Excerpt from Saving Leonardo : 

In our own day, the evolutionary worldview has filtered down through all levels of society. In 2005 the London Zoo offered a provocative exhibit with a sign that read: “Warning: Humans in their Natural Environment.” The exhibit featured men and women dressed in bathing suits with green fig leaves attached.

The humans cavorted, posed on the rocks, and pretended to groom like baboons, picking parasites out of one another’s hair. Several children were heard asking, “Why are there people in there?” That’s exactly the question the zoo was hoping to spark, a spokeswoman replied: “Seeing people in a different environment, among other animals . . . teaches members of the public that the human is just another primate.”

What are the implications of seeing humans as “just another primate”? Even Hollywood actresses know the answer to that question. In an interview, Scarlett Johansson was once asked to respond to rumors that she had a reputation for being sexually promiscuous.

Her reply was unfiltered naturalism: Humans are merely biological organisms and therefore the practice of monogamy -- being sexually faithful to one person -- is just not natural. “I do think on some basic level we are animals,” Johansson said, “and by instinct we kind of breed accordingly.”

Actress Sienna Miller was more caustic. “Monogamy is . . . an overrated virtue,” she told Rolling Stone, “because, let’s face it, we’re f------ animals.”

Obviously, Darwinian evolution is not just a scientific theory. It has worldview implications that percolate from classic literature down to Hollywood and into our living rooms.

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Readers of The Pearcey Report may be interested know that I will be speaking at the Southwest Conference on Christianity and Literature on the campus of Houston Baptist University on Friday at 2:15. My talk draws on themes from Saving Leonardo and is titled, "Recovering Our Virtue: Does Dickens Succeed in Overcoming the Fact/Value Split in Hard Times?"

In the novel Hard Times Dickens is doing battle with philosophies like empiricism and utilitarianism, which had come to dominate the public sphere of politics and economics. Writing at the height of the industrial revolution, Dickens realized that the impact of these philosophies was reductionistic and dehumanizing, and he raises the question: In an age where Truth has been identified solely with empirical fact, what is the truth status of Goodness and Beauty?

Dickens knew that the outstanding philosopher of utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill, had undergone a personal crisis (related in Saving Leonardo). He recasts Mill's story as the plot line in the novel.

Here is a brief preview of my remarks:

When John Stuart Mill was born, his father was close friends with Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism. They decided to turn the boy into a kind of experiment: They would educate him from a young age to become a prophet for their utilitarian creed.

And it worked. As a young man, Mill was brilliant. He was writing for professional journals, he had founded several intellectual societies, and he was heralded as the crown prince of an influential utilitarian movement in politics.

But at the age of twenty, Mill suffered a mental crisis. As he wrote in his Autobiography, it came crashing down on him that he had been turned into little more than a "reasoning machine." He felt he had been robbed of entire dimensions of life.

So intense was Mill's depression that he compared himself with someone on the threshold of a religious conversion. Yet he did not find a resolution to his crisis in religion. Instead, he found it in poetry. His depression lifted when he discovered the poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the other Romantics.

Now, however, he was faced with a dilemma. The discovery of poetry and beauty had saved his life. But his philosophy did not allow for any form of truth except the empirical and the quanitfiable.

How would Mill resolve the conflict?

And how would Dickens resolve the conflict in his fictional treatment of the same issues? Most importantly, how can we stand against the inhumane reductionism and scientism of our own age and assert once again that Goodness and Beauty are rooted in Truth?

According to the conference website, online registration "is $85 per professional ($95 at the door) or $55 per graduate student ($65 at the door) and includes the Friday dinner meal. In addition, all registrants must be current members of Conference on Christianity and Literature. The membership rates are $35 per year or $60 for two years."

On the topic of conferences, Rick and I are excited to announce that we are developing plans for conferences where together we address the critical challenges of our day, in light of the liberating and reality-oriented principles set forth in the Judeo-Christian worldview. Stayed tuned for updates on this initiative.

Gently Mad says:

"I rank this book right up with anything C.S. Lewis wrote and as a sequel to Francis Schaeffer's book, How Should We Then Live?"

