Larry Alex Taunton - The Grace Effect: How the Power of One Life Can Reverse the Corruption of Unbelief

Praise for The Grace Effect

Larry Tauntons book is a captivating account of a grim reality with a truly gracious ending. It is a must read for anyone pondering adoption from the former Eastern European Bloc. As such, The Grace Effect is a primer in applied Christianity that conveys a riveting, harrowing story of a childs hope quietly sustained by what psychologists increasingly recognize as a pervasive human capacity for spirituality. What the author uniquely achieves is to demonstrate the resilience of such a capacity even under some of the most unfavorable conditions at the start of life and, in this case, engulfing a wider society. Through the unfolding story of Sashas life before and after adoption, Taunton skillfully weaves into the discussion about the meaning of human life some sobering contrasts between religious faith and strident atheism. This highly readable book is a collection of powerful insights into some of the long-term consequences of spiritual indifference and, above all, a remarkable example of how to conquer it.

OLIVERA PETROVICH
Research Psychologist, University of Oxford.

The Grace EffectHow the Power of One Life Can Reverse the Corruption of Unbelief offers an ordinary story turned powerful narrative with a life-changing message. It is remarkable.

ESTHER CALLENS
The Birmingham Times

What would a world without Christianity look like? We dont have to guess because such a world does exist: it exists in the current and former Communist bloc. Through the inspiring story of a little girl born in Eastern Europe and now living in America, Larry Taunton draws a sharp contrast between the life-giving influence of Christianity and the worn out theories of atheism and radical secularism. The effectThe Grace Effectis nothing less than powerful and moving.

DINESH DSOUZA
former White House policy analyst, fellow of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, and current president of Kings College

TheGRACE
EFFECT

TheGRACE
EFFECT

How the Power of
One Life Can Reverse
the Corruption
of Unbelief

BY LARRY ALEX TAUNTON

2011 by Larry Alex Taunton

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

What Have We Become, written by Mark Heimermann, Toby Mckeehan, and Kevin Smith. 1995 Blind Thief Publishing (BMI) Achtober Songs (BMI) Up in the Mix Music (BMI) (adm. at EMICMGPublishing.com) / Fun Attic Music (ASCAP). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are taken from THE ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION. 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.

Scriptures marked NIV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Taunton, Larry.

The grace effect : how the power of one life can reverse the corruption of unbelief / by Larry Alex Taunton.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-59555-440-6 (alk. paper)

1. Apologetics. 2. Christianity and atheism. 3. Taunton, LarryFamily. 4. Intercountry adoptionUkraine. 5. Intercountry adoptionUnited States. I. Title.

BT1212.T38 2011

261.8'35874dc22

[B]

2011015265

Printed in the United States of America

11 12 13 14 15 QG 5 4 3 2 1

For Sasha and her mother, Lauri

What in me is dark, illumine,

What is low, raise and support;

That to the height of this great Argument

I may assert the Eternal Providence,

And justify the ways of God to men.

John Miltons Paradise Lost

Contents

IN THE LAST DECADE, A GROUP OF PROMINENT ACADEMIC ATHEISTS has managed to channel a simmering anti-Christian fervor into a movement that seeks nothing less than a radical overhaul of Western civilization. Christianity, they say, is not only an outdated cultural accessory; it is also an insidious evil that we would be well-advised to discard. If my only knowledge of these men derived from the screeds they have written, it would be difficult to take them seriously. Unfortunately, many others, mostly the young and naive, have taken them seriously. Were it only a passing fashion like, say, rebellion against the establishment, I would be less inclined to worry about what all of this might portend for our society. But secularism is the establishment in Western society, and with the accumulated momentum of its century-long advance, we dare not take that chance.

Ironically, these revolutionariesthese so-called New Atheistsreally believe that they are doing us all a favor. Like bloodletters from centuries past, they think they are curing the patient, when they are in fact only making him more vulnerable to infection. May this book serve to remind us all just how diseased the body politic can become in the absence of Christian influence.

A word about what this book is not. It is not an effort to prove the existence of God. While I briefly address that issue, I am hunting game of an altogether different sort. I also have no desire to defend religion as such. My defense is limited to Christianity. What interest does a Christian have in defending suicide bombing and Sharia law? To this extent the New Atheists are right: some religions are irrational. Indeed, from a Christian perspective, all that do not lead to Jesus Christ are dead ends. Furthermore, this is not an academic work. There are enough of those already, and I saw no need to add to that still-growing pile. Instead, I have written with the layperson in mind.

It is, rather, my purpose to make a case for societys need of Christianitys gentling, inspiring, and culturally transforming power. I hope that through the narrative of our experience, readers will be given a glimpse into a world without faith in Jesus Christ and, as a consequence, have greater appreciation for what Christianity has given, is giving, and may give us still if we will mine the vast richness of it.

PROLOGUE
The Debate Begins

It is in Christianity that our arts have developed; it is in Christianity that the laws of Europeuntil recentlyhave been rooted. It is against a background of Christianity that all of our thought has significance. An individual European may not believe that the Christian faith is true, and yet what he says, and makes, and does will all spring out of his heritage of Christian culture and depend upon that culture for its meaning... I do not believe the culture of Europe could survive the complete disappearance of the Christian faith. And I am convinced of that, not merely because I am a Christian myself, but as a student of social biology. If Christianity goes, the whole culture goes.

T. S. ELIOT, CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURE

IT WAS LATE. PAST MIDNIGHT, IN FACT, AND I WAS BLEARY-EYED. Other diners had long since vacated the restaurant, and the poor waiter hovered impatiently. As the executive director of Fixed Point Foundation, an initiative dedicated to defending and promoting Christianity in the public square, I had engaged numerous critics of that faith, and now, sitting across the table from me was one of the most vitriolicfamed atheist provocateur Christopher Hitchens. Also present was University of Oxford mathematician Professor John Lennox, a silver-tongued Irishman and Christian whom I deeply admired. A few hours earlier, the two had debated before a packed house at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, on the question of whether belief in the Christian God is beneficial or detrimental to society. Now, over dinner, the debate continued. Although an informal and friendly exchange, we had been at it since ten oclock.