Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion - Fool's Talk

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was the first book that I read by Os Guinness. I really enjoyed his discussion about the "poles of unbelief." People who are outside the Christian worldview and who seek to understand the worldview (as they may any religious worldview) vary to one pole or another (dilemma verse diversion). I thought this was a keen insight by Os. It's apparent that he has interviewed and interacted with those who have questions (and not opinions) about Christianity. He helped me to identify and appreciate the journey of living for, with, and under a Messiah. It's never an impersonal journey or an escape from truth and reality. Quite the opposite. Some "Thinkers" may think it impossible to love God with all their mind but that seems to be a very slippery position. I find that God wired me for hard questions and the beauty is that others join me in my questions, doubts, and inquiry into the greater reality of God, as a Christian disciple. There are so many behind me and so many ahead of me who have dived into the hard questions of life, death, suffering, love, and hope. This book continues in that pursuit. Do you know reality? Do you know truth? Do you know a pure divine love that surpasses all of your pre-understandings of the concept of love?

I'm sorry to not give a critique of the chapters and content but I will say that the book flowed in a good pattern overall for me. Os Guinness is someone who has done much investigation and interaction on the subjects he presents. This was apparent to me, as I read through it. It is a good book for a Christian Thinker. I'm going back-- now ---and making notes from the content of this book so that I may keep some of the key points fresh in my mind for "persuasive" dialogue.

There are very good points made in the beginning about secular culture and what influence it has through various institutions on the Christian. Is this something that concerns you? Do you think you need to gain a better understanding of what continues to make your case for Christian belief--strong? If you answer YES, then check this book out. I think you will gain important insights from someone who has not shrunk away from the important matters of life in the spirit and God's reality for those who seek after Him.

Guinness, as always, is practical while continuing to be an intellectual giant.. This work should be read by every believer daring to enter the marketplace of ideas and contemporary Christian thought..

I have been benefited from the work of Os Guinness since 1977 when I read his book, The Dust of Death. Since then I have read nearly all of his subsequent books. Guinness rises to the occasion again with Fool's Talk.

Hardened skeptics and militant unbelievers are often a puzzle to Christian apologists. Yet they need to understand Christianity as much as anyone. Even the best of arguments alone sometimes fail to stick to the souls of these unbelievers. Because of this, we need the rhetorical wisdom of Os Guinness, evangelicalism's greatest living social critic. He speaks from long and broad experience as a Christian statesman.
His writing is clear and engaging and his grasp of all the pertinent literature is impressive and edifying. Fool's Talk will make its readers wiser and more creative in commending the matchless gospel of Jesus Christ.

This book is evangelism gold! I highly recommend it to all Christians. Evangelism is more than tracks and gimmicks, evangelism is sharing Christ not because we have to but because we love people and it is unkind to not share the life changing truth of the gospel.

Often I see people share in awkward ways. Many are unsure of how to share. This book takes evangelism seriously and walks people through the "how to talk" about the gospel by getting to the heart of the person you are addressing. When we share, not everyone will accept it, but it is unkind not to share the truth of the gospel with those who have not heard.

This book helps you know how to ask good questions so you can understand the person you are talking to. We must listen first before we can properly share because getting to the person's heart is most important. This book is genius and is the perfect tool for the believer to use to learn the art of persuasion. It is a lost art of talking to people and being moved by them as creations made in the image of Christ that is needed more than ever today.

I am very thankful for this book and really encourage you to read it. I have grown in the love of talking with people because of this book.

I received a free copy of this book from IVP Press for the purpose of an honest review.

In an era of “relentless self-promotion,” Christian persuasion has, ironically, gone out of fashion. Discouraged by “the unpopularity and implausibility of much Christian witness, [many] have simply fallen silent and given up evangelism altogether.” To counter this, Os Guinness has written an impassioned plea for the church to once again embrace its calling.

This is decidedly not a technique book. In fact, Guinness is anti-technique for practical reasons (no one size fits all) and theological reasons (not treating people as objects).

Guinness nonetheless unpacks a number of broad persuasive strategies. In table turning we argue against an idea based on its own beliefs. (“Everything is relative” is an absolute statement, thus contradicting the idea that everything must be relative.) In signal triggering, art, beauty, truth, and joy, as well as longing can point people beyond the merely material to the transcendent.

Subversive methods, like raising questions, are indirect and draw people in to considering things they might otherwise avoid. This is especially important because “most people [in the West] are untroubled rather than unreached.” Stories and parables can also be subversive by tapping into our imaginations and other parts of our being. Reason alone is insufficient for the job. It is limited. But reason is never to be abandoned.

Sometimes we must also turn the tables on ourselves. “If unbelievers are pressed to be consistent to their beliefs and worldviews, and shown up when they cannot be (because their faiths are not finally true), Christians should welcome being pressed in the same way.” So if we say we stand for love, grace, and mercy, we had better not be best known as angry advocates who hurl verbal bombshells at every opponent. And those who aren’t Christians have the right to call us on such hypocrisy.

Thus who we are is as important as what we say. “Humility and vulnerability should always be among the clear marks of the Christian advocate.” After all, “It is difficult to be around people who always have to be right. They are frankly a pain in the neck.”

In chapter 11 I think Guinness poses some false dichotomies, however, pitting proclamation and dialogue against persuasion. I’m not sure why he seems to insist on either/or when we can and should have both/and. And while the book gives a nod toward reaching the whole person through story, the real emphasis and strength of the book is on reason. I would have liked to have seen more on persuasion that goes beyond logic and ideas.

Guinness is nonetheless on to something very important. If relativism and pluralism mean that it is not ethical for us to try to persuade each other, what means do we have at our disposal for settling disputes other than violence?