Don't miss musician, composer, and writer Terry Yount's thoughtful review of Saving Leonardo, published on the website of Ligonier Ministries.

And not just Nancy because of her more than 100,000-copies selling book Total Truth: Liberating Christianity From Its Cultural Captivity ("Wonderful" book, says Bachmann), but also Francis Schaeffer because of his work, including the 10-part film series How Should We Then Live? and his book A Christian Manifesto.

Equally as dangerous as Total Truth, I would suggest, and perhaps even more so, is Nancy's new book Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning. I hope Michele and Marcus Bachmann put this new rascal on their reading and thinking list. But don't let the teenagers get ahold of it!

So who is Nancy? Not mentioned in the New Yorker is that Bachmann once told me, by phone, when Bachmann was a Minnesota state senator and considering a run for Congress, that she had two heroes: "Ann Coulter and Nancy Pearcey."

Nancy is a former agnostic, who, like me, embraces critical thinking as a way of life. This too is, perhaps to some, seen as dangerous and even subversive. To us, it's simply being human and taking responsibility for one's ideas and one's choices in life. I think Camus might have liked that. I like Camus; he played soccer, like me.

For some reason, the so-called elite establishments in politics and media seem frightfully worried about the resurgence of a people who can live and think for themselves.

We're not afraid of the big questions, and we're not bigoted toward possible rational answers to the big questions, even if, as the Founding Fathers noticed, the possible answers involve taking seriously the subversive and liberating influence of the Creator.

This divine subversion, as you may recall, upset the reactionary, non-critical-thinking establishment of its own day. Imagine, those extremist tea-partiers actually had the audacity to write it up in the Declaration of Independence (is that document still legal in New Yorker land?). By the way, here is the, sadly, all-too-predictable New Yorker hit piece on Bachmann. Enjoy!

Rivendell Sanctuary faculty member Nancy Pearcey will join Hank Hanegraaff tomorrow on his "Bible Answer Man" radio program.

Listen here at 6 pm Eastern for a discussion of "Sex, Lies, and Secularism" in relation to Nancy's new book Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning. 

And given that a lengthy, snarky New Yorker article on Michele Bachmann is now quoting Bachmann as saying Nancy's book Total Truth is "wonderful," don't be surprised if a little politics enters into the discussion, as well.

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The Valley Girl Apologist explains all, including what every pastor needs to do.

I didn't realize you could download Kindle at Amazon for free to your PC. So I did that last night and bought Saving Leonardo!

It's terrific to be able to access both the text and the more than 100 images online. I also like the search function, which should make studying Saving Leonardo all the more accessible.

I also bought Christianity and Liberalism, by the great J. Gresham Machen -- for $00.99 (yep, 99 cents!).

Instead of $26.99, Saving Leonardo is available via Kindle at Amazon for $3.99.

To find out why, check out this interview with best-selling author Nancy Pearcey, which appears at byFaith. Here's how the interview begins: 

In her latest book, Saving Leonardo, author Nancy Pearcey argues that secularism is destructive and dehumanizing. 

She illustrates how artists, writers, scientists, and moviemakers shape the culture’s thinking.

And she depicts how, throughout history, philosophy, science, art, literature, and film have fortified or undermined mankind’s concept of liberty.

Here, byFaith speaks with Pearcey about the relationship between worldview and the institutions that shape culture. 

Richard Weikart is professor of history at California State University, Stanislaus. See his review of Saving Leonardo in Touchstone magazine. And here is his homepage.

In "Poured Concrete for the Soul," Dan Peterson at American Spectator says Saving Leonardo is an "ambitious, synoptic undertaking, but Pearcey traces cause and effect deftly and clearly, without any sacrifice of nuance or accuracy. The breadth of learning that she brings to bear is formidable."

Peterson shows an appreciation of the cultural and moral scope of Saving Leonardo: 

Although a great portion of the book discusses the arts, in one sense that is not her real subject at all. Her subject is the intellectual underpinnings of Western society over the past 250 years, how those underpinnings have radically shifted, and how those shifts affect -- well, everything, including not just the arts, but culture, morals, and even our concepts of truth and reality. Art mirrors underlying beliefs, and is a harbinger of where those beliefs are taking us. In recent times, the news has not been good.

