The Air We Breathe (audiobook)

It is not necessary to be a Christian to appreciate the force of Glen Scrivener’s argument in this punchy, engaging and entertaining book.

Brilliant, fascinating, readable and winsome! Glen Scrivener’s The Air We Breathe powerfully demonstrates how Christianity has shaped our Western values so much that we don’t even notice it. Highly recommended for skeptics, inquirers, believers, doubters and anyone wondering whether following Jesus still makes sense in the modern world.

The Air We Breathe is a pithy, energetic and compelling exploration of how Christianity has formed our moral thinking—whether we realize it or not—and why the truth or falsehood of Christianity matters for all of us today. Whatever your current beliefs, I highly recommend you give Glen Scrivener a hearing!

The Air We Breathe is a tour de force. Compressing 2,000 years of Western history into a couple of hundred pages, Glen has provided a brilliant summary of why the moral vision of the West is still fundamentally shaped by the Christian revolution. This is a must-read for any intellectually engaged person who is committed to human rights, compassion and progress but hasn’t yet been introduced to the one who inspired the values they believe in.

A really excellent book. The last time I read apologetics this compelling, it was by CS Lewis.

Secular Westerners reject Christian belief while feasting on its fruit. Whether the subject is enlightenment or equality, compassion or consent, science or freedom or progress, our neighbors have Christianity to thank for the values they cherish. This argument is provocative, and demonstrably true. Building on groundbreaking historical scholarship, Glen Scrivener has made a case that cannot be ignored. This is one of the most important books I’ve read in a long time

Glen Scrivener has done us a great favour. He has taken lengthy, scholarly (and sometimes boring) history tomes and transposed their ideas into something exciting, crystal clear, and almost impossible to put down. His central thesis is that our contemporary “secular” beliefs about equality, compassion, sexual consent and even progress all ultimately derive from the Christian faith. This thesis is not so controversial in learned circles, but with a few more books like it may soon become common knowledge. I hope this book is very widely read.

A riveting, compelling and refreshing read. Glen bottles the air of the centuries (millennia, even), distilling it into this well-researched, short, snappy read. The Air We Breathe is a thoughtful excavation of seven values at the heart of our society and where they came from. It sparkles with Glen’s characteristically poetic storytelling, while incisively capturing abstract concepts and grounding them in historical and contemporary cultural examples. I enjoyed reading this book, and I look forward to sharing it with others.

We long for justice, freedom, and equality. We believe that each and every human being—no matter how rich or poor, powerful or weak—deserves fairness, dignity and respect. But where does this vision come from? Why are we so zealous for it? What if our values aren’t as self-evident as we think they are? This is why Glen Scrivener’s The Air We Breathe is a must-read for anyone who benefits from being WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic). This book will give us the basis for our shared vision. It will give us the story behind our values. By reading this book, we will humbly acknowledge the Composer from whose songsheet we’re singing.

This is such a well-written, captivating book; I could barely put it down. Glen shows us that human rights, equality and justice have been ludicrous and offensive notions for most of history. These notions hold sway today only because the Christian world view won. Don’t believe it? Read the book.

We are so accustomed to both Christianity and the criticisms of Christianity that we often forget the great blessings the Christian religion has brought to the world. Whether you need to be reminded of these gifts or to unwrap them for the first time, this book will challenge, encourage and enlighten you.

Here is a fascinating, persuasive and urgently needed book. Glen presents the Christian cultural legacy as not only positive but so deeply ingrained in us that, without realising it, we often use it to attack what we dislike about ‘Christianity’. Glen also shows, by implication, what we stand to lose by Christianity’s erosion. Typically, however, he brings our attention back to the ‘author and perfecter’, Jesus Christ, asserting the simple (and maybe hard-to-face) conclusion that so much of what we know and love comes from him!

Before the pandemic, like almost everyone else in London, I read Yuval Harari’s Sapiens. I was troubled by his cynical story of where we come from; even with my background in neuroscience, I found the reductionism unpersuasive. Glen Scrivener argues that our modern culture, and most of the values we hold dear, originated somewhere else entirely. Love him or hate him, the teachings of Jesus Christ have infused the air we breathe more than we know. A brilliant book.

Dickens’ classic novel turns on the moment when its hero, Pip finds out that the criminal, Magwitch, had been his sole benefactor—a man whom he’d always thought of as just a convict was actually his patron! He had despised and dismissed the man, who had in fact given him a life. This book will provide a similar turning point for many. In a riveting sweep through culture, modern and ancient history, theology and philosophy, Glen Scrivener reveals a Christian inheritance which, to our great shame, we have also despised and dismissed. Even for me as a pastor, I found it caused a paradigm shift in terms of such values as equality and compassion, freedom and progress. A must-read if we want to crack the code of what’s going on in our culture.

Fascinating and eye-opening, this is a book full of insight for our time. And more: it comes bursting with hope. Wonderful stuff!