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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Short Review: This was probably overhyped to me, but I still really think it is an important book and it will make my best of 2014 list. The basic idea of the book is that logical reasoning isn't the best way to talk to people about Christianity in a post-Christian world. Instead we need to address the emotional and experiential pull of Christianity. Spufford is primarily talking to a post-Christian UK, not evangelical Americans, but I really resonated with much of what he said. He starts with a what he thinks is a way to start on a common ground by introducing the Human Propensity to F*ck Things Up, which is primarily abbreviates HPtFtU.
He uses HPtFtU instead of original sin because even those that don't believe in original sin (or the concept of sin at all) can agree that in general HPtFtU is real. The central movement of the book is his novelist's rendition of the story of Jesus, which for the UK (and some in the US) may be the first real presentation of what the gospel is all about.
There are lots of rabbit trails and Spufford will not be confused with a traditional US Evangelical in part because of some unorthodox beliefs, but also because of regular (but in my mind appropriate) swearing in the text.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/unapologetic/