I am glad Peterson notes that the scope of Saving Leonardo includes a concern for human freedom and dignity, two foundational elements of a free and civil society that secularism does not have the intellectual or spiritual resources to sustain. He writes:

The book is in no sense a dispassionate history of the rise of secularism in society or in the arts. In an age drenched in false ideas, Pearcey's avowed goal is to help her readers "recognize and resist secular ideas in science, philosophy, ethics, the arts and humanities." Thinkers and artists have in recent times created "worldviews that undermine human dignity and liberty," and the only hope, she argues, lies in a worldview that is "rationally defensible, life affirming, and rooted in creation itself."

Peterson's thoughtful review also appears in the hardcopy February 2011 issue of American Spectator. In other magazine news, an article in The Economist recently described Nancy Pearcey as "America's pre-eminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual."

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According to his blog, Donald McConnell teaches "Legal Institutions and Values" at Trinity Law School. Here is his review of Saving Leonardo.

They're discussing Saving Leonardo at the Providence Presbyterian Church in Sugar Land, Texas.

"In January the class begins a new discussion on Secularism and Christian Worldview with Saving Leonardo:  A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, & Meaning by Nancy Pearcey.  Copies are available from Pastor McCall," says the church website.

Nancy is scheduled to be interviewed by Stephanie Kay on Faith Radio today at 1:00 pm (eastern time).

Listen online here.

Julia Duin in The Economist:

Not long ago I was covering the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, a wildly popular event hosted by Jon Stewart and Steve Colbert that drew well over 200,000 people to the Washington Mall. The gathering was decidedly odd -- two faux newscasters had organised a semi-faux rally. . . . 
 
In an effort to make intellectual sense of this, I turned to a new book by Nancy Pearcey, America's pre-eminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual.

Her new book, Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning, presents a case for Christianity as the best counterweight to the secular, anti-God views of Western culture. . . .

Always an independent thinker, Nancy is a former agnostic who grew to appreciate the intellectual honesty and personal integrity of another former agnostic, the great thinker Francis Schaeffer, who with his wife, Edith, founded L'Abri Fellowship in Switzerland in 1955.

"Reviewers in evangelical magazines who lionise Schaeffer," Duin concludes with a note of wonderment, "have ignored or downplayed Ms Pearcey's book. That's a shame."

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Press Release for "Saving Leonardo"

Nancy will join nationally syndicated radio talk show host Jim Bohannon on air tonight at 10 p.m. eastern.

Here is a station finder for local listening in your area. To listen live online, go here.

Nancy's new book is titled Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, & Meaning.

Secularism Rebuffed: Read Jim Fletcher's review of Nancy's Saving Leonardo at WorldNetDaily.

Editor Jason Mattera has asked Nancy to write a column for Human Events, and she has happily agreed. Begin looking for Nancy's bi-weekly pieces starting the week of November 8.

Human Events recently published a 6-part series that Nancy wrote based on her new book Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, & Meaning. More on this series series here or here.

In a column titled, "Should Secularism Be Taught in Public Schools?" Nancy rejects the "dictates of political correctness" and argues that "no 'ism' should be privileged" in the public schools.

And that includes secularism, which is "radically dehumanizing" and undercuts the "worldview that inspired the American Founders, who maintained that human rights are 'endowed' by the Creator."

Far better, she writes, if students are encouraged to think through and examine for themselves the truth-claims of the competing "isms" we face in society today. Nancy explains how to proceed: 

Every system of thought, to be taken seriously, must address the same fundamental questions: What is ultimate reality? What is human nature? What is the basis for morality? And so on. Using the neutral term worldview creates a level playing field that allows for objective contrast and comparison.

"Open debate encourages students to become genuinely critical thinkers," Nancy concludes. "Only free minds can create free societies."

For more on why and how secularism ought to be resisted, please see Nancy's new book, Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, & Meaning.

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CNSNews Editor in Chief Terry Jeffrey interviews Saving Leonardo author Nancy Pearcey on "art, politics, and culture." Here's the interview.

