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Jeffrey Burton Russell, Exposing Myths about Christianity: A Guide to Answering 145 Viral Lies and Legends. Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 2012. Pp. 361. $18.00 paperback.
Historians are getting feisty of late. John Fea has gone after the radio "historians" with Was America Founded a Christian Nation? A Historical Introduction. At the last ASCH meeting I heard the venerable and soft-spoken Peter Brown offer a list of "pet peeves." The whole audience was leaning forward in its chairs as he poked at the dumb things we academics say. With Exposing Myths about Christianity, Jeffrey Russell goes beyond pet peeves to expose all sorts of dumb things that people say about Christianity. He writes as a well respected, much published academic historian, who has heard too many of his colleagues at the faculty club, and too many talking heads on TV, say too many things that make no historical or even common sense. Although he does not have the space in this book to go very deep into each myth he busts, he offers good footnotes for each answer so that readers, whether academics, pastors, or college students, can dig deeper into each issue.
Some of the "viral lies" he deals with are easy targets: "3. Christianity is boring," or "12. Christians are intolerant fanatics." Others are much more substantial: "13Christianity causes more war and suffering than atheism does," or "40. Christian missionaries degraded indigenous cultures." Some are more popular: "54. The...