Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris - British edition

Bookmarker cards like this one, advertising Sam's book, will be inserted in future reprintings of The God Delusion.

Foreword by Richard Dawkins

Sam Harris doesn't mess about. He writes directly to his Christian reader as 'you', and he pays 'you' the compliment of taking your beliefs seriously: " . . . if one of us is right, the other is wrong . . . in the fullness of time, one side is really going to win this argument, and the other is really going to lose." But you don't (as I can personally understate) have to fit the 'you' profile in order to enjoy this marvellous little book. Every word zings like an elegantly fletched arrow from a taut bowstring and flies in a gracefully swift arc to the target, where it thuds into the bullseye.

If you are part of the target, I dare you to read this book. It will be a salutary test of your faith. Survive Sam Harris's barrage, and you can take on the world with equanimity. But forgive my scepticism: Harris never misses, not with a single sentence, which is why his short book is so disproportionately devastating. If you already share Harris's and my doubts about religious faith and are not part of his target, this book will powerfully arm you to argue against those who are. Or you may be Christian and still not part of the target. This book freely admits that there are Christians who take, as they would see it, a more nuanced view:

. . . liberal and moderate Christians will not always recognize themselves in the 'Christian' I address. They should, however, recognize many of their neighbors—and more than one hundred and fifty million Americans.

And that's the point. It was the menace of those hundred and fifty millions that provoked this book. If your religious beliefs are so vague and nebulous that even well aimed arrows bounce off unnoticed, Harris is not writing for you directly. But you should still care about the emergency that concerns him – and me. Where I, as a scientific educator, am dismayed by the 50 percent of the American population who believe the world is 6000 years old (an error equivalent to believing that the distance from New York to San Francisco is shorter than a cricket pitch), Sam Harris is at least as urgently concerned with other beliefs held by roughly the same 50 percent:

It is, therefore, not an exaggeration to say that if London, Sydney, or New York were suddenly replaced by a ball of fire, some significant percentage of the American population would see a silver lining in the subsequent mushroom cloud, as it would suggest to them that the best thing that is ever going to happen was about to happen: the return of Christ. It should be blindingly obvious that beliefs of this sort will do little to help humanity create a durable future for itself—socially, economically, environmentally, or geopolitically. Imagine the consequences if any significant component of the U.S. government actually believed that the world was about to end and that its ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes this, purely on the basis of religious dogma, should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency.

The 'Christian Nation' for whom the book was originally written is, of course, the United States. But it would be complacent folly for us to dismiss it as a purely American problem. The USA, at least, is protected by Jefferson's enlightened wall of separation between church and state. Religion is part of Britain's historic establishment, while at this moment our most pious political leadership since Gladstone is hell bent on supporting 'faith schools'. And not just the traditional Christian schools, be it noticed, for our government, egged on by an heir to the throne who wishes to be known as 'Defender of Faith', is actively sympathetic towards the 'us-too' bleatings of other 'faith communities', eager for state subsidy for the indoctrination of their children. Would it be possible to design a more divisive educational formula? More importantly, the world's only superpower is close to domination by electors who believe the entire universe began after the domestication of the dog, and believe that they will be personally 'raptured' up to heaven within their own lifetime, followed by an Armageddon welcomed as harbinger of the Second Coming. Even from this side of the Atlantic, Sam Harris's phrase, 'moral and intellectual emergency' begins to look like an understatement.

I began by saying that Sam Harris doesn't mess about. One of his points is that none of us can afford to. Letter to a Christian Nation will stir you. Whether it stirs you to defensive or offensive action, it will not leave you unchanged. Read it if it is the last thing you do. And hope that it won't be.