Saving Leonardo, by Nancy Pearcey, "is stunning on several levels," writes Byron Borger of Hearts and Minds.

Nancy is scheduled to discuss Saving Leonardo on the Dennis Prager radio show this Thursday, October 7, at 1:00 pm, Eastern.

To listen live online, click here.

Nancy will discuss Saving Leonardo on the "Chris Fabry Live" radio show today 4:00 pm-5:00 pm, Eastern.

To find a Moody Radio station near you, go here. To listen live online, click here.

Join Nancy tonight at 9:07 pm, eastern, on "The Other Side With Charles Butler." This program airs on WVON, "The Talk of Chicago."

Want to call the show? In-state callers can dial: 773-591-1690. Out-of-state listeners only can call toll free 877-591-1690 or 866-591-1690.

To listen online, click here.

Nancy is scheduled to appear on "The Norm Jones Show" this morning at 10:35, eastern time. Please see additional details below:

Station: WTCM-AM, NewsTalk 580
Date: Monday, September 20
Time: 10:35 am, Eastern
Location: Traverse City, Northern Michigan
To Listen Online, Click Here

To catch Nancy on-air tomorrow to discuss her new book Saving Leonardo, please see the broadcast details for Thursday, September 16, below:

Coastal Daybreak with Ben Ball
Time: 8:45 am eastern
Date: Thurs., September 16
Station: WTKF-FM/WJNC-AM
Call the Show: 1-800-818-2255
To Listen Online, click here

Joy Cardin Show, Wisconsin Public Radio
Time: 9:00 am eastern
Date: Thurs., September 16
Call the Show: 1-800-642-1234
To Listen Online, click here and then click on any link under the "WPR's Ideas Network" that best fits your bandwidth and preferences

Update: If the above online link to listen does not work, this is.

ABQ Connect
Time: 3:00 pm eastern
Date: Thurs., September 16
Station: KNKT 107.1FM
To Listen Online, click here

"Hot Air" TV -- Ed Morrissey
Time: 3:30 pm eastern
Date: Thurs., September 16
To Listen and View Online, click here.
Note: "Hot Air" was launched in April 2009 by founder and CEO Michelle Malkin.

Pearcey Report editor at large Nancy Pearcey is writing a series of columns for Human Events based on her new book Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning.

"Secular Values No Defense Against Mosque" is the first of these columns, published today.

Nancy is scheduled to appear on the nationally syndicated Phil Valentine radio show today at 4:35 pm, eastern.

You can listen online here. To call the show, dial 1-800-618-7445 (here is the website).

Nancy will discuss Saving Leonardo on the "Rick Hamada Program," based in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Time: 12:10 pm
Date: September 13
Website: Rick Hamada Program, KHVH 830-AM  

To listen live, click here. To call the show toll free, dial 1-888-565-8388.

Today: Nancy is scheduled to discuss Saving Leonardo with talk show host Bob Dutko at 1:00 this afternoon.

Here is the website of the WMUZ 103.5 fm. Please click here to listen live online.

Radio talk show host and Fox News contributor Dennis Miller's interview with Nancy Pearcey on Saving Leonardo is set to begin today at 11:06 am, eastern.

Here is Miller's website.

To listen locally, here is a station finder. To listen live, click here.

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Michelle Malkin writes:

Shhhhhhh, we're told. Don't protest the Ground Zero mosque. Don't burn a Koran. It'll imperil the troops. It'll inflame tensions. The "Muslim world" will "explode" if it does not get its way, warns sharia-peddling imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Pardon my national security-threatening impudence, but when is the "Muslim world" not ready to "explode"?

Comment: Violence, even if couched in appeals to tolerance, is the logical endgame of any "faith" (religious, political, scientific, or philosophical) that has carved out for itself an enclave that is untouchable by reason, evidence, and the need to correspond to life in the real world.

Such "faith" is the application of coercion, up to and including physical violence, by other means. Such "faith," as a mere "value statement," is anti-mind, anti-freedom, anti-Man, and anti-God.

It is either the self-inflicted violence of irrational commitment or the other-inflicted violence of hand-grenades and jets into skyscrapers. And politicians, including U.S. presidents, who buy into such a faith will find themselves setting up a machinery of oppression to protect their power from facts, questions, checks and balances, and other legitimate protections against abuse.

In contrast is the openness to verification, and therefore the humanity, of the Founding vision as expressed in the Declaration and safeguarded in the Constitution.  It is a vision of human beings as individuals called to think and act on the basis of that which is true to reality, not as a blind leap, but as a commitment of the whole person on the basis sufficient, verifiable information.

This provides an adequate philosophic basis for both intellectual and political freedom. Apart from it is the kind of personal, intellectual, and cultural fragmentation, and therefore, weakness, Nancy Pearcey has written about in the just-published Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning.

Consistent with the Declaration worldview, this humane vision is rooted ultimately not in "religious" "values," blind matter, impersonal nature, nor in an absolute eternal nothingness that burps alien human beings into existence by chance, but in a knowable Creator who thinks, acts, and feels, and who acts into verifiable history so that free-thinking individuals can evaluate competing truth-claims (in religion, politics, science, or philosophy) for their fidelity to reason and fact and for their ability to explain the phenomena under question.

Tolerance apart from truth is slavery.

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Yessiree, ladies and gentlemen, at "Dennis's Oprah's Book Club" both Total Truth and Amazon "mover and shaker" Saving Leonardo are featured at the top of the heap. Part of the runup to Nancy's interview with the Miller Man tomorrow morning (stay tune for further details).

And what does that make Sir Dennis? Clearly, a Patriot. Make that a double Patriot. Now go tell O'Reilly.

If you too want to be a Patriot, please contact Katie Morgan of the Pinkston Group to inquire about scheduling radio or TV interviews with Nancy Pearcey (Katie's phone: 703-260-1915; email: morgan@pinkstongroup.com).

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I didn't know Amazon ranked these things, but yesterday Saving Leonardo was ranked 1,457 on Amazon, and today (thus far) it has climbed to 355.

This is a rise of 310%, placing Saving Leonardo at the No. 3 spot on Amazon's list of "Movers and Shakers" in books. Nancy and I thank all of you for your interest in Saving Leonardo.

If you would like to book Nancy Pearcey for a radio or TV interview, please contact Katie Morgan of the Pinkston Group (phone: 703-260-1915; email: morgan@pinkstongroup.com).

Radio talk show host and Fox News contributor Dennis Miller (with a regular O'Reilly "Miller Time" gig) is set to interview best-selling author Nancy Pearcey of Saving Leonardo tomorrow morning, Friday, September 10, during the 11 o'clock hour, eastern time. Details to follow.

If you would like to book Nancy Pearcey for a radio or TV interview, please contact Katie Morgan of the Pinkston Group (phone: 703-260-1915; email: morgan@pinkstongroup.com).

Here's the link to listen online. Nancy is scheduled to discuss Saving Leonardo during the 10 am hour today.

Nancy is scheduled to discuss her new book Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, & Meaning at 7:30-7:50 am (eastern) on Thursday, September 9. 

Here is the website for Bill Bennett's "Morning in America."

You can find a local station here. Or listen online here. You can call the show at 1-866-680-6464.

Update: Listen online here instead.

Nancy is scheduled to appear with Fox News Anchor Lauren Green at 10:45 am eastern tomorrow (September 3) on "God Talk," an online TV program broadcast on the Fox News website.

Topic: Saving Leonardo. Here is Lauren Green's Facebook page.

Nancy will discuss her new book Saving Leonardo today on Point of View radio, from 2-4 p.m. eastern time. Click here to listen online.

Today marks the beginning of "Launch Week" for Nancy's Saving Leonardo.

We look forward to seeing some of you at the U.S. Capitol Vistors Center at noon today. And we will do our best to keep you updated on interviews, media appearances, and other goings-on regarding this new book, which is a "call to resist the secular assault on mind, morals, and meaning." 

Thanks to all for the great interest and support we've already received for Saving Leonardo.

Nancy will be speaking at a "Faith and Law" event in the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center on September 1, the date of the release of her new book Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, & Meaning.

