{"id":8168,"date":"2014-05-10T10:15:24","date_gmt":"2014-05-10T15:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/?p=8168"},"modified":"2014-05-10T10:15:24","modified_gmt":"2014-05-10T15:15:24","slug":"book-review-the-reason-for-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/?p=8168","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: The Reason for God"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-Reason-God-Belief-Skepticism\/dp\/1594483493#\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-8169\" alt=\"the-reason-for-god-timothy-keller\" src=\"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/the-reason-for-god-timothy-keller-286x300.jpg\" width=\"286\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/the-reason-for-god-timothy-keller-286x300.jpg 286w, https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/the-reason-for-god-timothy-keller.jpg 464w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 286px) 100vw, 286px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A few weeks ago, I finished up <a href=\"http:\/\/timothykeller.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Dr. Tim Keller&#8217;s<\/a>\u00a0book\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-Reason-God-Belief-Skepticism\/dp\/1594483493#\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Reason for God<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0I have spent a long time in conversation discussing this book with friends, but am just now getting around to typing up my notes. \u00a0This book is an excellent tool written specifically to address the skepticism that some people have about Christianity, about Jesus, or maybe just about the Bible itself. \u00a0Keller takes several conversations he has had over the years and turns them into an excellent conversation to have with someone that has questions about their faith. \u00a0This book is full of Scripture and oozes grace. \u00a0This book won&#8217;t cause an argument, but rather equips the reader with the knowledge and understanding of the gospel in such a way as to win a lost person to Christ. \u00a0I have already purchased a few copies of this book and given them away&#8230;and intend to buy more! \u00a0This is a great tool to have on hand, especially in my role as a high school principal serving students that tend to have really great questions about faith. \u00a0I highlighted several things while reading and have posted those notes below&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We have come to a cultural moment in which both skeptics and believers feel their existence is threatened because both secular skepticism and religious faith are on the rise in significant, powerful ways. \u00a0We have neither the Western Christendom of the past nor the secular, religionless society that was predicted for the future. \u00a0We have something else entirely.<\/li>\n<li>The population is paradoxically growing both more religious and less religious at once.<\/li>\n<li>Believers should acknowledge and wrestle with doubts\u2014not only their own but their friends\u2019 and neighbors\u2019. \u00a0It is no longer sufficient to hold beliefs just because you inherited them. \u00a0Only if you struggle long and hard with objections to your faith will you be able to provide grounds for your beliefs to skeptics, including yourself, that are plausible rather than ridiculous or offensive. \u00a0And, just as important for our current situation, such a process will lead you, even after you come to a position of strong faith, to respect and understand those who doubt.<\/li>\n<li>Christianity has within itself remarkable power to explain and expunge the divisive tendencies within the human heart.<\/li>\n<li>The death of Jesus was qualitatively different from any other death. \u00a0The physical pain was nothing compared to the spiritual experience of cosmic abandonment. \u00a0Christianity alone among the world religions claims that God became uniquely and fully human in Jesus Christ and therefore knows firsthand despair, rejection, loneliness, poverty, bereavement, torture, and imprisonment. \u00a0On the cross he went beyond even the worst human suffering and experienced cosmic rejection and pain that exceeds ours as infinitely as his knowledge and power exceeds ours. \u00a0In his death, God suffers in love, identifying with the abandoned and god-forsaken. \u00a0Why did he do it? \u00a0The Bible says that Jesus came on a rescue mission for creation. \u00a0He had to pay for our sins so that someday he can end evil and suffering without ending us.<\/li>\n<li>Embracing the Christian doctrines of the incarnation and Cross brings profound consolation in the face of suffering. \u00a0The doctrine of the resurrection can instill us with a \u00a0powerful hope. \u00a0It promises that we will get the life we most longed for, but it will be an infinitely more glorious world than if there had never been the need for bravery, endurance, sacrifice, or salvation.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cThey say of some temporal suffering, \u2018No future bliss can make up for it,\u2019 not knowing that Heaven, once attained will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.