Trial lawyer Campbell debuts with a resounding and meticulous refutation of Christianity. Starting with the premise, “Christianity should be singled out [among religions] because of its unique cultural and sociopolitical significance,” Campbell demonstrates that “there are no good, compelling reasons to accept the claims of Christianity and many compelling reasons to reject them for naturalism.” Campbell’s criticisms fall into two categories: contradicting apologetical arguments with empirical evidence, and analyzing the logic gaps within biblically inspired beliefs. For example, when discussing cosmological arguments for God (which assert that, since everything must have a cause, God must be the ‘uncaused cause’), Campbell points out that quantum mechanics can offer just as satisfying an explanation—and that even if such a supernatural entity existed, it would not necessarily resemble the Christian god: “The very concept of the scientific method, with its implicit refutation of dogma and insistence on following the evidence wherever it leads, is the antithesis of Christian epistemology, which relies on divine revelation.” The conclusions Campbell hopes his audience will reach is that ‘much of the Bible is simply useless baggage that should be quickly discarded’ and that “misguided Christian beliefs have led to enormous harm.” This provocative work rests comfortably next to works by E.O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, and Robert Ingersoll. Even those who disagree with Campbell will find his arguments worth engaging with.

— Publisher’s Weekly

It’s almost 20 years now since the “New Atheism” movement had its first flourishing in a small barrage of poorly-written, poorly-organized, largely ad hominem screeds against the many evils of organized religion. Readers who endured the whole phenomenon as it was happening may remember the vaguely workshop feel of the whole thing, the queasy sense that a great deal of outrage was being overcooked for unstated purposes - probably a combination of Islam-bashing and simple greed. One hint that the whole squall might have been an opportunistic grift: although the abuses of organized religion have only increased in the last few years (notoriously, in Texas, for instance, for explicitly fundamentalist Christian reasons, a woman impregnated in a rape must now carry the pregnancy to term), the book-length screeds have largely dried up. Despite the passions of those screeds, it’s fairly easy, in 2021, to look back on the whole phenomenon as having been conducted in, as it were, bad faith. Which makes John W. Campbell’s big new book Cross Examined: Putting Christianity on Trial, all the more refreshing. Comparing many of those earlier “New Atheist” books to this tome is like comparing a plastic Nativity church to Chartres Cathedral. 

Campbell, a trial lawyer, opens with a jarring but incontrovertible inference: that Christianity is not only the most powerful and influential man-made social construct in the world today, it’s also the most powerful and influential man-made social construct in the history of the world. It has shaped countless billions of lives over two millennia; it’s determined the rise and fall of nations; it’s created entire ecologies of thought. Given this, it’s entirely warranted to scrutinize it right down to its DNA. 

Cross Examined does exactly this, in elaborate, almost comprehensive breadth. Campbell opens by stressing a key point that will nevertheless be entirely overlooked by his fundamentalist Christian readers: he’s not attacking anybody’s faith. But Christianity makes and always has made a vast array of real-world fact claims, and Campbell leaves virtually none of these unchallenged. He points out that most followers of Christianity haven’t spent a great amount of energy examining their faith. “Although most people adopt their religions as children well before they can critically evaluate their ‘decision,’ most will vigorously defend it into adulthood,” he writes. “Despite their awareness that man has created millions of gods, they will say, ‘Mine is different. Mine is real.’”

He makes up for that lack of examination, in spades. Every aspect of Christianity is scrutinized in these 600 pages - all in clear, forceful, and above all fair prose. The much-vexed topic of the historicity of Jesus is plumbed to its not-very-deep depths; the oft-proclaimed superiority of so-called Christian morality is tested against 2000 years of examples and counter-examples, and the list of familiar Christian apologetics is rifled for anything of substance (that apologetics are needed at all to ‘demonstrate’ the existence of an all-powerful Deity Who actively wants a personal relationship with every human on Earth, that such a Deity isn’t and hasn’t always been immediately obvious without any need for the Kalam Cosmological Argument at all, isn’t so much addressed as allowed to speak for itself). And at every point, Campbell is as clear as a bell-note:

The universe we see is not the universe we would expect the Christian God to create. According to the Bible, all of creation was made to benefit man. This is why the Christian orthodoxy defended the Earth-centered view of cosmology so aggressively and for so long - because it is exactly the cosmology described and predicted by the Bible. What use has man for distant nebulae he can never visit or even see? What use for billions of light-years of empty space? Why would God create a universe in which over 99.999999 percent will be forever inaccessible to man?

Christianity has spawned whole schools of fundamentalist dogmatics who would instantly answer this point by saying those distant nebulae aren’t real, that those billions of light-years aren’t real, that the universe mentioned here is merely a pretty canopy over the only real thing in reality, the Earth, and so on. To his credit, Campbell expends very little energy on Christian apologetics that rely on a denial of visible, measurable, testable reality (although Christian-inspired science-denial and the widespread damage it causes is noteworthy enough). 

Instead, what readers of Cross Examined get is the ultimate case for the prosecution. In his calm and unassuming manner, Campbell has written a Bible of Christianity-analysis for our time.

— Open Letters Review, Steve Donoghue

The Only Reference Book an Atheist Needs: The best laid out argument for atheism I have ever read. Religious scholars give you problems with the Bible. Scientists give you the problems with biblical earth and human history. This book touches every base, the science, the Bible, morality and even problems with more liberal churches that try to find a middle ground.

— D. McLeod, AZ (Amazon reviews, verified purchase)

Enormously Important Book: In clear and cogent prose, the author has marshaled exhaustive evidence both to support empirical, scientific method and reject dogmatic and dishonest reliance on Scripture to explain natural phenomena, and to serve as ethical and moral guideposts for treating all human beings as worthy of equal respect and dignity -- something the Bible demonstrably does not do. The country would be in a far better condition if citizens read this book with an open mind.

— Michael P. Kenny (Amazon reviews, verified purchase)

An Atheist examines the Christian Faith and Bible in a detailed look at the evidence: As a retired Presbyterian minister and cradle Christian I read this book even though not agreeing with the author. A good but skeptical read for anyone who wants to gain knowledge about Christianity and the Bible.

C.M. Mills (Top 500 Reviewer, Amazon reviews, verified purchase)

In Cross Examined, John W. Campbell thoroughly inspects the claims of Christianity in order to assess their veracity. Campbell, a lawyer for nearly three decades, approaches the subject systematically. The opening sections ground the reader in legal, scientific, and historical standards of evidence. Without condescension, Campbell walks the reader through these standards in clear prose. With the foundation of evidential standards built, Campbell examines seemingly every major tenet of the Christian faith. He looks at each claim, weighs the evidence of the claim, and provides counter arguments and rational explanations. The book cites popular religious skeptics and apologists alike, giving the reader a full picture of the arguments for and against Christianity. Atheist heavyweights Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens also wrote books sharply criticizing religion and belief in a divine creator. Those books, though, left a lot to be desired. Campbell’s work, while referencing those authors at times, is superior in almost every way. Cross Examined is wonderfully organized, intelligent, and entertaining. Though it is nearly 550 pages, (not counting the notes section) it is compelling throughout. This is an incredible book on an endlessly interesting subject.

— John (Goodreads review)