It is easy to become frustrated with the bias against Christianity in our society.
The bad stuff is magnified, while the good stuff is muted. In a society that champions fairness, it often seems unfair. In a society that advocates tolerance, it easily becomes intolerance.
Into this dilemma steps Glen Scrivener, with The Air We Breathe. The subtitle? How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress and Equality.
It is bold, winsome—and readable. Even a Tom Holland endorsement splashes its way across the top of the cover: ‘punchy, engaging, entertaining’.
He’s right. It is.
The metaphor
The point Scrivener is making is straightforward. Values which we consider to be ‘universal, obvious and natural: the air we breathe’ (12)—so the stuff we take for granted—actually started with Jesus. Scrivener takes us back to the world before Jesus, ‘the long night before Christmas’ (21), and demonstrates the difference Jesus made, ‘towering above civilization’ (23).
The values
He starts with a description of the core values which we believe in Western society (16-17).
Equality: We believe in the equal moral status of every member of the human family, no matter their rank, race, religion, gender or sexuality.
Compassion: We believe a society should be judged by the way it treats its weakest members.
Consent: We believe that the powerful have no right to force themselves on others.
Enlightenment: We believe in education for all and its power to transform a society.
Science: We believe in science: its ability to help us understand the world and improve our lives.
Freedom: We believe that persons are not property and that each of us should be in control of our own lives.
Progress: We believe in moral improvement over time and that we should continue to reform society of its former evils.
Then he makes a case, chapter by chapter, for each one of these values having their origins in the Christ of Christianity. Pretty bold, eh?! And not exactly the perspective you’ll hear taught in university, or advocated in the media! [NB: If you prefer to listen, rather than to read, here is a series of short videos which introduces his ideas—and he writes his own summary of the book in a magazine].
A Few Good Paragraphs
I enjoyed the structure of each chapter. He starts with a person, or issue, in the contemporary world. He weighs the arguments—then he rises to a crescendo at the end, often with a sparkling paragraph and a focus on Jesus.
For example, in the chapter on Consent, Scrivener wraps his argument around the story of Rachel Denhollander and that serial sexual predator within USA Gymnastics, Larry Nassar.
The very things that strike us as abusive—the power-plays, the inequality, the objectification, the clinical use of bodies and persons—were in fact presumed in the sexual morality of the (Roman) day. It was business as usual. Then came the sexual revolution …
… If the revolution of the 20th century said, ‘Women can be as free as men’, the Jesus revolution had said, ‘Men must be as restricted as women’. Given the complete sexual dominance of men in the ancient world, the coup was as audacious as it was transformative (86, 87).
Today we take such mutual consent and commitment for granted. But we take it for granted now because it was so radical then. In the ancient world, the gods were violent rapists, sexual agency was solely in the hands of powerful men, and sexual misbehaviour consisted in the violation of reputations, not of bodies or wills. Into this world came the Christian revolution, where sex is painted on the canvas of divine romance and where two equals unite in a sacred and unbreakable bond (94).
For abuse to be abuse we have to believe certain things: that bodies should be treated as temples; that sex is sacred; that children are valuable, and that the powerful should not exploit the weak but serve them. These values constitute the straight line against which we judge Nassar’s actions as crooked. But such values are by no means universal … They are Christian beliefs. Larry Nassar is not excused of his evils by claiming some kind of Christianity; he is accused by it. It is, very particularly, the goodness of Jesus that defines the evil of his abuse …
… Listen to your own heartfelt response when Denhollander asks, “What is a little girl worth?” You do not answer that question scientifically or economically. Nor do you answer it merely sociologically or psychologically. The deepest and truest answer to that question is a spiritual one. And when a guttural “Everything” rises up within you, that is your Christianity talking (100).
To imagine that human rights and equality are “self-evident” is audacious to say the least. Self-evident truths are things like “all triangles have three sides” … They should be things you can’t not know. But outside of a biblical foundation, no one in history—including the world’s greatest thinkers and moralists—have known about human rights. No one has seen in humans an inherent dignity and value simply by virtue of their membership of the human race. A survey of human civilizations reveals that the the only thing self-evident about human rights is that they are not self-evident (151-152).
As for ‘a few good paragraphs’, here are two more that reflect the book well…
On Enlightenment and ‘finishing off the faith’ (104) of those medieval Dark Ages:
… Those who critiqued the ‘age of faith’ of the Middle Ages could not help but be shaped by that faith. And, at the same time, those who trumpeted the value of reason found themselves being less than rational when it came to the church. It is patently unreasonable to call the Middle Ages barren when they contain the glories of medieval cathedrals, the founding of universities, the establishment of parliaments, the poetry of Dante and Chaucer … All this was established by Christian thinkers for Christian reasons, yet Enlightenment sages saw only desert. The failure of reason here ought to strike us powerfully. Just ten minutes spent in the cathedral of York Minster (1452) should dispel the myth of a ‘dark ages’ and yet the myth persists (124-125).
