The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity [Paperback]

Lee Strobel (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 26, 2000

Was God telling the truth when he said, 'You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart'? In his #1 bestseller The Case for Christ, Lee Strobel examined the claims of Christ, reaching the hard-won verdict that Jesus is God's unique son. In The Case for Faith, Strobel turns his skills to the most persistent emotional objections to belief---the eight 'heart barriers' to faith. This Gold Medallion-winning book is for those who may be feeling attracted to Jesus but who are faced with difficult questions standing squarely in their path. For Christians, it will deepen their convictions and give them fresh confidence in discussing Christianity with even their most skeptical friends. 'Everyone---seekers, doubters, fervent believers---benefits when Lee Strobel hits the road in search of answers, as he does again in The Case for Faith. In the course of his probing interviews, some of the toughest intellectual obstacles to faith fall away.' ---Luis Palau 'Lee Strobel has given believers and skeptics alike a gift in this book. He does not avoid seeking the most difficult questions imaginable, and refuses to provide simplistic answers that do more harm than good.' ---Jerry Sittser, professor of religion, Whitworth College, and author of A Grace Disguised and The Will of God as a Way of Life

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Award-winning reporter and author Lee Strobel (The Case for Christ) once again uses his investigative skills to address the primary objections to Christianity. As a former atheist, Strobel understands the rational resistance to faith. He even names the eight most convincing arguments against Christian faith:

1) If there's a loving God, why does this pain-wracked world groan under so much suffering and evil?
2) If the miracles of God contradict science, then how can any rational person believe that they're true?
3) If God is morally pure, how can he sanction the slaughter of innocent children as the Old Testament says he did?
4) If God cares about the people he created, how could he consign so many of them to an eternity of torture in hell just because they didn't believe the right things about him?
5) If Jesus is the only way to heaven, then what about the millions of people who have never heard of him?
6) If God really created the universe, why does the evidence of science compel so many to conclude that the unguided process of evolution accounts for life?
7) If God is the ultimate overseer of the church, why has it been rife with hypocrisy and brutality throughout the ages?
8) If I'm still plagued by doubts, then is it still possible to be a Christian?

These are mighty tough questions, and Strobel fields them well. Rather than write a weighty dissertation about the merits of faith, he brings us along on his quest as we meet leaders in the Christian community, such as Peter Kreeft and William Lane Craig. We also encounter his everyday friends and acquaintances that serendipitously fill in the holes in each of the eight arguments against faith. The use of dialogue from personal interviews and a scene-by-scene active narrative makes this an easy and engaging read. However, easy does not mean breezy. This is a book of substance and merit, one that will help Christians defend their faith, especially during the hardest of times, when they have to defend their faith to themselves in moments of doubt. --Gail Hudson

From Booklist

Ex-newspaperman Strobel's Christian apologetics read like feature interviews in the religion pages rather than a theological treatise. To knock down what he calls "the Big Eight" roadblocks to faith, he questions experts about them rather than logically bulldozing his way to solutions. He grills Catholic lay philosopher Peter Kreeft about the problem of evil, Indian-born evangelist Ravi Zacharias about Christian exclusivism, historian John Woodbridge about oppression in the name of Christ, and other authorities about the truth of miracles, God's callousness in the Hebrew Bible, the justice of Hell, the challenge of evolution, and the struggle with persistent doubt. Each conversation is pointed and engaging, so much so that Strobel's occasional melodramatic note (did he really speak "in a voice laden with sarcasm" to any of these, his fellow believers?) seems ridiculous. Kreeft and Woodbridge are Strobel's least doctrinaire interlocutors. The others, staunch evangelicals all, may interest fewer readers, though Zacharias on the exclusivisms of the other major religions touches on matters Americans too rarely hear discussed. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Zondervan; Supersaver edition (September 26, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0310234697
• ISBN-13: 978-0310234692
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.9 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (276 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,400 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #84 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Theology

More About the Author

Lee Strobel (www.LeeStrobel.com), with a journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale Law School, was the award-winning legal editor of the Chicago Tribune and a spiritual skeptic until 1981. His books include four Gold Medallion winners and the 2005 Christian Book of the Year (coauthored with Garry Poole). He and his wife live in Colorado.

