Skepticism about Christianity abounds. Building on the work of Charles Taylor, Ian S. Markham argues that contemporary skepticism is more a mood than an intellectual repudiation of Christian theology. In its attempt to accommodate science, the church too often opts for deistic responses that take the spiritual out of the material. Against this response, Markham argues for a rich, imaginative account of the world that is grounded in Christian revelation, and affirms spiritual causation, angels, and the reality of the saints. It is a clarion call for the Western church to learn from the church in the Global South and create a rich theology that lives up to its professed values as a genuinely inclusive church.

Ian S. Markham is dean and president of Virginia Theological Seminary and a priest in the Episcopal Church.