Keeping It Real

Keep Making the Case with Confidence and Without Fear

In 2007, I was an at-home mom moonlighting as a freelance Christian writer. It was the era of the “New Atheists,” as Wired magazine put it. Atheists had criticized theistic belief before, but according to the new narrative, the September 11 terrorist attacks had demonstrated that religion was not just factually wrong or misguided but that it embodied an existential evil. News media, the blogosphere, and major publishing houses featured strident, brash atheists promoting “science” and “reason” as the way of progress.

I had read Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion (2006) and found his rationale for atheism remarkably flimsy, and I wanted to write an article that would equip Christians to meet this challenge. None of the outlets I approached were interested in an article on atheism. So I googled “apologetics magazines,” and that’s when I discovered Salvo. I rattled off an email to the editor, and my first article appeared in the Winter 2007 issue—Salvo 7, which was devoted to atheism and cheekily titled “Nietzsche is Dead.”

Worldview Bedrock

I share this backstory because I think it exemplifies Salvo’s fearless willingness, nay, eagerness to address cultural issues from the bedrock perspective which holds that (1) truth exists, (2) it can be known, and (3) adopting the biblical worldview is the best way to know it. Furthermore, if these tenets are true, then counternarratives can be rationally interrogated—with confidence and without fear. Ultimately, they can be deconstructed and shown to be false.

For 20 years, Salvo has not just critiqued and dismantled reigning ideologies, such as scientism, Darwinism, and (now) wokeism, but it has also delivered encouraging stories, incisive commentary, and sound reasoning to demonstrate, over all competing narratives, the supremacy of biblical theism, the natural family, science not beholden to naturalism, and the sanctity of every human life from conception to natural death. Arguing from, ahem, “science” and “reason,” Salvo authors have shown that it is the biblical worldview that offers us the real way to progress.

The Real Struggle

And it’s not through politics. Along with vaunting atheism as the “correct” stance, the New Atheists explicitly pushed left-leaning political secularism, even holding “Reason Rallies” on the National Mall in 2012 and 2016 to encourage the “atheist vote.” Well, the new atheism is now passé (even Dawkins has acknowledged Christianity as a social good), but the leftist forces have not let up for one instant. They have only become more strident.

Van Jones recently observed that America is not divided over one issue but rather over dueling narratives about reality. He’s right about that, but not in the way he thinks. He attributes the two sides’ differences to nothing more than siloed news sources and social media feeds. But the Scriptures tell us there is more going on than what we see. There is an ancient spiritual conflict playing out, and we all take part in it, for good or for ill, depending on what—or whom—we choose to worship.

That we may know and worship him properly, the Creator has revealed himself in many ways. As Salvo has done for 20 years, in this final issue our authors show how he has borne witness to his Being and character—in the natural world (“Endowed by Our Creator,” p. 36), in history (“An Exodus Mystery Solved?” p. 22), in the arts (“Art & Soul,” p. 50), and even in our own minds and consciences (“The Missing Melody,” p. 29).

Every generation is vulnerable to exploitation and deception (see pp. 17, 26, and 32), so I pray God be with you as you continue your journey of equipping yourself and others to contend for the faith with confidence and without fear. Thank you for being a part of the Salvo journey.