RZIM Europe » Book Reviews

Book Review – Has Christianity Failed You?

RZIM Office — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 17:38:14 +0000

Title: Has Christianity Failed You?
Author: Ravi Zacharias

“To find contentment and purpose in our lives we must turn back to Jesus Christ and place our trust in him.” David Limbaugh

Countless encounters with those who once called themselves Christian made clear to Ravi Zacharias the need to write a book that dealt directly with the widespread and deeply rooted dissatisfaction that many felt towards Christian faith. In his latest book, Has Christianity Failed You? Ravi identifies what he believes to be one of the central reasons causing so many to abandon their faith: the difference between what we believe about God and our own experiences. In other words, God has not lived up to our expectations.

Combining compassion and intellectual rigour, this book is a timely reminder about the importance of getting to know God’s character better, in order to provide a firm foundation for our faith. He encourages us to trust that God is bigger than our circumstances and urges us not to allow our changing emotions to govern our view of reality. He turns our assumption that our disappointment is God’s fault on its head and shows us that it is not a result of God’s abandonment, but rather our turning away from him. No-one is abandoned by Christ. He therefore offers a gentle challenge for the reader to turn back to Jesus, the only one who is able to ultimately deliver us from disappointment and despair and the only one through whom we can know the true God. He asks the reader to face up to the question: Is it possible to make sense of life once one has denied faith in Christ?

Ravi deals sympathetically with the heart-felt concerns and disappointments that many feel and he acknowledges both the failures of the church and the tensions that are common to our experience. But he returns the reader to the crucial central question: on what do we want our lives to be based? “Truth,” he reminds us, “is no respecter of mistaken judgements,” and so we must not allow our experiences to dictate what we believe as this cannot lead us to truth. Has Christianity Failed You? acts as a poignant reminder that it is only in Christ that we will find life to the full.

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Chosen Ones – Alister McGrath’s New Challenge

RZIM Office — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:20:38 +0000

Title: The Aedyn Chronicles – Chosen Ones
Author: Alister McGrath

C.S. Lewis was one of the most influential apologists of his day and, as one might expect from a famous author, he had a particular gift for using stories to make his philosophical or theological points. Yet today, Christians seem to be more reluctant to get involved in the arts, a trend that Alister McGrath is hoping to reverse. In a recent article in the Church of England Newspaper, he explains his motivations for writing his first ever children’s novel, entitled The Chosen Ones, and his hope that it might encourage other Christians to follow his (and Lewis’) example by becoming more creative.

Read the complete article in The Church of England Newspaper: Alister McGrath’s New Challenge.

Book Review – Can Man Live Without God

RZIM Office — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:06:42 +0000

Title: Can Man Live Without God?
Author: Ravi Zacharias

“To every generation God send a prophet. Ravi Zacharias is that prophet for this generation. You must hear him.”
Josh McDowell

It is no accident that Ravi Zacharias’ radio programme is entitled Let My People Think. Although everything I have read or heard of Ravi’s material so far has caused me to pause for thought, in my view Can Man Live Without God should come with a health warning: may seriously challenge your thinking.

Awarded the Gold Medallion for best book in the category of doctrine and theology in 1994, Can Man Live Without God is a feast for both the heart and the mind. Using material from lectures presented at Harvard and Ohio State Universities, Ravi provides a deep, compelling apologetic for the Christian faith, leading his readers to consider the impact of their beliefs.

Ravi plunges into the realms of art, poetry, philosophy, theology and logic in examining some of the deepest questions of life: what gives life meaning? What are the implications of the antitheistic thinking which is sweeping the Western world? Can Christianity – can Christ – really give profound answers to the problems of pain, meaninglessness, blurred identity and unanchored morality that characterise contemporary society? In short, can man live – not just physically, but reasonably and fully – without God?

