Full title: Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense
Author: Francis Spufford (1964- )
Year Published: 2013
Book Source: borrowed from the library
Publisher’s summary: “First published in the United Kingdom to great acclaim, Unapologetic is a wonderfully pugnacious defense of Christianity. But it isn’t an argument that Christianity is true—because how could anyone know that (or indeed its opposite)? It’s an argument 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.
“Unhampered by niceness, this 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.” (from Barnes & Noble’s website–because it’s the first bookseller with an “overview” and because I sub-lent the library’s copy to my sister)
Why? I’ve been hearing all sorts of positive press about this one since it released in the UK some months ago. And, in general, I do like overviews, introductions, and/or defenses of Christianity, as long as they’re moderately well written and not too dogmatic about minutiae, so I wanted to try this one.
My thoughts: In many ways, this book is defined by what it isn’t: it’s not an apologetic, it’s not a retelling of the gospel story or introduction to theology, it’s not a memoir, etc. That is to say, of course, it’s partially each of those things, but often contradicts some major aspect of each genre. And that’s great. Genre-bending is grand fun in fiction, but it turns out to be just as marvelous, if not more so, in non-fiction. The author pulls together bits of his own experience, of history, of theology, of the Bible, and of contemporary culture to create an explanation, however fragmentary and partial, of why Christianity works on an emotional level, and for doubters of all sorts, the result is fascinating.
It seems something must be said at the outset about Spufford’s style in this book: it’s primarily conversational, occasionally combative, prone equally to lyric description and profane outbursts, and entirely individual. I’ve not yet read any of his other works (The Child That Books Built has been on the radar a while), so I can’t say whether he’s adopted the style to suit the material or framed the material to suit his style, but the whole works together well. Yes, it’s mildly irreverent, but not unsuitably so. His narrative trick of pulling up suddenly and addressing a likely reader response–often of incredulity or consternation–is reminiscent of Capon’s in Kingdom, Grace, Judgment and is just as unsettlingly prescient and compelling.
Perhaps because of his background as a contemporary British Anglican, Spufford does glide a little too eagerly for my taste over some tricky issues–like hell, biblical inerrancy/infallibility, and homosexuality–which haven’t yet reached the level of majority consensus (at least here in the US) and some of which I’m personally hesitant about. His breeziness on these topics doesn’t seem intended to minimize others’ discomfort and uncertainty, but does make a little lighter of serious disagreements than I’d personally prefer. That’s not a major criticism, however, as sometimes it’s nice to just put aside the controversy and steam ahead, one way or another.
A strength of this book is its intentionally novel approach to “apologetics,” arguing Christianity’s merits based on emotion, rather than reason and evidence. Yes, Spufford can’t help but use logic (especially in putting aside atheist arguments against God and the miraculous), but he understands and clarifies that Christianity is rarely if ever accepted on the overwhelming rightness of its facts. One might go so far as to say that ideologies and religions in general aren’t as much valued on facts as their believers suppose, but Spufford doesn’t go there much. Rather, he explains how the story of Jesus and the religion that developed from it fill the requirements of a “grown-up” religion on an emotional level–and that that’s enough for many of us.
Spufford also shines in reinterpreting and encapsulating broader concepts, like sin, which becomes (quite helpfully) “the Human Propensity to F— Things Up” or the HPtFTU for short. Similarly, the good news of Christ is given as the fact that “far more can be mended than you know,” a lovely phrase comfortingly reminiscent of Julian of Norwich’s “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” God the Father is often characterized as “shining” in and through reality, and the whole of the chapter retelling the life of “Yeshua” is lovely and just new enough to do very well.
Basically, I expected to like Unapologetic, and I really did. From others’ responses I’ve read, it seems agnostics can find it just as compelling a read as Christians; I suspect they’d actually enjoy it more than the more conservative sort of believer, but no doubt responses would depend on expectations and all the little idiosyncrasies of the reader. I would, though, highly recommend the book to just about everyone.
In short: A lovely and spirited look at the emotional value of Christianity in the midst of doubt.