Customer Reviews

Telling the Truth

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This is an excellent book if you have an interest in our postmodern culture, and how Christianity fits into this worldview. Specifically the challenge of applying a Christian worldview into a culture that has lost its foundations and is sliding down the slippery and illogical slope of moral relativism. While there are many great books out there on this subject including "Truth Decay", and "Steering Through the Chaos", this book takes a different approach in that it contains dozens of short essays written by numerous apologetic authors and teachers, which are then combined into sections to form this book. Of particular interest to me were the sections on "Critical Topics" and "This Relational Age". The "Critical Topics" section includes a writing by James Sire, entitled "Why Believe Anything at All?" a must read. The sections on "This Relational Age" includes some excellent work on bridge building and the importance of developing relationships as a medium to carry Christ's message of hope. I particularly enjoyed the fact that I could read several of these seven to fifteen page essays in a sitting and compare and contrast the different styles and approaches to evangelizing and "telling the truth" to a culture which is moving towards a belief that there isn't any truth.
I have deliberately kept this review focused on the style of the book and avoided overly stating my opinion on the subject matter. Whatever your opinion is, you will benefit from the wisdom and perspective of the various contributors to the book. A must read on the subject of apologetics and postmodern culture, and done in a way which doesn't require the effort and concentration level of most other postmodern discussions. I recommend reading this book first to get some framework and then move on to "Truth Decay" or other more in-depth works on the subject matter.

This book originated from the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School conference in May 13-15, 1998. The book has over 29 authors and is edited by D.A. Carson. It is divided into eight parts with each part having many essays describing the issues and challenges facing, mostly, but not exculsively, North American soceity and its post-modern culture (I say mostly because other countries are represtented).

Ravi Zacharias opens the discussions in part one about opening dialogue about truth and Christianity in a post-modern culture. The opening is great and dynamic. Other issues discussed are religious pluralism, epistemology, uniqueness of Jesus Christ, and the current state of our most hailed universities and how to effectively reach this group of young adults.

As with all books of this kind, having so many authors does tend to interrupt the flow of reading and sometimes ideas become redundant; however, this problem is not prevelant in this text and should not discourage the reader in any way. A great buy!

Recommended reading for any Christian wanting to reach the New Age Movement. Book explains in detail the understanding of the Post-Modern Mindset for the times we now live in.

Starting here will perhaps avoid some pitfalls. D.A. Carson has written a few good books which are certifiably great. This one is a compendium of writings of others, so perhaps is a test of his mettle as an editor. Check it out.

As to postmodernism, I haven't made my final decision. Being a mathematical topologist and logician, and knowing about Godel's theorem and Russell's paradox, I can see some of their concerns. But also knowing what Saunders MacLane has done a wonderful job of synthesizing a lot of improvements to foundations of math in his Mathematics for the Working Mathematician -- well anyway, I am a bit skeptical about the postmodernists. I guess their fruits will tell the tale.

In general, my ATTITUDE is : go with the better man, not the better argument, when items of crucial importance and relevance are being discussed in crisis deadlock time-is-up situatons where it is do-or-die.

The essential point of weakness of logic is that a lot depends on your starting assumptions as regards to the legitimacy of the resulting conclusions. That is my closest adherence to postmodern doctrine.

Telling the Truth is a great book on evangelism. It arrived quickly and in great condition. (: