From Publishers Weekly
Brian McLaren started a genre of fiction in which a disenchanted evangelical meets a wizened ethnic teacher of a new sort of Christianity, prompting a second conversion to a faith that is more world savvy, compassionate and appealing. In Choung's version, a college student in Seattle named Caleb struggles to share the gospel (and a bit more) with his friend Anna. While the narrative runs the risk of falling into stereotype (and often does resort to evangelical catchphrases), Choung manages to make readers care about his characters' religious and romantic fates. Its best moments are Caleb's wrestling with the relationship between his Korean ethnic identity and his faith. Choung concludes the book in his own voice, with a diagram designed to help an individual share the gospel with another on the surface of a napkin. While the faith presented is indeed more passionate about the environment and "social justice" than many evangelicals are wont to be, the goal of a more effective one-on-one evangelism is hardly revolutionary. The book will appeal to readers of McLaren and others for whom "vampire Christianity," a phrase Choung's real-life mentor Dallas Willard uses to describe a faith reduced to a bit of blood shed on one's behalf, has become untenable.
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Review
"Amid the clutter of domesticated Christianity, Choung's book creatively reminds us all--academics, pastors, activists and grandmas--of the true revolution from which we come. Much of pop-Christianity is obsessed with the self-centered goal of finding our life, forgetting that Christ's call is to lose our life for others in order to find it. This book is an urgent cry not to settle for the dream of America over the dream of God, nor to allow cynicism to suffocate the hope that another world is possible. May True Story inspire us to continue to shout the Story with our lives--even in the most abandoned corners of the empire." --
Shane Claiborne, lover, author, recovering sinner, founding partner of The Simple Way, author of The Irresistible Revolution"Brilliant. . . . Tools like this can change the world." --
Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life"Choung's 'napkin theology' and its 'four-worlds' diagram promise to be for evangelism in the twenty-first century what the 'Four Spiritual Laws' were for the twentieth century." --
Leonard Sweet, author of The Church of the Perfect Storm;; podcaster of the weekly "Napkin Scribbles" podcast"One of the most important theological conversations going on these days is about the shape of the biblical narrative. Not surprisingly, many leaders in this conversation are those working in the intellectual ferment of the college campus and at the intersection of church and the emerging culture. James Choung is one of these important voices, and this book opens up important new vistas regarding the story we find ourselves in." --
Brian McLaren, author/activist (brianmclaren.net)"This insightful book offers a way of presenting the good news that fully engages with today's complex postmodern issues and questions simply by refocusing on the original message of the gospel of Jesus our Savior." --
Peter T. Cha, associate professor of pastoral theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School