The Christian Century reviews two recent books by that one-man publishing house N.T. Wright.

Our parish curate warmly recommended Simply Christian, the Mere Christianity of the 21st century if reports are to be believed. Of course, Wright and Lewis are very different thinkers speaking to very different audiences.

The reviewer, Samuel Wells, writes:

I’m generally wary of apologetics because it tends to portray a faith rather different from the life actually lived by Christians and often implies that one can have Jesus without church. I’m largely persuaded by Karl Barth’s claim that the best apologetics is good dogmatics. Wright, however, uses his opening themes as appetizers, rather than as interrogators whose demands must be met. He allows Christianity to speak for itself rather than forcing it to address issues that have a supposedly more significant or comprehensive origin, such as “the human condition.” This is stylistically impressive and disarmingly persuasive.

This description seems to position Wright in a broadly “post-liberal,” “post-modern,” “ecclesial” stream of Christianity. Lewis, meanwhile, was attempting to argue on modern atheism’s own turf of rationalism, at least in some of his apologetic works. I’m not as convinced as some that the modern Enlightenment moment has passed, so there may still be a need for that kind of apologetics (though not one that simply repeats Lewis’s arguments).