According to Google translations, the original title of this work is How to hold on. The published English translation personalizing the work to Küng himself, plays better to the strengths of the work. If the reader wants to know why Küng is still a Christian, here are his thoughts. And I have to say that he comes across as an appealing person.

This is also a work of apologetics, seemingly addressed by its original title to other Christians, and by its text to non-Christians. As an atheist, even though raised as a Christian, I find it unconvincing.

Küng argues for much of the book that even a non-Christian would agree that Christianity is a useful moral code. I cannot help but think that believers in other faiths may wonder what he is implying about their morals, but I leave it to them to make answer.

As an atheist, I find the argument that we should go through the motions of being a Christian in order to shore up moral values, which Küng argues have no basis if not supported by religion, fraught with paradox and inconsistency. If I have no morals, not being a Christian, then why would I feel the need for Christianity's moral guidance? It would seem that I would already have to have ethical and moral values to worry about having a system, so what is the point? Am I supposed to be urging them on other, less enlightened people? Küng says, "Whether or not we are Christians, we have to admit that the purely humane, basic norms and values of the past were always Christian in character," but I would have to ask where Christianity gets its values. Where do other traditions get their values?

Küng is too narrow in his search for wisdom, confining himself to philosophy and theology and should consult work in the sciences. There is the idea of Human Universals proposed by Donald Brown in his book of that title. These are supposed to be attributes of all human societies without known exception, and therefore may be seen as inborn or as inherent in forming a social groups of humans, some of which would require what we call morals and ethics. We know from skeletons that we have found that Neolithic humans cared for members of their society no longer able to care for themselves. I would argue that, despite what philosophers may agree upon, moral reasoning has arisen from secular sources, my case in point being environmentalism. Certainly some churches have embraced it, and now quote appropriate Bible passages, or point to nature-loving early Christians (whom some theologians, early and late, would have regarded as suspiciously heathen), but it was certainly never mentioned in church when I was dutifully and regularly attending. It is moreover, actively opposed by some Christian churches who see it either as a lack of faith in God's provisions (perhaps because the end is nigh), or who condemn as ungodly the effort to limit the human population. It was a secular movement, which some Christians (and people of other faiths) have now joined in. I can think of other examples, but certainly I find Küng unconvincing on this point.

Küng, to his credit, admits at great length that the behavior of Christians has been flawed. He then says, "But I ask you: is all this even 'Christian'? Believers and unbelievers must affirm that it is 'Christian' only is a traditional, superficial and untrue sense," a variant of the No True Scotsman Fallacy. And if David Kinnaman's 2007 book Unchristian is to be believed, "Our research shows that many of those outside of Christianity, especially younger adults, have little trust in the Christian faith, and esteem for the lifestyle of Christ followers is quickly fading among outsiders." Although Küng says "Christendom certainly cannot shed its responsibility for what is called 'Christian,' " he is, in effect letting them off the hook. There are at least two problems here.

The first is that while some behavior by Christians is genuinely a failure to live up to the teachings that they have received, it is harder to write off actions that were undertaken in good faith that they were truly Christian, and were often confirmed by the various Christian churches. Prosecuting heretics has been popular with official Christendom through much of church history, The highly regarded and sainted Sir Thomas More was not only willing to die for his beliefs, he was willing to torture and kill other people for theirs, and he was giving his sainthoods not in the 16th century in which he lived, but in the early 20th century!.

The second is that Küng is urging nonbelievers to adopt Christian values for utilitarian purposes. In that case, one most consider not how Christianity should work, but how it does work. If it cannot inspire people to follow its best values, it fails as a guide to human behavior. ( )

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