What then does the title mean? Guinness identifies three kinds of fools. The first is someone who does things anyone would regard as foolish—squandering money, taking wild risks, unnecessarily aggravating people. The second is, as the Bible says, someone who has no fear of the Lord, who has misplaced priorities in life. Third, is the holy fool, the Fool for Christ—someone who acts contrary to worldly wisdom. Those are the fools Guinness encourages us to be.

I love books by Os Guinness, but good authors don’t always write good books. Even for those who don’t know of Os Guinness, it’s obvious early on in the book that he is quite intellectual and has researched many books in various fields of philosophy, history, and religion. But the book rambled on so much in the beginning I didn’t want to continue. But first you have to understand that Os Guinness is a classic philosopher, not a classic apologist, so in Aristotelian style, he feels like he has to build up a case first.

The premise of the book is excellent. Too many Christian apologists and apologetics is about bashing people over the head with cool arguments and "defenses" with no thought of really winning over the person. It's all about teaching, and arguing, and debating, and correcting, and defending, and even attacking. But where is the "persuading?" He gives many Biblical examples, most notably Jesus, who did not just go around correcting and rebuking people, but he was gentle. He listened. He met people on their terms. He saw through the arguments and issues to the heart of the matter. He wanted to win the person, not the argument.

It's a great idea for a book, and yes, Christians need to do more persuading and have more clever conversation with people who are closed, instead of just presenting the gospel to those who are open. However, this book doesn't do this topic justice. It presents a strong case for relational and conversational apologetics/evangelism, but there are no concrete advice on how to carry it out. Yes, he's against cold techniques, and that's not what this book is about. However, one who picks up a book of this topic is looking for something useful, for that very purpose, not just a book that defends why it must exist. This book could've been titled, "Christian Persuasion is Good," but there is no "recovering" or teaching of how that is done specifically.

The book didn’t get useful until page 75, so you can skip to that page after you’ve read this review. You’re welcome. Well, the meat doesn’t start until page 109. Everything else is appetizer.

Yes, I am guilty like the people he talks about in chapter 1, of one looking for techniques, or something, yeah, that’s why I’m reading this book. I’m not doing it for enjoyment or knowledge; I want to get something useful out of it so I can persuasively engage non-Christians who are seemingly closed to the gospel. And yes, that is the very way this book draws you in from its introduction and back cover. It clearly reveals that apologetics has shifted in the 21st century of high speed internet and McDonaldism, and we need to approach face-to-face evangelism more practically. Yes, we all get that – that’s why we’re reading this book, but page after page, it tries to convince you even more.

The whole first chapter is about how we shouldn’t be looking for cookie-cutter techniques, and the second chapter covers the changing nature of apologetics. boring. let’s get on with it already! The third chapter is where he starts getting to the useful stuff, but his fireside chats are so long, it may be easy to miss the point. He won’t flat out say it so I’ll say it for him: it’s the Fool-Making Technique. Since the gospel itself is paradox, it can approach the atheist worldview with humor, aware that life itself is filled with many logically opposing complexities that cannot be explained by the one-dimensional approach of the atheist. Faith allows us to see through the “incongruities of life,” and thus, we approach apologetics with humor. Don’t get so offended or flustered. See the comedy in their arguments or worldview and offer a revelation.

The next chapter is just bad. In summary: atheists are self-deceived, twist the truth, and worship themselves. I don’t disagree, but to spend a whole chapter to prove that? Yes, I admit this is a gross simplification of the chapter, but also proves the point that all of us stretch the truth or filter the facts. What then of objectivism? These modern-day “scientists” or “seekers of truth” are not really objective or neutral, nor are their research or “findings.”

His explanation of the teeter-totter between the “dilemma pole” and the “diversion pole” is interesting, but hardly usable. Well, most people we talk to are at the diversion pole, so clear out the diversion.

Chapter 6 is where you should actually start reading the book, having skimmed the first 5 chapters. He explains the “turning the tables” technique. Follow their unbelief systems to their logical conclusions of a life without God. Tempt them to explain meaning and purpose in that life beyond self-satisfaction. Are there absolute moralities? Can you apply your morals on Trump? or Islamic terrorists? In a worldview without God, they will be forced into a dilemma they are uncomfortable with. That’s when you turn the tables. “We should never stop halfway with skepticism, but insist on pressing ideas uncompromisingly to their conclusion. When hearts and minds collide with the wall, they will have reach the limits of their position and may then be open to rethinking.” You have to let them see the bad news before they will be open to the good news.

In order to turn the tables, you have to ask questions that raise questions. Stop giving them answers to questions they’re not asking. Questions are light but also subversive. Don’t quote Jesus or the Bible; use their prophets, not ours. Appeal to what they already subscribe to. Questions are so effective because they are indirect yet involving. Although he provides evidence of this method, Guinness doesn’t give any pointers on how to ask them.

Chapter 7 explains the technique of “signal triggering.” You make people aware of their God-given human longings and desires. Life itself reveals the “treasures of the heart.” These are signals in their own daily experience that spur people to find answers that need to be true in order for these desires to be satisfied. They let people realize there must be “something more” to this life than what they see right now.

Chapter 9 can be summarized in 2 words: Be humble. Now you can move on to the next chapter. (yes, the second half of the chapter is used to defend creative persuasion, but I deemed it unnecessary.)

In chapter 10, he addresses the issue of how Christian hypocrisy makes it difficult to share the gospel due to its bad witness. His solution is outlined in 6 steps: 1) Admit we’re all guilty 2) declare hypocrisy to be a violation of honesty and truth, 3) admit the benefits of hypocrisy and why people do it, 4) God hates hypocrisy much more than today’s modern world does, 5) don’t fight back but dare to confess, and 6) submit to Jesus. (yes, I took the liberty in changing his titles)

There is nothing useful in chapter 11. It’s only a defense of apologetics.