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#90 in Books > Religion & Spirituality

#90 in Books > Religion & Spirituality

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

86 of 99 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A good start to answering difficult questions March 13, 2001

By E. Johnson

Format:Paperback

Lee Strobel has written several good books that could be especially valuable to someone new in the Christian faith. In fact, even older Christians will appreciate the information offered in The Case for Christ and The Case for Faith, both of which nicely complement each other in their easy-to-read style. In The Case for Faith, Strobel--who is a former skeptic--continues where he left off with The Case for Christ. He interviews scholars all over the country, picking their brains for answers to some of the toughest questions out there, including evil, miracles, and "oppressive" church history. Read sort of like a novel, Strobel introduces each chapter by mixing in interesting crime/court stories he gathered during his investigative reporter days for a Chicago newspaper. Sometimes, though, his writing is a little melodramatic, as there were several times I became annoyed with his overuse of neon yellow adjectives. Otherwise, I thought the novelistic style helped make the book a quick read. While the average reader should not need more than 6-8 hours with this book, if he/she reads carefully, much can be learned about answers to some pretty difficult questions. Overall I recommend The Case for Faith for its apologetic value. Deeper material can certainly be gathered in other places, including the little more detailed "When Skeptics Ask" (Geisler) and the much more detailed "Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics" (Geisler). As a beginning book, though, The Case for Faith works well.

76 of 92 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Good in spots. July 5, 2001

By David Marshall

Format:Hardcover

The Case for Faith is a simple and readable book based on a good idea: interview top Christian thinkers about questions that many people see as roadblocks to faith. Strobel begins with just the right tone, an empathetic and poignant interview with elderly skeptic and one-time evangelist, Charles Templeton.

Some of the interviews are pretty good, and all of them have something of value, for those who are looking for it. I doubt most of the interviewees would call themselves "fundamentalists," as one reviewer describes them; certainly not Catholic philosopher, Peter Kreeft! Kreeft is generally good on the Problem of Pain, though some of his solutions may seem a bit post hoc to those who do not share Christian assumptions. Sometimes the honest bewilderment of Job seems preferable to clever philosophical answers. Not that Kreeft's answers are merely clever; it's a tough question, and there is a lot to what he says. William Craig is, as always, sharp (on miracles, here) informed about contrary positions, and accustomed to fielding questions in the environment of debates with top skeptics, not just Christian pep rallies, qualifies himself appropriately. Walter Bradley's discussion of the difficulty of life emerging from non-life was excellent. I only noticed one lapse. But it was a major one: he didn't mention the idea of molecular evolution, and Strobel didn't ask. I'm not sure that's a very good solution, and Bradley's arguments may largely answer it anyway, but not bringing the question up I found rather gauling. Ravi Zacharius did better than I expected on Jesus being the only way to God. But while Zacharius gave good general theological answers, and he seems to know Western philosophy fairly well, I didn't see much evidence of deep and sympathetic knowledge of non-Christian religions.

The chapter on church history was, in my opinion, weaker than it should have been, though for a different reason. John Woodbridge may be an excellent historian, but he doesn't appear to be an apologist. He relates the conventional version of what happened, rather than putting events in philosophical and spiritual context. For example, he mentions the Crusades without explaining the background of Muslim conquests or the reality of Turkic rule, the makeup of the "Christian" troops sent to the Middle East, or contextual facts such as that Pope Innocent's promise of salvation to fallen warriors was an echo of the Muslim promise, half a millenia earlier, that "the way to Paradise is lit by the flash of swords!" The "Christianity" of the era, in other words, had itself become partly Muslim.

I found Geisler quite disappointing. His argument that God was being nice when he ordered genocide on the Palestinians was unsatisfactory, to put it mildly. Better to say you don't understand, and admit perplexity, than to give lame explanations like that. At least say "maybe" or "the way I see it." (Richard Wurmbrand, a Christian pastor who was tortured by the communists, writes briefly on the subject with more authority, and empathy. See In God's Underground.) Then Geisler claimed that the Fall of man was responsible for animal suffering. Strobel didn't even ask, "What about the millions of fossils of animals we find in layers of rock untroubled by any footprint of man? Were the effects of the Fall retroactive?" The question glares from the text like a flare. These lapses were unfortunate, because other things Geisler said could be helpful, if the whole were packaged a little more carefully, and critiqued more thoroughly.

While this book is entitled "The Case For Faith," in fact it does not mention a lot of the best evidence for the Christian faith, and is largely defensive in nature. (Answering objections as much as giving positive arguments.) While I disagree with some arguments, I think it may be helpful to many people. As other readers said, it is a generally good introduction to the subject.

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An answer to many difficult questions... March 15, 2004

By "riserks"

Format:Paperback

The Case for Faith is a must-read for those who want to believe in the promise of Christianity yet feel hindered by nagging doubts. This book looks at 8 major issues that keep many people from truly accepting Christ. As a major skeptic, I read this book and found that the scholars interviewed within the pages offered convincing arguments as to why we should believe. Like many others, I had a hard time believing that a loving God could exist when there is so much pain and suffering in the world; that is one of eight issues explored within the book. Strobel does not rely on his own ponderings to answer these fundamental questions to the validity of Christianity; rather, he interviews scholars and scientists, all of whom give thoroughly researched answers, not vague dogmatic assertions.