One striking feature of the book is the urgency and passion with which Ravi writes. His compassion, eloquent style, illustrations and touches of humour mean that although the content requires slow, careful reading, the book is accessible to any thinking person, regardless of prior knowledge of theology or philosophy. Whether you approach this book as a Christian believer, a sceptic, an agnostic or atheist, the one inescapable message hammered home is that these questions of life are not insignificant: they are absolutely crucial – and the answers even more so. As Charles Colson writes in the foreword, “I hope you will not read this book lightly and lay it aside.” It is my conviction that you will be unable to.

Book Review – The End of Reason

RZIM Office — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:41:58 +0000

Title: The End of Reason
Author: Ravi Zacharias

“The time has come for someone to slay this dragon of disbelief – and I can think of no-one better to wield the sword than my friend Ravi Zacharias.”
Lee Strobel

“Even with all the restraint I can muster,” writes Ravi Zacharias, “this is the most strongly worded book I have ever written.” Alarmed by the “cultural devastation” wreaked by the philosophy of the new atheists, Ravi sets out to expose the utter bankruptcy of the atheist worldview – to demonstrate, in his own words, that the emperor of new atheism has no clothes.

Written specifically as a response to Sam Harris’ The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, Ravi confidently points out the inconsistencies and logical fallacies in much of Harris’ argumentation, specifically highlighting his poor understanding of the Bible and of other religions. He unpacks and challenges Harris’ core assertions: that religious convictions can cause or turn a blind eye to suffering, that all religious beliefs are irrational, outdated and unscientific and that the Bible is no basis for morality. He also unweaves Harris’ attempt to argue the case against God from a moral standpoint, by showing the philosophical looseness in his attempt to make authoritative moral arguments within an atheist framework.

The strength of The End of Reason, however, lies not only in Ravi’s debunking of Harris’ core arguments, but in uncovering the path down which new atheism leads its followers. Ravi exposes the reality that the atheist worldview is inescapably bleak, with no basis for love, hope, morality or the value of human life – that “the emperor has no clothes, and through his verbal magic Harris is trying hard to cover him up.”

Written forcefully, yet with characteristic grace, The End of Reason is a powerful and compelling set of arguments for the coherence, truth and hope of the Christian faith. If you’ve ever been disturbed by the atheist polemics of people like Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, then this is a book for you.

Book Review – Beyond Opinion

Simon Wenham — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:51:43 +0000

Title: Beyond Opinion
Author: Ravi Zacharias

“The best book of its kind in print”
Norman Geisler, Apologist, Southern Evangelical Seminary, Charlotte

Apologetics is often viewed as an academic discipline that is only for those capable of grasping complex intellectual argument. In Beyond Opinion, Ravi Zacharias shatters this illusion, by reminding readers that all Christians are required to give an answer for the hope that they have. Quoting C.S. Lewis, he points out that it is not a question of whether you use an apologetic in answering someone’s question, but whether the apologetic you use is a good one.

With this in mind, Beyond Opinion is designed to provide the average believer with practical and grounded advice in how to respond to many of the most important challenges faced by Christians today. Individual chapters are written by members of the RZIM global team (including Michael Ramsden, Amy Orr-Ewing, John Lennox and Alister McGrath), who lend their considerable expertise to a whole range of issues, from postmodern attacks on the Bible and the claim that science is incompatible with faith, to the challenges posed by a resurgent Islam or militant atheism.

Yet perhaps the book’s main strength is that Zacharias stresses that all intellectual knowledge is meaningless if it is not accompanied by an authentic spiritual transformation. He argues that evangelism is relational and that others will not be convinced of the message if there is no discernible difference in the life of the messenger. In this sense, Beyond Opinion acts as a trumpet call for all Christians, as it shows that apologetics is about winning people rather than arguments and that this can only happen when we fully engage both heart and mind for Christ.

RZIM Europe » Book Reviews

Book Review – Has Christianity Failed You?

Title: Has Christianity Failed You? Author: Ravi Zacharias

Chosen Ones – Alister McGrath’s New Challenge

Title: The Aedyn Chronicles – Chosen Ones Author: Alister McGrath