Chapter 12, the last chapter, is actually the best chapter in this book. He probably should’ve started the book with this. He explains how people go through stages before coming to faith. First stage – make the person question his life. Second stage – the mind checks out new answers to replace old belief models. Third stage – verification of new belief system. Fourth stage – commitment.

I’ve read hundreds of books in which the best stuff is in the first half, and the second half is just filler material. In this book, the first half is whatevers and the second half is actually good. But I wish he could write another book just focusing on the second half and going deeper and practical, because overall this book is not that good.

Thanks for reading my honest review.

Fool’s Talk: Rediscovering the Art of Christian Persuasion by Os Guinness is a well-timed reminder concerning the importance of persuasion in the proclamation of the Christian gospel. “We are all apologists now,” declares Guinness, “and we stand at the dawn of the grand age of human apologetics, or so some are saying because our wired world and our global era are a time when expressing, presenting, sharing, defending and selling ourselves have become a staple of everyday life for countless millions of people around the world, both Christians and others” (p. 15). It is here that Guinness boldly observes our time and context as the greatest opportunity for Christian proclamation since Jesus and the apostles, and thus, it is here that Guinness persuasively (pun intended) reorients the reader towards the heartbeat of apologetics found in the art of Christian persuasion.

Guinness guides the reader from beginning to end with noticeable expertise and experience in the field of Christian apologetics. However, for Guinness, Christian apologetics looks much different than the traditional approaches still used by many Christians today. Rather, the approach Guinness is keen to advocates is simple, cross-centered and cross-shaped persuasion. This is not a book for those seeking to catch up on the most recent apologetic techniques to be utilized in the workplace and beyond. It is a call to the Christian to put down the soulless crutch of technique alone and rediscover the all-encompassing power of the gospel of the cross. “Technique has its place,” as Guinness rightly acknowledges, “but it is time to challenge the imperialism of technique and keep technique in its place” (p. 46).

The art of Christian persuasion, then, is that which seeks to use the uppermost strengths of human reason and creativity in the defense of truth. Guinness describes the twofold reality of such persuasion as the apologists effort in, “Mustering all the powers of reason, logic, evidence and argument . . . [for] the task of answering every question, countering every objection, and dismantling false objections to the faith and to knowing God . . . Expressing the love and compassion of Jesus, and using eloquence, creativity, imagination, humor and irony . . . to pry open hearts and minds that, for a thousand reasons, had long grown resistant to God’s great grace, so that it could shine in like the sun” (p. 253). This is the art of Christian persuasion, the heartbeat of Christian apologetics, and the rediscovered platform of gospel-centered proclamation that Guinness commends to his readers.

Fool’s Talk: Rediscovering the Art of Christian Persuasion by Os Guinness is nothing short of a classic. Guinness is remarkably warmhearted in his exhortation and criticism of the present-day landscape of Christian apologetics, and his alternative approach is refreshingly biblical. “We are all apologists now,” and yet, as Guinness explains, “many of us have yet to rise to the challenge of a way of apologetics that is as profound as the good news we announce” (p. 16). It is here that Guinness has delivered a book that will both encourage your heart and reignite your soul for the task of Christian apologetics—namely, the art of Christian persuasion. If you are looking for an apologetic book that will alter the way that you interact with the world around you for the sake of the gospel, and reorient your heart towards the proper means of such interaction, then this is a book that you will do well to read. It comes highly recommended!

I received a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

I’m over halfway through Os Guinness’s new book Fool’s Talk—it’s really great for understanding evangelism and apologetics together and human nature—how the unregenerate mind/heart work in response to the truth and how we as Christians can be more effective in reaching people with the Gospel. He talks about how many, if not most, people are simply not open to the Gospel, and the triggers/desires/needs in their lives that can be used to help them see the Truth. And, how it’s not always wise to just hit people with the Truth until you understand where they come from/where the unmet needs are in their lives. Apologetics isn’t about winning debates—it’s about knowing how to reach someone’s heart (will/desires/affections). He takes us back to the Garden (as well as other passages of Scripture too) to show us how to be persuasive as Christians. He addresses/explains atheism/postmodernism/lack of absolute truth, and how it leaves people completely without hope, shiftless, and lacking in their lives, and, yet, there are some who would rather have all that than God Himself! (Now, that’s a Fool!). And, yet, we are to become "fools" in the world's eyes (just as Christ did) in order to "win some" for His glory and Kingdom. What an honor!

There is a big difference between winning arguments and winning people. This book focuses on that difference and desires to bolster the character, faith, and ethics of each of us. By using skills in imaginative arguments, people can be guided to the truth about the God who loves them. Drawing from persuasion models of Scripture, including Jesus himself, believers will gain confidence in the truth claims of the gospel. On the heady-side of learning.

Fool's Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion by Os Guinness is a much needed book at an important time the the western church. Our world is changing rapidly and as Christians we have a calling that involves taking the gospel to the whole world. To do this we must be able to understand our current context and communicate with people in it. Thankfully, one of the great minds in modern Christianity, Os Guinness, has provided this book at this very important time in the history of the church. In North America Christianity has been assumed for such a long time that many believers find it difficult to enter into spiritual conversations with someone who professes another religion or is agnostic or atheist. As Guinness states, "We have lost the art of Christian persuasion and we must recover it." This book is a wonderful tool in the hands of the church to equip us as we engage the culture around us.