In addition to discussing central themes from Saving Leonardo, Nancy will provide a sampling of the book's more than 100 images, from art and popular culture, specificially chosen to give readers a window into the impact of secular worldviews, for good or ill, in our individual lives, upon questions of human freedom and dignity, and thus across the whole of society. 

For more information about Saving Leonardo, please see this press release.

Here are event details:

Date: Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010
Time: Noon
Location: U.S. Capitol Visitors Center, HVC 201
Phone: 703-425-2404

We are pleased to release the following press statement for Nancy's new book, Saving Leonardo: 

SAVING LEONARDO

NEW BOOK SOUNDS THE ALARM THAT SECULAR IDEOLOGIES ARE DESTROYING HUMAN DIGNITY AND FREEDOM

Bestselling author Nancy Pearcey issues a call to resist
the secular assault on mind, morals, and meaning

In Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning, best-selling author Nancy Pearcey, herself a former agnostic, offers an unflinching analysis of the profound personal and social devastation wreaked by secularism all across American life -- from the classroom to the courtroom, from the pulpit to the playground, from the boardroom to the White House.

“Because the word secular is the opposite of religious, many assume that the rise of secularism is a problem for religious groups only,” Pearcey says. “Not so. When politics loses its moral dimension, we all lose. When public discourse is debased, the entire society suffers.”  

In this riveting account, Pearcey exposes the stealth secularism that permeates society through education, media, politics, art, literature, and movies. Saving Leonardo reveals

• How the ruling elites use secular strategies to override the will of the American people;
• How art, literature, movies, and media channel secular worldviews deeply into people’s minds and emotions through stories and images;
• How cutting-edge moral issues like abortion, homosexuality, and the hook-up culture are shaped by secular worldviews that denigrate and disrespect the human body;
• How two major forces within secularism have created a pincer movement crushing human dignity and liberty.

With more than 100 colorful images from the classical Greeks to Van Gogh, from Camus to Scarlett Johansson, you will “see” secular ideas unfold in fresh and surprising ways.

Finally, Saving Leonardo argues that the best hope lies in a worldview that is rationally defensible, life affirming, and rooted in creation itself. As the Declaration of Independence puts it, human rights are secure only when a society respects them as unalienable givens endowed by the Creator.

In a culture where the center is deconstructed and character is disintegrating, Saving Leonardo offers an inspiring program to recover freedom and dignity -- one that no free-thinking person can afford to ignore.

Praise for Saving Leonardo

“A feast for the mind and the eye” -- Makoto Fujimura, artist, author

“Balanced, fair, impactful” -- Cal Thomas, syndicated columnist, author

“Intellectual prophet” -- J.P. Moreland, philosopher, author of The Question of God

“Astounding” -- James W. Sire, author of The Universe Next Door

“Brilliant” -- Gene Edward Veith, author, Provost, Patrick Henry College

“Unsurpassed” -- Leland Ryken, professor of English, Wheaton College

“May be Nancy’s best book yet, and that’s saying something” -- David Limbaugh, syndicated columnist, author

Praise for Nancy Pearcey

“One of the most profound writers today” -- Ted Baehr, founder, Movieguide

“A mind like a jewel” -- Lael Arrington, author, Worldproofing Your Kids

“An author of unusual ability” -- Phillip E. Johnson, author, professor emeritus, Berkeley

About the Author

When it comes to Nancy's new book Saving Leonardo, you can literally "check it out" at the Kenton County Public Library in Kenton County, KY, located in the Greater Cincinnati area.

Kenton County is named after Simon Kenton, a longtime friend of frontiersman Daniel Boone.

It seems fitting to note the appearance of Saving Leonardo in Kenton County. Just as the county's namesake helped blaze a trail through the Kentucky wilderness, the new book blazes a trail through the secular wasteland. 

The Kentucky wilderness reminds us of pristine beauty, whereas the secular wasteland is a departure in so many ways from the wonder of the Creator's handiwork and from a nation Declared free under God. Two contrasting environments, but a similar call to courage and creativity in the face of a challenging situation. 

