The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God: Why New Atheism Grew Old and Secular Thinkers Are Considering Christianity Again
Reviewed date: 2025 Aug 15
272 pages
Chapter 1: The Rise and Fall of New Atheism
Brierley charts the rise of new atheism, its heyday, and then its downfall in the face of progressive woke ideology. Those are my words, not his. The non-religious became more interested in policing and enforcing a progressive ideology than in an intellectual rejection of religion, and when the icons of New Atheism failed to live up to, or even to agree with, this ideology, they were cast aside. The crowds dwindled, the conferences ceased, and their influence waned.
Chapter 2: The New Conversation on God
Something something something, Jordan Peterson, something something something, people seem interested in spirituality and God now. Not the traditional Christian God necessarily, but there's an appreciation for the cultural effects of Christianity. Not for the literal truth of the thing, but for the psychological truth, or for the byproducts of Christianity--like human rights, women's rights, and the sense of meaning, purpose, and identity that it provides. Brierley says that you can't get these effects of Christianity without it actually being true--that just having the stories isn't enough. He'll tackle that in later chapters.
This is a crucial point. Jordan Peterson (and many others) think the meaning is in the stories. But this simply isn't enough. If the stories of the Bible are not true--if Jesus did not, in fact, die for our sins and rise again on the third day--the stories are useless. They may give us the illusion of meaning, but if they are not true, they do not give us any actual meaning. It's not enough for the Bible to be psychologically true or metaphorically true. It must be actually true. Jesus must have actually risen from the dead. He must actually be alive now.
Chapter 3: Shaped by the Christian Story
The New Atheists’ view of history traces back to a lie that started with Edward Gibbons’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: that closed-minded Christians burned books, destroyed art, and held back progress at every turn. But to the contrary, today even secular scholars are admitting that there is no evidence to suggest this. The evidence we do have points to Christianity being the font from which springs all our modern ideas of human rights and freedoms. It was the Church that fostered learning, science, literature, and all good things.
This chapter is mostly about Tom Holland, who noticed the wide chasm between the callous worldview of the Greeks, Romans, and Islamic empire, compared to his culturally Christian worldview that values every human life. Modern humanist values come from Christianity.
“humanism is a kind of godless Protestantism.”
Christian sexual ethics—chastity, monogamy—and respect for every human being as being equal and being made in the image of god—contrasted with Roman slavery and normalized sexual exploitation. And indeed any and every society’s normalization of slavery.
Slavery in Christendom was largely eliminated by the medieval times. But only in Christendom, not in the rest of the world, even to this day. Slavery in the Americas is/was an aberration from that norm.
Christians treated the vulnerable better. No infanticide. No abortion. Women were respected. Slaves freed. Deformed and disabled not left to die. Radical generosity and provision for the sick, poor, widows and orphans. Caring for the sick during plagues.
Chapter 4: Rediscovering the Bible
Far from being irrelevant as many atheists have claimed, the Bible is still a best-selling book, and is still being recognized as relevant today. Atheists who criticize the Bible often do so without truly reading the Bible on its own terms. "Part of the problem is that the Bible's fiercest contemporary critics have tried to dismiss its credibility by reading it in the same way as fundamentalist Christians they often find themselves at loggerheads with." Put another way, they misunderstand and misinterpret the Bible in the most unfavorable light, then knock down that misrepresentation. When people actually read the Bible they recognize that it's not the caricature that the New Atheists have declared it to be. The words of God have real power to transform lives.
For example, take Jordan Peterson. He's no Christian, and he doesn't believe the Bible is actually true, but he's deeply interested in the psychological truths that it contains. He gave hours upon hours of lectures about Genesis, which surprisingly resonated with a great many people. "Questions of the actual historicity of the accounts seem almost irrelevant to him." But he sees the value in the Bible, and this is quite different from the New Atheists' dismissal of the Bible as outdated bronze-age fables.
Then Brierley goes through some of the evidence for the reliability of the Bible.
- The volume and early dates of the manuscript evidence
- The names used in the Gospels correspond statistically to the names used during that time period in that geographical region, indicating with a high degree of likelihood that this is a historical account, not a later fabrication.
- Geographical and cultural customs mentioned in the gospels are appropriate to the period and location, again indicating these are genuine accounts and not later fabrications
- Un-designed coincidences--like where a detail in one gospel explains a strange detail in another gospel.
- Archaeological evidence is increasingly confirming the gospel accounts (as well as the OT books too.)
"Shallow critiques of the New Athests are not being replaced by a renewed appreciation of the Bible from secular quarters, through thinkers such as Peterson, Murrary, and Haidt." Brierley gently suggests these thinkers take the next step and consider what it would mean if the central claims of the Bible are not just meaningful and psychologically true, but are actually true.
Chapter 5: The Alternative Story of Science
The New Atheists' attacks on religion are largely based on science, setting up the idea that science and the Bible are somehow at odds. In reality, most scientists are religious and see no conflict. The history of science and the church don't show them to be at odds. Brierley explains that the trial of Galileo was mostly not about science, and that the youth-earth view that the New Atheists often go after is not one that has historically been a major Christian view.
Further, our modern scientific principles were developed by Christians, and it was Christian thought that allowed science to develop. Science is rooted in a Christian worldview. The idea of a conflict between science and Christianity is not based in fact.
Next Brierley spends some time exploring what I can only describe as a lite version of intelligent design, and the fine-tuning of the universe argument. I find both of those arguments unconvincing, so I was not impressed with this part of chapter 5.
After that, he moves on to point out that the Big Bang cosmology suggests the universe had a definite beginning, which is evidence for (or at least suspiciously consistent with) a Creator. And not just that: increasingly, those who study science come up against the reality that science cannot explain why the universe is explainable. There is something fundamental about reality that suggests an explanation beyond the material world.
It comes down to this: the New Atheists have a priori rejected anything supernatural. They've rejected God before they even begin. And of course then they don't see him in science. But those who have not a priori rejected the idea of God, when those people look into science and the fundamental nature of the universe, they start to see God's handiwork.
Chapter 6: Mind, Meaning, and the Materialists
People are turning to Christianity for the meaning it provides, which materialism does not. Then Brierley takes a long excursus to talk about determinism and how it undermines humanism. I found this completely unconvincing. That's not surprising. I've never found arguments about determinism to be convincing, and I'm puzzled why so many people do. I see no problem with determinism in either a materialist or a Christian worldview.
Then there is the mystery of consciousness, which science is inadequate to explain. Apparently this brings a lot of people to explore Christianity. It is far too abstract and philosophical for me, but it takes all kinds I guess.
Chapter 7: The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God
Organized religious affiliation is declining in the West, but atheism is not growing. An increasing number of people are identifying as spiritual but not connected to organized religion.
It turns out we're all believers deep down.
If it's not Jesus we believe in, it's LGBT rights or feminism or antiracism or anticapitalism.
Brierley says the church should do three things to embrace this resurgence in interest in Christianity:
- Embrace both reason and imagination: make reasoned and logical intellectual arguments, but don't neglect the poetic, artistic, and emotional side of things. Remember the heart.
- Keep Christianity weird: don't try to adopt the culture's values and customs.
- Create a Community that Counters Cancel Culture: cancel culture is destructive and punitive. Christian spaces should be forgiving and welcoming even to those who sin or make mistakes. Extend grace and hospitality.