\u201d \u00a0C.S. Lewis, <em>The Great Divorce<\/em><\/li>\n<li>If we only grow intellectually, vocationally, and physically through judicious constraints\u2014why would it not also be true for spiritual and moral growth? \u00a0Instead of insisting on freedom to create spiritual reality, shouldn\u2019t we be seeking to discover it and disciplining ourselves to live according to it?<\/li>\n<li>Freedom is not the absence of limitations and constraints, but it is finding the right ones, those that fit our nature and liberate us.<\/li>\n<li>What strikes us as overly fanatical is actually a failure to be fully committed to Christ and his gospel.<\/li>\n<li>If we are saved by sheer grace we can only become grateful, willing servants of God and of everyone around us. \u00a0Jesus charged his disciples: &#8220;Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be servant of all\u201d (Matthew 10:43-45)<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. invoked the prophet Amos, who said, \u201cLet justice roll down like waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream\u201d (Amos 5:24). \u00a0The greatest champion of justice in our era knew the antidote to racism was not less Christianity, but a deeper and truer Christianity.<\/li>\n<li>Why should Western cultural sensibilities be the final court in which to judge whether Christianity is valid?<\/li>\n<li>For the sake of argument, let\u2019s imagine that Christianity is not the product of any one culture but is actually the transcultural truth of God. \u00a0If that were the case we would expect that it would contradict and offend every human culture at some point, because human cultures are ever-changing and imperfect. \u00a0If Christianity were the truth it would have to be offending and correcting your thinking at some place. \u00a0Maybe this is the place, the Christian doctrine of divine judgement.<\/li>\n<li>Even though the concept of warfare between science and religion still has much popular credence, we should disabuse ourselves of the notion that we have to choose between the two, or that if you want to be a Christian you will have to be in conflict with science. \u00a0A majority of scientists consider themselves deeply or moderately religious\u2014and those numbers have increased in recent decades. \u00a0There is no necessary disjunction between science and devout faith.<\/li>\n<li>Jesus\u2019s miracles are not just a challenge to our minds, but a promise to our hearts, that the world we all want is coming.<\/li>\n<li>If you dive into the shallow end of the Biblical pool, where there are many controversies over interpretation, you may get scraped up. \u00a0But if you dive into the center of the Biblical pool, where there is consensus\u2014about the deity of Christ, his death and resurrection\u2014you will be safe. \u00a0It is therefore important to consider the Bible\u2019s core claims about who Jesus is and whether he rose from the dead before you reject it for its less central and more controversial teachings.<\/li>\n<li>If we let our unexamined beliefs undermine our confidence in the Bible, the cost may be greater than we think. \u00a0If you don\u2019t trust the Bible enough to let it challenge and correct your thinking, how could you ever have a personal relationship with God?<\/li>\n<li>Come, let us argue it out. \u00a0Isaiah 1:18<\/li>\n<li>If there is no God, then there is no way to say any one action is \u201cmoral\u201d and another \u201cimmoral\u201d, but only, \u201cI like this.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Sin is the despairing refusal to find your deepest identity in your relationship and service to God. \u00a0Sin is seeking to become oneself, to get an identity, apart from him.<\/li>\n<li>Identity apart from God is inherently unstable.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cOnly if God is our <i>summum bonum<\/i>, our ultimate good and life center, will we find our heart drawn out not only to people of all families, races, and classes, but to the whole world in general.\u201d \u00a0Jonathan Edwards, <i>The Nature of True Virtue<\/i><\/li>\n<li>Everybody has to live for something. \u00a0Whatever that something is becomes \u201cLord of your life,\u201d whether you think of it that way or not. \u00a0Jesus is the only Lord who, if you receive him, will fulfill you completely, and if you fail him, will forgive you eternally.<\/li>\n<li>The fact that Jesus <i>had <\/i>\u00a0to die for me humbled me out of my pride. \u00a0The fact that Jesus was <i>glad<\/i>\u00a0to die for me assured me out of my fear.<\/li>\n<li>Outside of the Bible, no other major religious faith holds out any hope or even interest in the restoration of perfect shalom, justice, and wholeness in this material world.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago, I finished up Dr. Tim Keller&#8217;s\u00a0book\u00a0The Reason for God. \u00a0I have spent a long time in conversation discussing this book with friends, but am just now getting around to typing up my notes. \u00a0This book is an excellent tool written specifically to address the skepticism that some people have about Christianity, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,14,23,28,17,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-study","category-book-review","category-generosity","category-integrity","category-leadership","category-truth"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8168\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}