Guinness draws on decades of knowledge about apologetics and the culture and provides much needed wisdom and insight. One of the downsides I have seen in some apologetics is that it seems like winning the argument is more important than what the argument is about. Ultimately apologetics argues for the existence of God and the work of Christ, but it is not merely an argument. The people who are on the other side are lost and without Christ and will spend an eternity in hell if they do not repent and believe. With this reality any apologetic that stops short of the gospel misses the mark. Guinness states this well when he says, "one of the more unfortunate side effects is that much apologetics has lost touch with evangelism and come to be all about 'arguments,' in particular about winning arguments rather that winning hearts and minds of people. Our urgent need today is to reunite evangelism and apologetics, to make sure that our best arguments are directed toward winning people and not just winning arguments, and to seek to do all this in a manner that is true to the gospel itself."

Another great point that Guinness makes in this book is based on the assumption that people want to hear what we have to say. Our culture has changed and where Christianity was once much more acceptable in the public sphere it is becoming less and less so. It is much more common to be met with indifference or hostility than it would have been in the past. As Guinness states, "Almost all our witnessing and Christian communication assumes that people are open to what we have to say, or at least are interested, if not in need of what we are saying. Yet most people quite simply are not open, not interested and not needy, and in much of the advanced modern world fewer people are open today than even a generation ago. Indeed, many are more hostile, and their hostility is greater than the Western church has faced for centuries." However people may respond to us and to God we must always remember what God's reality is. As Guinness says, "whatever people say about God - whether they ignore him, deny him, hate him, or scorn him - we always know two things about them: first, that they themselves are made in the image of God; and second, that they are living in the world of God's reality." These two truths should help us in difficult conversations. Others being made in the image of God means that they have dignity, value and worth even if they scorn or mock us. Them living in God's reality means that regardless of what they may believe we know the truth about God's plan to save His people and judge the wicked and we must tell them this reality, even if they do not believe it.

Overall, I was very blessed by this book. Guinness is always a joy to read as he challenges the reader to think. I received a copy of this book from IVP Books in exchange for an honest review.

After seeing Dr. Guinness be interviewed on this book, I put it on my reading list. I am so glad I did. This is the best book that I have read on how to 'do' apologetics. One of the things that I respect the most about Dr. Guinness is how he promised the Lord in his early twenties that he would not write a book on how to do apologetics until he had done apologetics for many years. True to his promise, I believe the Lord blessed him in his ministry because of that. His pattern of using this fivefold approach to apologetics at Creation, Fall, Incarnation, Cross, & the Holy Spirit is a great tool to remember. I really enjoyed his illustrations. Even though it is a book for Christians I would actually be comfortable handing this book to non-Christians because he can't help but show how rational and beautiful the faith is. He shows the emptiness of the secular life and how the Christian faith really is the hope of the world. Lastly, in our age of choosing between an evidentialist approach versus a presuppositionalist approach, I appreciated how he challenged Christians to have a both/and perspective in using both approaches when appropriate. If you read one book in your life on how to do apologetics in the 21st century then please read this one!

Guinness makes some remarkable points, but they're so buried in lofty rhetoric that it's often hard to find them. On one hand, the rhetoric is beautiful and makes you want to keep reading, but on the other hand it makes the reading far from effortless. He was doing that to try to demonstrate the main point of the book: that good rhetoric can be used of God to open the hearts of skeptics. But the problem is that most of his readers don't need great rhetoric to open their hearts to his points; they're already on his side. They just want to understand him.

So a good, even great book in some ways, but would have ben greatly helped by clarity in the author's propositions.

Refreshingly truthful and straight to the core of Christian persuasion. He states in his book, "Jesus never spoke to two people the same way, and neither should we." He provides many examples throughout the scripture to back this up. If you are looking for a better way to communicate God's message through a true Christian worldview lens, OS has some answers that will make you wiser and certainly more creative in your thinking. In conclusion, I highly recommend "Fool's Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion" book. It has changed me and I know it will change you too.

"If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another." - Galatians 5:25-26

(Started reading on January 21, 2016 as a part of a Men's Book Study group that meets every Thursday, reading 1 chapter a week)

Fool's Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion

Fool's Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion by Os Guinness is quite a convicting book, a book that really makes you think about how serious we really are about evangelism/apologetics. It provokes the question: how much thought do we really put in our conversations (or even our small-talk) with unbelievers? Do we hold back on saying anything related to the Gospel because we are ashamed of being considered foolish because of our belief in God's Word? Or if we do evangelize, are we just sticking with simple pre-contrived evangelization questions like, "If you were to die today and stood before God and He asked you why He should let you into Heaven, what would you say?" Are we willing to truly put thought into persuading someone of the truth of Christianity, giving answers to their questions, and asking thought-provoking questions ourselves, rather than merely turning to someone else's pre-designed method of evangelism. Do we not seriously think of persuasion outside of some other persons pre-written evangelization answers/questions (though not outside the word of God)? And are we loving when we talk to others, truly more concerned about winning the person rather than just winning an argument?

This book's author does an excellent job at making one think about the answers to questions like the above. For instance, as evinced above, he critiques modern-day evangelism, and makes the case that the 'method' used to evangelize actually does matter, "Recent forms of evangelism are modeled on handbooks for effective sales technique…After all, if all truth is God's truth, it is surely legitimate to use the best tricks of the trade, but this time use them in the service of the truth." "Not so…" Guinness answers. "…The Lord's work must always be done in the Lord's way. The method must serve the message. Technique is never neutral. It can be positive and useful, and it can also be harmful. Sometimes it an even be so brilliantly effective that its danger lies in its weaning us away from needing God at all. True apologetics is the art of truth, and its art must be shaped by the distinctiveness of the truth it proclaims."

