Topping the nonfiction lists at present is Oxford Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion. Dawkins is up front about the purpose of his book: "If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down". The marketing team should have considered a warning label!
More than anything, The God Delusion is a self-help book for those who wish to escape their religious upbringing and enter into the "freedom' of unbelief. Dawkins is serious about developing a "church' for atheists; he provides an appendix of organizations around the world to which apostates can turn for support.
Dawkins provides a checklist of reasons for being an atheist, devoting a chapter to each, thus: none of the traditional philosophical arguments for God's existence seem to work; Darwin's theory of evolution really does explain the entire universe; religions are simply cultural clusters of information ("memes') that evolve in the same way as genes; morality has no basis in theism, and the Bible in fact leads to great immorality, oppression and unhappiness.
There are, to my mind, convincing rebuttals to all of Dawkins's claims against theism. He tends to make emotionally manipulative, philosophically under-developed and theologically naïve appeals on atheism's behalf, all the while refusing to respond to some of the best arguments for theism (although, admittedly, he does a good job of pointing out some weaknesses in the Intelligent Design movement).
Furthermore, he is not a neutral observer of religious arguments. He has a worldview that he wants to promote "” he even constructs his own Ten Commandments (pp.263-4). Dawkins's "religion' can be assessed and accepted or rejected by readers on its own terms.
Christians must be careful not to respond in kind to this book. It is so belligerent and self-assured in tone that Dawkins will shoot himself in the foot with many readers. Christians must respond with graciousness, humility and honesty, avoiding the obvious "Dawkins is a dork" style of response.
As with The Da Vinci Code, think of this book as a wonderful opportunity to clarify in the public square what it is that makes us Christians.