Contemporary trailblazers seeking more information on the Kenton County Public Library should turn in here. The official launch date of Saving Leonardo is September 1.

What can churches do to stem the tide of young people walking out their doors? Sadly, many have responded by simply mirroring the pop culture that youngsters are already immersed in.

We once visited a church where the teen Sunday school class welcomed our son with a row of video arcade games. In younger years he attended Vacation Bible School where he was bombarded with loud pop music, silly skits, and slapstick games. Lots of paintball and whipped cream. 

That's a misguided approach, says Brett McCracken in a recent Wall Street Journal article. McCracken, who has just published a book titled Hipster Christianity: Where Church and Cool Collide, offers his own examples of churches trying desperately to prove to kids that they can be cool. And he concludes:

As a twentysomething, I can say with confidence that when it comes to church, we don't want cool as much as we want real.

If we are interested in Christianity in any sort of serious way, it is not because it's easy or trendy or popular. . . . It's because the world we inhabit is utterly phony, ephemeral, narcissistic, image-obsessed and sex-drenched -- and we want an alternative. It's not because we want more of the same. 

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with offering young people simple fun and social time. But the force of sheer experience will not equip them to address the secular worldviews they will encounter when they leave home and face the world on their own.

Young people whose commitment is mostly emotional are likely to retain it only as long as it is making them feel good. As soon as a difficult crisis comes along, it will evaporate.

Churches that have lasting impact in the lives of young people are those that teach them to develop reasonable biblical answers to the secular worldviews permeating American society today. That’s the case I make in Saving Leonardo. And the empirical evidence backs it up: A recent Fuller study found that among students who retain their Christian convictions in college, one factor plays the largest role -- and it’s not what most church leaders would expect: The most significant factor is whether young people have a safe place to wrestle with their doubts and questions before leaving home.

The study concluded, "The more college students felt that they had the opportunity to express their doubt while they were in high school, the higher [their] levels of faith maturity and spiritual maturity."

In other words, the best way for teens to become "prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks" (1 Pet. 3:15) is by wrestling with the questions themselves. Churches should teach teens what the major secular worldviews claim, and how to evaluate them.

Saving Leonardo is a good place to get started.

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Commenting on the "ruling by Judge Vaughn Walker to strike down Proposition 8," bestselling author and Pearcey Report editor at large Nancy Pearcey reveals in her latest column how "the law is being used to impose a secular liberal worldview that dismisses physical anatomy as insignificant, inconsequential and completely irrelevant to gender identity."

As Nancy has shown in Saving Leonardo, this secular theory of the person "represents a devastatingly disrespectful view of the physical body. It alienates people from their own bodies, treating anatomy as having no intrinsic dignity. No dignity is accorded to the unique capabilities inherent in being male or female."

Nancy concludes: "Today's liberal elites such as Judge Walker may pose as enlightened liberators, but in fact they are secular Gnostics, treating physical anatomy as having no intrinsic dignity or purpose."

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Today at American Thinker you can read Nancy's article titled, "Fact," "Values," and the Redefinition of "Marriage."

Here's the first paragraph: 

The ruling that overturned California's Proposition 8 last week is a significant step in America's descent into secularism. The decision builds a case for same-sex marriage by pitting objective "facts" against "private values," then dismissing values as a basis for law -- a favorite strategy in the secularist playbook.

From her conclusion: 

It has become a truism that politics is downstream from culture, and this case is a stunning example. It writes into law a secularized view of truth -- an epistemology, to use a technical term. No matter what happens legally, the judge's reasoning will be influential in the further secularization of American law and policy.

Those who wish to have a healthy political impact must understand the underlying ideas that drive politics. When the fragmented secular view of truth is taught in the universities and law schools, it will eventually be imposed upon the entire society with the bang of a gavel. And that is a fact.

In her new book Saving Leonardo, Nancy exposes the historic and ongoing destructive impact of secularism upon modern thought and society, including how it affects for ill our daily lives. And she builds a case for a humane and holistic resistance that affirms, by the way, what I would argue is the essential mainstream of the American experiment in human freedom and dignity. 