He also does an excellent job at keeping one's perspective straight, because, though we do want to persuade others as best we can, and as Scripturally as we can, we are not to have the posture of winning discussions with non-believers at all-costs, the truth is true even if we do not defend it well, or even if we don't have answer to a certain question. Not matter how good are argument is, God is ultimately the only One who can change a person's heart and give them faith, though we do hope to have the opportunity to be used of God in helping others see the truth of the Gospel, "Faith's certainty lies elsewhere than in the rapier sharp logic or the sledgehammer power of the apologist. At the end of the day, full certainty comes from the conviction of the Holy Spirit."

There were some things in the book that had I had trouble with though. At one point the author says, "The next time you see Auguste Rodin's Thinker look at it closely" Ummm…. Sorry but if that work of 'art' is what I think it is (an unclothed statue of a man…who is in the process of thinking…probably trying to figure out what he forgot to do that day, he forgot to put on clothes!) I think that then next time I see it I'll look away quickly! I don't care if it doesn't show anything really inappropriate, it's the implication of nakedness that bothers me. Naked statues don't fit the list of attributes the Apostle Paul gives as to what we should think on/meditate on in Philippians 4:8, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure…(ASV)"etc.

Also, I really have trouble with some of Guinness's statements…I was really shocked by some in particular, "Just so did God shame the world's folly, subvert the world's pride and put death to death through the death of his Son. And the sober truth is surely that this was the way, the only way that it had to be done. There was no other way. God is always able to respond to sin and defiance with power….Power, however, usually overcomes by destroying what defies it. Thus, as Reinhold Niebuhr insisted, there is a limit to what even the power of God can do as power alone, for 'such power does not reach the heart of the rebel.' Power can fence us in, but only sacrificial love can find us out. Power can win when we are ranged against it, but it cannot win us." That REALLY takes away the miracle of Christians being made by God into New Creations, their hearts of stone that couldn't love God being made, by God, into hearts of flesh that love Him and His ways. That's power, being used because of God's love yes, but it's His transforming power just the same! If God didn't use power to change our hearts to love Him, and give us faith, we would not believe in Him, nor would we wish to follow His ways! See Colossians 2:8-16, that's not just love, that's God's power! He acts with His power because of His love for us! Just as God will do with the nation of Israel in the future (see Ezek. 36)

Some parts of the book get a bit tedious as you get more into it, but overall, I liked the book, and think that it is a good resource for helping us give thought about the answer we should always be ready to give when asked about the hope that we have (1 Pet. 3:15). I'll end with one of my favorite quotes from the book:

"To follow Jesus is to pay the cost of discipleship, and then to die to ourselves, to our own interests, our own agendas and reputations. It is to pick up our crosses and count the cost of losing all that contradicts his will and way - including our reputations before the world and our standing with the people and communities we once held dear. It is to live before one audience, the audience of One, and therefore to die to all other conflicting opinions and assessments. There is no room here for such contemporary ideas as the looking-glass self; and no consideration here for trivial contemporary obsessions such as one's legacy…"

Many thanks to the folks at InterVarsity Press for sending me a free review copy of this book! (My review did not have to be favorable)

Slick spin and polished patois throb and thud their way through every aspect of American society. Whether it’s left or right, liberal or conservative, revisionist or traditionalist, each group has its own particular guild-talk and encoded lingo that fulfills and fortifies their respective self-perceptions. On top of this, much of our communication has become self-serving and self-absorbed, as we post and present and publish our blogs, statuses, thoughts and tweets. As all of this self-important and self-fulfilling hype clouds our associations, “social” media and society what, then, happens to the Gospel? Increasingly it falls into the trap of just being another slice of profile-raising that craves all the “Likes” it can garner. In “Fool's Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion” Os Guinness, author, editor, and founder and past senior fellow of the Trinity Forum, has compiled a 270 page hardback to help Christians remedy the situation. It is a book about apologetics, but more than apologetics. It is about evangelism, but more than evangelism. It is concerned with Christian persuasion that is an advocacy of the heart, “an existential approach to sharing our faith” that is “deeper and more faithful as well as more effective than the common approaches used by many,” that is less concerned with winning the argument and more focused on “winning hearts and minds and people” (18).

Throughout “Fool's Talk” it is clear that Guinness is not presenting a pre-packaged, cookie-cutter program. The author is making a case for keeping apologetics and evangelism, proclamation and persuasion together (27). But he is also cultivating the important mindset of humility. As he wisely states, if the Christian faith is true, “it is true even if no one believes it, and if it is not true, it is false even if everyone believes it. The truth of the faith does not stand and fall with our defense of it” (58). To have this as a settled condition of the heart relieves the Gospel presenter and defender from the need to close the sell or win the debate, and instead it frees them up to care about the person or persons they are conversing with.

But it seems to me that Guinness is up to something bigger in “Fool’s Talk” than just stressing the value and importance of keeping apologetics and evangelism together. He appears to be doing three other, very important things in the book. First, the author challenges Western Christianity’s attraction toward modernism and postmodernism; the “breathless idolizing of such modern notions as change, relevance, innovation and being on the right side of history,” especially in the areas of time and technique (30). The new forms of “toxic syncretism” that spread “cowardice and compromise,” kowtowing to the pollster as king and data as all decisive, where “truth and falsehood, right and wrong, wise and foolish must give way to statistics, opinion surveys and pie charts,” that becomes “compatible with anything and everything, and so means nothing” (209-27). The importance of this challenge reminds us that if the truth of Christianity is true no matter what, then we don’t have to be captured by relevance as society defines relevance; and it reminds us that we will need to be just as focused on persuasion with those inside Christianity as we are toward those outside.

