Book Review – The Air We Breathe – How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality by Glen Scrivener

I would put this in the realm of books of “You should say ‘thank you’ to Christianity”. Scrivener does a good job of walking through a number of different ethical and societal positives that are very much taken for granted today and shows that the original founding for them are traced back to Christianity and Christians working out their Christian faith in God’s world. Areas of medicine, women’s rights, children care, legal aspects, moral causes, etc. have a number of examples shown throughout the book. Even within the scope of sinful people not living up to a perfect standard, Scrivener points not to those who fail but the standard which they are to be judged by and thus showing that being able to point to the standard means we’re able to know when we fall short but it’s a target to know when you hit a bullseye.

Scrivener writes clearly and not overly academic. He states his premesis and uses examples to support his claims. He writes with three group in mind – those who have rejected Christianity, those who might consider it, and those who embrace it. He addresses each group at the beginning and end of the book, however, he doesn’t need to address each group individually throughout, as he lets the topics do the work and throws in some needed clarifications for the “ya, but what about X” arguments.

There are two big blunders that Scrivener falls for. First, there is a portion of the book that talks very glowingly about George Floyd and even likens him to Jesus on the Cross in a small way. It’s a very cringey section but is short and nothing that needs to flatten his presentation. His section on the Crusades, however, is woefully lacking. He makes general claims concerning them and points only to the negative aspects using only a couple of examples. He provides no historical points and assumes everyone reading is against the Crusades already. This comes at a point of the book where he even lovingly chides the reader to possibly holding ahistorical ideas of Christian work in history. This is a big blunder and undercuts his point and allows for another area that could fit a point to his overall thesis well.

Overall, though, this is a really good book with a number of quotes to quote mine from. I believe books like these will assist the next generation in rediscovering true history, the good that Western history has for us, and most importantly, the good that Christianity brings about to God’s world as He designed it and us to do just that.