It’s the air we breathe. Addressing the ‘nones’ – who profess no religion; the ‘dones’ – who have put Christianity behind them; and the ‘wons’ – who follow Jesus and are trying to make sense of our broken world; the author sets out to explore seven values that are foundational to the modern outlook. These are equality, compassion, consent, enlightenment, science, freedom and progress, all of which have their roots deep in the Bible.
The early part of the book digs into the non-biblical thinking of the ancient world in Greek and Roman times. For example, Plato would have wondered what the point was in a debate about equality, since everyone knew that lives had unequal value! To our minds, equality is sacred – note the religious language we adopt, points out Scrivener – and when, during the lockdown crisis, Lord Sumption said, ‘I don’t accept that all lives are of equal value,’ it caused uproar.
Without the Christian belief that we are all equal before God, humans are reduced to mere flesh-and-blood properties. Jesus, of course, saw more than that and showed compassion – a quality Romans didn’t understand. Furthermore, Christianity brought an earthquake in sexual morality to first-century life, and its effects are still evident. Quoting from the legal case against Larry Nassar, an Olympic coach accused of abuse, one of his victims asked the judge, ‘What is a little girl worth?’ Scrivener says, ‘When a guttural “Everything” rises up within you, that’s your Christianity talking.’
The chapters which move on from classical times to the Dark and Middle Ages paint a fascinating backdrop. The author has a way of making the historical passages compelling, with not a dusty morsel to be had. Describing just how dark the Dark Ages were, when religion was wielded with a sword, Enlightenment, by contrast, came through education and persuasion. It was a time when Christianity made massive advances in politics and education, with universities being established (the motto of Oxford University being ‘God is my shining light’).
However, the harsh realities of the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition cannot be ignored. A strength of this book is in its refusal to shy away from the uncomfortable parts of Christianity’s history. Scrivener tackles it through busting the myths – being careful to establish the truth; owning what is crooked – which included the misuse of the cross as a symbol for the atrocities; and insisting on the straight line – applying the gospel truth as the benchmark.
So, what about science? Has it replaced God? Back in the time of Newton, science and scientists were seen as a gift from God. By the nineteenth century, the light of science was driving out Christianity. However, in this compelling chapter, Scrivener brings us back to Genesis chapter 1. It is here, he says, that we can make sense of the world, seeing humans created with the kind of abilities that science requires.
In his consideration of freedom, the author covers carefully the issue of the slave trade. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was Christians who drove the abolition movement, through preaching and politics. Sadly, a number of Christian philanthropists obtained their wealth through the exploitation of slaves. Scrivener comments, ‘when all things are considered, these events are truly evil… But their evil is judged by the good which they pretended to honour.’
In the chapter headed ‘Progress’, the author considers the twentieth century, one of war and violence. ‘It is a fearful truth,’ he says, ‘that both Genesis 1 and the Holocaust can teach you “the sacredness of life”. One teaches the truth positively, the other negatively.’ At Nuremberg, after the war, the Nazis were accused of ‘crimes against humanity’ rather than ‘against God.’ Responses to Hitler were secular – enough to flee the pit, but losing the way in the process.
The book finishes with Scrivener examining what happens when values become divorced from the Christian story. Equality becomes ‘radical individualism’; compassion becomes ‘competitive victimhood’. The person of Jesus has been dethroned and replaced with abstract values. The result? We miss out on forgiveness. Values serve only to judge.
In conclusion, I thoroughly recommend this overview of history which reveals the complex weaving of Christianity through its fabric. As Scrivener says, ‘When we speak of humanity, history, freedom, progress or enlightenment values … we are carrying on a Christian conversation.’ Let’s keep talking!
Together Magazine
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