Three Books by Dr Sharon James

Over the last few weeks or so I have been reading three books by Sharon James published by Christian Focus. I have tended not to read her earlier books as they are marketed mainly for women. These, however, are for a general audience and they are very good. The small one on gender ideology I read first. We need a helpful guide on what is going on and this serves the purpose well (as does Vaughan Roberts' shorter book, which I have also read). The other two books are bigger and deal with the history of ideas from a positive and negative point of view.

How Christianity transformed the world traces the tremendous force for good that Christianity has been in the areas of freedom, justice, the protection of life, the dignity of women, philanthropy, healthcare, education and the value of work. Few Christians will be surprised at what is said here but to be able to pull thigs together in a convincing but brief and clear narrative is quite a gift.

The lies we are told, the truth we must hold took me back to my student days when I first read books like this, tracing the attacks that have been made on Christianity and its teachings down the years. It was all knew then but is easier to read now that much of it is familiar, although names appear here that I was unaware of, I must confess. The very contents list give you an idea of the ground covered:

1. There is no God and no Absolute Morality (Ludwig Feuerbach 1804–72: God is Just a Comfort Blanket; Charles Darwin 1809–82 Made Atheism Intellectually Possible; Karl Marx 1818–83 Overthrow the Old Society. From Dream to Nightmare: 2. ‘No God’: From Atheism to Death Camps ( Friedrich Nietzsche 1844–1908 No Transcendent Morality; Sigmund Freud 1856–1939 To be Human is to be Sexual; Wilhelm Reich 1897–1957 Father of the Sexual Revolution; Margaret Sanger 1879–1966 Sex as Salvation; Sexual Liberation: Triumph or Tragedy? 3. ‘No Absolute Morality’: From Relativism to Fatherlessness, Five Ways to Destabilize Society. 4. ‘No Universal Truth’: The Death of Common Sense. 5. ‘No Universal Humanity’: Divided We Fall. 6. False Prophets: The Compromised Church. Part Two then deal with The Truth We Must Hold in three further chapters.

Great stuff Dr James.