
The Great Return
Jamie Franklin(Author)
John Murray Publishers Ltd
Published on 13. March 2025
Book
Hardback
320 pages
978-1-3998-1492-8 (ISBN)
Description
The decline in Secular Western morality can only be halted and reversed by a full return to Christianity.
Many people have a sense that the Western World is in decline and that our society is fragmenting around us. Many people have an ominous sense that we are living at the end of a civilised age and are moving into something far less pleasant and humane. But fewer people understand why this is happening.
In this new book, Jamie Franklin argues that the reason for this decline is because we have jettisoned the underlying belief system that gave birth to the Western world - and the Western mind - in the first place: Christianity. He argues that there is a logical and inevitable link between the decline of Christianity and the decline of the West.
As our metaphysical commitment to Christianity declines, so does our commitment to the benefits that came to us from Christianity. Through captivating argument, he demonstrates how this plays out in the scientific realm, which has abandoned objectivity for dogmatism; in the ethical realm, which is eliminating humanity from its own formulations; and in the political scene, as it moves away from the democratic principle towards a neo-marxist influenced, nihilistic technocracy that threatens to eliminate human culture, distinctiveness and agency in the pursuit of a globalist utopia.
In so doing, Franklin touches on contemporary political conversations that are exercising the public imagination such as abortion, euthanasia, transhumanism, and the rebirth of the totalitarian impulse in Western democracies.
Only a revival of Christianity can reverse these trends. This book urges the Church to take seriously its own commitment to the metaphysical and ethical presuppositions of its own faith. But also acknowledges the great challenge that Christianity faces as it threatens to be overwhelmed by the rising tide of secular nihilism that may yet engulf the Western World.
Many people have a sense that the Western World is in decline and that our society is fragmenting around us. Many people have an ominous sense that we are living at the end of a civilised age and are moving into something far less pleasant and humane. But fewer people understand why this is happening.
In this new book, Jamie Franklin argues that the reason for this decline is because we have jettisoned the underlying belief system that gave birth to the Western world - and the Western mind - in the first place: Christianity. He argues that there is a logical and inevitable link between the decline of Christianity and the decline of the West.
As our metaphysical commitment to Christianity declines, so does our commitment to the benefits that came to us from Christianity. Through captivating argument, he demonstrates how this plays out in the scientific realm, which has abandoned objectivity for dogmatism; in the ethical realm, which is eliminating humanity from its own formulations; and in the political scene, as it moves away from the democratic principle towards a neo-marxist influenced, nihilistic technocracy that threatens to eliminate human culture, distinctiveness and agency in the pursuit of a globalist utopia.
In so doing, Franklin touches on contemporary political conversations that are exercising the public imagination such as abortion, euthanasia, transhumanism, and the rebirth of the totalitarian impulse in Western democracies.
Only a revival of Christianity can reverse these trends. This book urges the Church to take seriously its own commitment to the metaphysical and ethical presuppositions of its own faith. But also acknowledges the great challenge that Christianity faces as it threatens to be overwhelmed by the rising tide of secular nihilism that may yet engulf the Western World.
Reviews / Votes
Fascinating and articulate ... the positive vision of Christianity presented here is attractive and warm. -- Revd Dr Jeremy Morris * The Church Times *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Hodder & Stoughton
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Trade binding
Illustrations
N/A
Dimensions
Height: 238 mm
Width: 158 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
504 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-3998-1492-8 (9781399814928)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
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Person
Jamie Franklin is the priest in charge at Holy Trinity Church in Winchester, England, and the host of the Irreverend: Faith and Current Affairs podcast, as well as being a husband and father of four. His first book, Charles Taylor and Anglican Theology: Aesthetic Ecclesiology was published in 2021 following his DPhil thesis from the University of Oxford. He has degrees in Theology, Philosophy and English Literature.