Very good when in the Christian lane; weaker outside of it
3 stars
The followup to The Reason for God, this book is excellent when it is focused on Christianity. When it goes into the flaws of "secularism" it gets weaker. Why? "Secularist" is a label put upon people outside of the church by people within the Church. There is an enormous variety of thoughts and philosophy outside of Christianity - a lot of which many Christians agree with. There are some popular viewpoints that contend with traditional Christianity but they aren't necessarily cohesive with each other. The moment something is labeled as "secular" in the text, Keller's whole argument strikes me as weak. The argument could be very valid, but he has pulled up this category that is somewhat flimsy. He might be trying to use some short hand, but it would be more useful for him to just say "Here's a common place idea that we can challenge and think about." …
The followup to The Reason for God, this book is excellent when it is focused on Christianity. When it goes into the flaws of "secularism" it gets weaker. Why? "Secularist" is a label put upon people outside of the church by people within the Church. There is an enormous variety of thoughts and philosophy outside of Christianity - a lot of which many Christians agree with. There are some popular viewpoints that contend with traditional Christianity but they aren't necessarily cohesive with each other. The moment something is labeled as "secular" in the text, Keller's whole argument strikes me as weak. The argument could be very valid, but he has pulled up this category that is somewhat flimsy. He might be trying to use some short hand, but it would be more useful for him to just say "Here's a common place idea that we can challenge and think about." It doesn't need to be all within a label. In this case being precise is more valuable than categorization.