Toxic Ideas Polluting your Mind
Anthony Selvaggio
P&R Publishing
128 pages, £7.51
ISBN: 978-1-59638-196-4
Star Rating: 4
An earlier generation warned believers of the dangers of worldliness. Anthony Selvaggio does much the same thing here. But whereas Christian preachers and writers may once have been content to call upon Christians to stop drinking at worldly fountains, Selvaggio goes right back to the source of the pollution at the bottom of the well – the mind.
In doing so he identifies seven current worldviews and describes them. Far from being alternative views they tend rather to go together in a loose but fairly coherent framework. In fact most people in society would happily embrace the whole lot as a single entity without ever troubling to question where they came from, what they mean or where they might lead. They simply follow the crowd. Paul’s description of Satan as ‘the ruler of the kingdom of the air’ does not mean that he is floating around in the air, but that his worldview pervades our very atmosphere. We breathe his air without appreciating it.
Love of everything new, individualism, consumerism, relativism are examples of worldviews which confront the Bible-believing Christian head-on. Selvaggio writes in a lucid and highly engaging style. In describing our immoderate love for the two-dimensional world of technology he speculates; ‘what if the Good Samaritan had been wearing an ipod?’
The book goes beyond a mere identification of current thinking. A careful analysis of the air is not enough and we are taken further in being shown, with force and precision, how the poisonous fumes have penetrated church life to an alarming extent. The church is choking and, in some places, choking to death.
Anybody reading this book might feel humbled but they would not feel hectored. It is written with tenderness and balance. As Joel Beeke says in a note of commendation: ‘Like a good doctor, Selvaggio does not rail at us about our illness; he aims to heal and so offers solutions in Christ.’
This book is highly recommended for anyone seeking to understand the times in which we live. It is a breath of fresh air.
Paul Mackrell,
Dorking