On Science and its ‘conflict story’ with faith:
It doesn’t seem to matter how historically bogus are the claims of its story-tellers; neither does it seem to matter how Christian were the founders of modern science, how theological were the motivations, how apt their worldview proved in the investigation of nature, how invested the church has been in the scientific enterprise or how widespread faith is among contemporary scientists. Ironically none of this evidence seems important. What persists is a compelling story of light versus darkness/science versus religion. The idea will not die …
… the conflict story turns out to be a religious myth, and when we examine the data, we cannot help but notice that science emerged in a Christian context for Christian reasons. Today, as science continues to advance, these convictions are not being vanquished; they are being vindicated. The light of science is not driving out Christianity—the very opposite. Christian convictions (whether acknowledged or not) have been holding the torch from the beginning (146, 147).
Hang On
Another helpful feature of the book are these “Hang On” sections, where the author anticipates the objections and speaks into them: What About the Crusades? (112f); What About the Spanish Inquisition? (115f); the Case of Galileo Galilei (140f); Isn’t Christianity Pro-Slavery? (155f); Isn’t Christian Influence Over in the West? (190f); and Was the Story of Jesus Fabricated? (214f).
These sections added a conversational dynamic to the book—and lifted its integrity.
George Floyd
Scrivener lives in the contemporary world—and nowhere more so than when he asks why George Floyd’s death affected us so profoundly:
In a sense this whole book is an answer to the question. Floyd’s death gripped us because our moral universe has been birthed out of similar pains. It was an echo of what happened on a hill outside Jerusalem two millennia before: an unarmed victim of oppression; an uncaring authority; a public and humiliating death; and a world that came to see the virtue of the victim and the tyranny of the oppressor. Even Floyd’s cry, “I can’t breathe”, could have been placed on Christ’s lips. As author and tech entrepreneur Antonio Garcia Martinez has said, “The Western mind is like a tuning fork calibrated to one frequency: the Christ story. Hit it with the right Christ figure, and it’ll just hum deafeningly in resonance” (188).
Nones, Dones and Won
Scrivener is clear about the people to whom he writes. Like bookends, he opens with them and then returns to them at the end. The Nones are ‘those with no religious affiliation’; the Dones are ‘those who feel they have moved on from Christianity’; and the Won are ‘those who are Christians already’ (221). He closes with an exhortation to each group.
To the Nones: Don’t Leap (221-224)
Rather, ‘find your feet’. ‘If you say you have no faith, I’ll say, “I don’t believe you” … We are all believers already. We do not need to take a ‘leap of faith’ … What we really need is some ground beneath our feet … Jesus Christ has proved himself to be a foundation for billions. He is solid rock on which to stand.’
To the Dones: Don’t Leave (224-227)
Who doesn’t sympathize with this response? The ‘bad stuff is magnified’, as I said at the beginning—and it needs to be! However there is more going on. There is a song and then there are the singers (John Dickson). The singers can be terrible, but it is the song that holds us. “Open the Gospels and hear the song once again” (227). Then find your way back to be among some ‘weird’ (see below) singers because “We can’t survive with the memory of a tune” (227).
To the Won: Be Weird (221-232)
The church has been potent precisely when it has been peculiar. Anyone standing against the evils of their day—like gladiatorial games, or infanticide, or pederasty, or slavery—was crazy. And they were all the more crazy for the preaching and theology that undergirded such campaigns. Nevertheless they “let [their] light shine before others”, and the peculiar proved to be potent…… People would remark on how Christians were promiscuous with their charitable giving and stingy with their sex lives. Their money was anyone’s but their bodies were not. Such views defied the classifications of their day, and they defy ours too. But they were difficult to pin down because they were not following a political programme. They were not seeking to lean left or right but to follow a call from above: the call of Christ (229, 230).
Not only do I feel some Favourite First Peter thoughts coming on—2.11-12, for starters—Scrivener has equipped me to reflect better both the call to ‘prepare your minds for action’ (1.13) as well as the call to ‘always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have (3.15). Thank-you!
nice chatting
Paul
PS: BTW—the page number font is far too faint and small!
PPS: While I understand his reasons, it is a shame that the arguments are focused on Western society—because the world beyond “the West”, especially the Christian one, would have so many fascinating things to add to this conversation.
About Me

the art of unpacking
After a childhood in India, a theological training in the USA and a pastoral ministry in Southland (New Zealand), I spent twenty years in theological education in New Zealand — first at Laidlaw College and then at Carey Baptist College, where I served as principal. In 2009 I began working with Langham Partnership and since 2013 I have been the Programme Director (Langham Preaching). Through it all I've cherished the experience of the 'gracious hand of God upon me' and I've relished the opportunity to 'unpack', or exegete, all that I encounter in my walk through life with Jesus.
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Now that sounds like an excellent book. It seems to be making a case I've tried to make to politically progressive atheists/agnostics a few times – but much better and bringing in things I certainly don't know. I have ordered a copy from the library, thank you 🙂
Yes, Heather, you will appreciate it.
It is such a fresh perspective, and one you won't hear spoken about in the university or the media. Plus he doesn't descend into the nasty tone of the 'culture wars'…
The should be given to every school-leaving Christian young adult :).
Best wishes — enjoyed seeing you on the telly the other day :). 🙂
Paul
Loved your review, Paul. Will get a copy.
Steve Van Rooy
Best wishes, Steve — enjoy the book