Along with this, the author will not leave Christians in a self-congratulatory position. Guinness, rightly it seems to me, persuasively subverts our propensity to whitewash our own failings. He defies our need to always be right, to win at all costs, whether with “showy exhibitionist rhetoric or ruthless streamrollering” (170). But more importantly, he lays open our own fault in the crumbling influence of Christianity in the West by pointing out how our own hypocrisies have undermined the Gospel; “Atheists gain their main emotive force not by setting out the purported glories of their worldview, ( . . . ), but in attacking the evils and excesses of Christians and Christendom. Something has surely gone terribly wrong when Christians are the best atheist arguments against the Christian faith and Christendom their best arguments for atheism” (204). Therefore Guinness points to the rightness of confession and repentance; “Plainly, there is a time in our arguments to confess, and confession and changed lives have to be a key part of our arguments” (206).

Finally, Guinness lays out the composition of unbelief; not for the purposes of excuse-making or ridiculing, but to show how the heart, mind and life are engaged in unbelief, and so “we must always need to be ready to go beyond purely rational arguments, for the human will is in play, so our arguments are never dealing with purely neutral or disinterested minds” (94). This means, for the author, that though Jesus is the only way to God, yet there are many ways people come to Jesus (232). He spends two significant chapters unpacking this, “Triggering the Signals” and “Charting the Journey”. In both of these chapters he shows the important place that signals of transcendence have in bringing others to start looking and searching beyond their presuppositions and assurances, and journey toward the moment when they will either take to their heels, or fall on their knees (250). The author is promoting a thoughtful charitableness that should pervade all Christian advocacies.

“Fool’s Talk” is about reclaiming and recovering the lost art of Christian persuasion. Guinness works masterfully to inspire Christians toward that end, but not through craft or technique. Instead, it is an advocacy of the heart, the face-to-face loving others who are in the image of God, seeking to persuade them with true truth that is life changing, even life changing for the persuader! I recommend this book.

My deep appreciation goes to IVP Books for the free copy of the book used for this review.

Drawing upon the diverse perspectives of C.S. Lewis, Frances Schaeffer, and Peter Berger, then adding the distilled wisdom of his own years of experience, Os Guinness has produced a history, an anatomy, a road map, and a compass for those who would explore the field of apologetics as Christian persuasion or “the art of speaking to people who, for whatever reason, are indifferent or resistant to what we have to say.” With in-depth exploration of the way apologetics paves the way for the good news, Fool’s Talk argues that apologetics lives on a continuum with the fields of evangelism and discipleship.

Using the words of the Old Testament prophets and the example of Christ, Guinness sets Biblical parameters around Christian persuasion in its faithfulness to the truth regarding creation, the fall, the incarnation, the cross, and the Holy Spirit. Believers are cautioned against formulaic approaches to the skeptic with warnings against the “McDonaldization” of all things and a reminder that runs throughout the book to avoid being that man with a hammer to whom everything is a nail.

Defining Terms

Given that Fool’s Talk comes after a lifetime of “doing” apologetics, it is no surprise that even in the process of defining the term, Guinness oozes practicality and theological depth. Essentially, he sees apologetics as a tool for clearing God’s name, for God has been framed as either non-existent or as the origin of evil. Therefore, Christian persuasion is “a lover’s defense, a matter of speaking out or standing up when God is . . . attacked wrongly.” Ultimately, of course, God is His own best defender, with the result that even the most skilled apologist is serving as “no more than junior counsel” in His defense.

If sin is defined as the dual deficiency of clinging to my own way of seeing things alongside my refusal to see the world from God’s perspective, then unbelief can rightly be understood as abuse of the truth that God has revealed. In the tradition of Romans 1:18, the doubter “looks at the undeniable truth of God’s universe and at the unbeliever’s own nature . . . but then denies their true force, suppresses their real meaning and turns their proper destination into a different one.”

The Apologist — Thinking

It is from Erasmus’s teaching in an era not unlike our own (and from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth) that Fool’s Talk takes its title. Of the three types of fools in the Bible — the fool proper who has no time for God; the fool bearer who is no fool at all but is prepared to be seen as one for Christ’s sake; and the fool maker who also is no fool, but uses folly to subvert the purposes of the high and mighty — it is the third “fool” whose wisdom reveals God’s perspective on humankind which serves as the motivation for Christian persuasion.

Because it addresses the human heart and mind, apologetics is concerned with understanding the unbeliever’s perspective which Guinness cleverly portrays as falling somewhere between two poles, because “the less consistent people are to their own view of reality, the closer they are to God’s reality.” Those far from God’s reality will feel their dilemma, but those who are trying to “live as if God were there” will employ distractions to lessen their discomfort.

Although apologetics does not hang on the use of “methods,” Fool’s Talk provides broad responses to unbelief such as “table turning” and “signal triggering” with in-depth counsel on the goal of “relativizing the relativizers.” Certainly, the Message absorbs and utterly overwhelms any method; however, chapters 6 and 7 would bear a double reading in order to absorb their logic and to appreciate the demonstration of the sad reality that all thoughts may be thinkable and arguable, but not all thoughts can be lived out.

The Apologist — Communicating

The goal of the apologist is to create seekers who will examine the inconsistencies of their beliefs and evaluate the treasures of their heart, thus raising questions about the value of that treasure and about the trustworthiness of the words they hold as true. However, Guinness makes it clear that the veracity of the Christian faith does not turn on the skill of its defenders, and that after all is said and done in the course of evangelism and apologetics, the unbeliever “always has the final choice to fall on their knees or to turn on their heels.”