Related
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America's Ruling Class and How It Holds on to Power
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I just noticed that the "Search Inside" function for Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, & Meaning is now available on its Amazon page.

Click here, for example, to get a close-up of the book's terrific cover.

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Michael Shermer, executive director of the Skeptics Society and publisher of Skeptic magazine, typically shoots from the hip. Which explains why he often misses the target. In a recent column, he blames Christianity for -- of all things -- the latest New Age craze.

The column is a critique of Deepak Chopra, the well-known New Age leader. Chopra used to be a top assistant to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (of Beatles fame). Time dubbed him the New Age Supersage. In spite of these facts, astonishingly, Shermer reinvents Chopra as a medieval theologian. In his words, Chopra’s theology is “essentially an updating” of medieval scholasticism. 

You would think that means Chopra appeals to medieval thinkers like Anselm and Aquinas. But you would be mistaken. Chopra’s goal is to forge a link between New Age thought and 20th-century quantum physics.

New Age interpretations of quantum theory were popularized a few years ago in the movie What the Bleep Do We Know? Before that, they circulated in books like Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism and Gary Zukav’sThe Dancing Wu Li Masters. These books claim that the view of reality suggested by quantum theory correlates with the teachings of Hinduism and Buddhism. The Dalai Lama, a recent visitor to the Obama White House, frequently makes similar claims.

What does any of this have to do with medieval theology? Answer: Nothing. 

So why doesn’t Shermer link New Age physics to its real source in Hindu and Buddhist theology? He ignores the obvious connection to Eastern mysticism and instead wants us to believe that Chopra’s New Age preaching is an “effort to update medieval theology.”

This is so utterly contrary to the facts, it suggests that the “skeptic” Shermer -- like so many secularized academics, reporters, entertainers, and politicians -- is determined to make Christianity the target for virtually everything he disagrees with. 

Chopra’s New Age physics is only one of many interpretations -- and misinterpretations -- that quantum theory has inspired, as I show in Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, & Meaning. For example, it was also enormously influential in the rise of postmodernism because it appeared to undercut classical physics, along with the entire Enlightenment worldview. 

That’s why even non-scientists need to understand its impact -- if for no other reason than to answer those who misuse it to support their own favorite religious or philosophical views. 

And to debunk zealots who are determined to make Christianity a target, even in contradiction to the facts. Truly free thinkers need to be skeptical of those who call themselves “skeptics.”

Saving Leonardo can be pre-ordered here.

The summer issue of the American Spectator features a cover story that is garnering a lot of attention.  (The magazine notes that it was highlighted "in a big, big way by Rush Limbaugh.")  The article dovetails nicely with themes from my soon-to-be published book, Saving Leonardo. The author, Angelo Codevilla, professor emeritus at Boston University, says the secular elites in America have become a ruling class. And he explains the strategy they use to discredit opposition and hold on to power:

Let [anyone] object to anything the ruling class says or does, and likely as not their objection will be characterized as "religious," that is to say irrational, that is to say not to be considered on a par with the "science" of which the ruling class is the sole legitimate interpreter.

That is precisely the strategy explained in greater detail in Saving Leonardo. Because secularism gives no basis for objective morality, secularists dismiss moral objections as mere private feelings and preferences. Then they tell opponents they have no right to apply their private preferences in the public square -- whether in politics or business or education or healthcare.

Of course, this clears the way for secularists to impose their own views in the public square. Codevilla explains the only way the secularist strategy can be resisted:

Because aggressive, intolerant secularism is the moral and intellectual basis of the ruling class's claim to rule, resistance to that rule . . . must deal with secularism's intellectual and moral core. This lies beyond the boundaries of politics as the term is commonly understood.

Just so. Because "ruling class" politics is shaped by secular worldviews, a political response alone is not enough. It is imperative to deal with the "intellectual and moral core" of those worldviews. That is why Saving Leonardo issues, as the subtitle puts it, "a call to resist" secular worldviews and to affirm a verifiable biblical worldview that provides the basis for a free society. 

Saving Leonardo can be pre-ordered here.

Added Friday, August 6: For more on resistance in our moment in history, please see "How the New Resistance Can Win the Culture War."