The words of I Peter 3:15 frame the heart of the Christian persuader. Thus, in meekness and fear, sans manipulation, one is able to respond to the accusations of hypocrisy or to refute the various objections that come from the right and from the left, with the goal of launching a seeker onto the four-stage journey of questioning the meaning of life; discovering answers; verifying truth claims while comparing options; and whole heartedly trusting in God. Of course, in hindsight, all will have been proved to have been (in the words of C.S. Lewis) “the mouse’s search for the cat,” and yet it is this goal orientation toward repentance, relief, and joy that elevates the role of the apologist from dry academician to servant of Christ’s Kingdom. The challenge of Fool’s Talk is summarized in Os Guinness’s forty-year-old promise to God:

“When I was leaving university, I promised that I would always do apologetics rather than simply write about it, that I would do it before writing about it, and that I would do it more than writing about it.”

Having read the book, will we take the challenge to re-frame this promise to reflect a reader’s perspective? Will we embrace the truth that “with Christian persuasion, doing it must always outweigh talking about it.”

This book was provided by IVP Books, an imprint of Intervarsity Press, in exchange for my review. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

What part then (if any), does “Christian persuasion” have in God’s work to save sinners? This is the topic of Os Guinness’s excellent new work, Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion. Guinness describes persuasion as “the art of speaking to people who, for whatever reason, are indifferent or resistant to what we have to say.

In the world of evangelicalism today, there has been great deal of confusion between the roles of evangelism and persuasion–also known as apologetics–and how they work together: “…much apologetics has lost touch with evangelism and come to be all about ‘arguments’, and in particular about winning arguments rather than winning hearts and minds and people. Our urgent need today is to reunite evangelism and apologetics, to make sure that our best arguments are directed towards winning people and not just winning arguments, and to seek to do all this in a manner that is true to the gospel itself.”

In Fool’s Talk, Guinness chooses to focus more on the why of apologetics and persuasion than the how. Although Guinness intentionally set out not to write a book about the blow-by-blow technique of apologetics, he nevertheless offers some wonderfully helpful approaches to consider when conversing with an unbeliever:

1) “Turning the Tables” involves “taking people seriously in terms of what they say they believe and disbelieve, and then pushing them toward the consequences of their unbelief.” A person says they believe all morality is relative? Ask them why it’s wrong then to lie, steal, and kill children.
2) “Triggering the Signals” is the art of helping a person to see that their deepest longings which this world can never satisfy prove, as C. S. Lewis famously said, they are “made for another world.”

A favorite chapter of mine dealt with “the Anatomy of Unbelief”. Here, Guinness deals with the severe philosophical implications of the unbeliever’s suppression of the truth, as seen in Romans 1. The reality is, “unbelievers suppress the truth in unrighteousness, but it is still always the truth, so they can never completely get away from it.” The role of the Christian persuader is to find those glimmers of truth hidden in the belief systems of every person, and to show the beauty and logic of such truth.

I went into Fool’s Talk initially looking for more ammunition to add to my “apologetic arsenal”, but I left with something much more valuable: a deeper appreciation for the beautiful logic of the gospel message and the reminder that the truth of God is written on every human heart–if only we are willing to look for it and bring it to the light. This is likely the most helpful book I have ever read on the topic of apologetics and evangelism. I can’t recommend it enough!

“Jesus never spoke to two people the same way, and neither should we.” That’s why we need to recover the biblical art of creative persuasion. So Os Guinness declares his underlying premise in his masterful book that pleads for the combination of apologetics and evangelism, proclamation and persuasion, head and heart.

“There is no single right way it should be done. There is no one-size-fits-all approach that will work with everyone.” Apologetics should not be about winning arguments with clever techniques but rather winning head and heart. “The Scriptures know nothing of an apologetics that has no interest in evangelism. Christian persuasion is a matter of cross talk not of clever talk.”

In this post-modern age when skeptics are not really interested in Christianity, we are to become fools for Christ and enter into “fool’s talk” even as Jesus met every person on their on own terms and began at their level of belief or unbelief. We must be willing to ‘play the fool’ and to disregard our reputations even as Christ ultimately allowed Pilate to think He was a fool.

Perhaps the greatest contribution to apologetics by Guinness’ book is his chapter on “Anatomy of Unbelief.” With detailed precision of a surgeon and a philosopher, he paints a clear picture of the “clash between truth seekers and truth twisters.” He exposes the human heart, intellectual and well-meaning as it may seem, as “more deceitful than all else.”( Jeremiah 17:9). He describes four ways that unbelievers twist the truth of God via suppression, exploitation, inversion and self-deception. By doing so, Guinness gets us inside the mind of the so-called “truth seekers’ and helps us to first be armed philosophically with the rebellion of man.

The approach of Christian persuasion is that “by taking people seriously in terms of what they say they believe and disbelieve, and then pushing them toward the consequences of their unbelief” we help them to face up to their own dilemma of belief where they must make a choice.

Guinness warns us about “always being right” and chastises Christians for being weak on creativity, imagination and right-brain thinking. Arm-twisting will never do, he insists. “Creative persuasion is indirect rather than direct.” He clarifies what some emergent evangelicals and revisionists have called “innovative” only to prove that it is nothing more than “recycled Protestant liberalism.”

Again, this is not a “how to” book of techniques on apologetics and evangelism. Instead, it is a philosophically principled work laced with historical and literary examples of creatively persuading skeptical thinkers about the Christian faith. Those in academia will find this reading stimulating while others will find it intellectually challenging.
Thanks to ChurchCentral.com for the review copy of the book.

The Cookie Cutter. It’s great for making cookies, isn’t it? When using cookie cutters we’re able to crank out dozens of cookies, perfectly shaped and made to our liking. As a society, we’ve seen the success we’ve had in applying the “cookie-cutter” approach, and naturally we take it a step further. Now we want to make everything work in this format. Fast food joints, automobile factories, and so forth, all are using these same principles to produce faster, easier, and more efficiently. This approach doesn’t work, however, when it comes to Christian apologetics.

We’ve certainly tried to make it work, but to no avail. Skeptics and seekers alike don’t operate this way. Handing 100 random people the same gospel tract is highly unlikely to garner 100 new believers in Christ. Naturally, God can work through whatever methods we devise, but what we’re learning is apologetics cannot be a “mass produced” or “relationship-free” effort. For that reason alone, many of us give up the prospect of defending our faith and evangelism altogether. The truth is, we all tick different, we all think different. We all bring unique presuppositions into our worldview and thus into all aspects of life.

This is one of the main reasons Os Guinness feels that we must recover the art of persuasion in apologetics. Guinness elaborates:

“[The] combination of the abandonment of evangelism, the divorce between evangelism, apologetics, and discipleship, and the failure to appreciate true human diversity is deeply serious…At best, many of us who take the good news of Jesus seriously are eager and and ready to share the good news when we meet people who are open, interested or in need of what we have to share. But we are less effective when we encounter people who are not open, not interested or not needy–in other words, people who are closed, indifferent, hostile, skeptical or apathetic, and therefore require persuasion” (17).

After decades of patiently waiting to write this masterpiece, Guinness has finally given us incredible insights into the art of Christian Persuasion with Fool’s Talk. He is clear about the structure and purpose of the book. This is not a “6 Keys to Better Apologetics” formulaic how-to guide. This is a book built on honest conversation, patient reflection, and gentle guidance. In Fool’s Talk, Guinness, a leading apologist himself, is hoping to equip the generations to come to continue the tradition of careful Christian apologetics once carried by the likes of Pascal, Chesterton, and Lewis. We know such minds are one in a million, but Guinness’s careful analysis of the styles and minds of these men and more provides Christians with incredible insight on how to look at the world around us, how to engage it, and how to persuade it with the truth of the gospel. As the introductory words proclaim, “We are all apologists now, and we stand at the dawn of the grand age of human apologetics” (15).

What I loved about Fool’s Talk was how Guinness helped us enter into the mind of the skeptic. Oftentimes in apologetics, we’re so concerned with “making our case” that we don’t do enough digging to know which shields to put up, which swords to bring to battle, and so forth. A great example of this is in Chapter 5, “Anatomy of Unbelief,” where Guinness helps us distinguish “truth twisters” from “truth seekers.” In Chapter 6, “Turning the Tables,” Guinness primarily talks about the role of reversing the argument in apologetics, and how critical it is that we listen and learn in these processes.

Guinness also spends a great deal of time speaking directly to the Christian’s behavior in apologetics, addressing the temptations of religious snobbery (Chapter 9), hypocrisy (Chapter 10), and neglect (Chapter 11). This is crucial and necessary reading for every Christian in their pursuit of becoming gospel evangelists. We must take advantage of the ripe harvest before us, and learn to put to death such temptations in apologetics.

This is one of the best books I’ve read this year. It’s one I know I’ll return to as I engage skeptics and seekers, and I know it will be relevant reading for decades to come. Os Guinness couldn’t have written Fool’s Talk at a better time. This is not a list-driven, cookie-cutter approach to apologetics. This is winsome, compassionate, practical, creative, and persuasive handling of the truth of God in our post-Christian world. We will all be helped by Guinness’s timeless work here.

I received this book for free from IVP Academic for this review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Os begins by setting out two propositions: first, we are in “the grand age of apologetics” (16) and second, “We have lost the art of Christian persuasion and we must recover it”(17 italics original). His game plan? Bringing together the art of apologetic and evangelism. Divorce the two and you get Christians only concerned with winning arguments and not people or just concerned with ABC repeat-after-me tactics. When the two are combined, you have arguments that take other’s belief seriously, are actually concerned for people, and are aimed at the heart.

I’m a recovering ABC repeat-after-me evangelists and grew up in a tradition that could be manipulative when inviting people to Christ. So even though in my head I know persuasion isn’t bad sometimes I find myself suspicious when the word pops up in the context of evangelism. If you’re like me, you might have thought, Shouldn’t we just proclaim the gospel and allow the Spirit to work?

What I loved most of all was how cruciform and Spirit-dependent Os was through out Fool’s Talk. He made clear our arguments rest on the cross of Christ which is folly to an unbelieving world and the power of the Spirit (28). Persuasion doesn’t mean deception or cheesy bait-and-switch tactics. It means approaching apologetics-evangelism with excellence like we would anything else. All the while admitting:
Our work is important, but at best our part is to bring the presence of God into the debate through the power of the Holy Spirit, and to remember that we are no more than junior counsels for the defense. . . . Balaam’s ass is the patron saint of apologetics. (58, 60)

We are not the deciding factor in the salvation of souls. We are “junior counsels for the defense”—that’s liberating. Os moves on to discuss basic apologetic questions like “What is being said? Is it true? What of it?” (31) and re-emphasizes approaching every person as an individual. He also roots that relational care to our love of God. This is ultimately about loving our neighbors well (45).

One of the most practical sections deals with two tactics when approaching unbelief—table turning and signal triggering. In table turning, you take the person’s belief seriously to the point where you allow their logic to cut into their own worldview “pushing them towards the consequences of their unbelief” (109). G. K. Chesterton uses this approach regularly. In signal triggering, you point out longings, desires, and affections for something more that can’t be fulfilled in this world. C. S. Lewis uses this approach regularly. Os skilfully weaves theology, apologetics, evangelism, and more into a single volume that will help mature Christians and make disciples in our postmodern culture.

Fool’s Talk should be essential reading for Christians who wish to engage our culture in any meaningful way. Os hits all the rights notes—boldness, humility, persuasive in his own right, and cruciform. We need more apologetist-evangelist like him who are confident in God but humble in the way they present the truth. He understands the cross makes us into fools—that’s a great place to start as long as we realize that doesn’t mean God isn’t in the business of making more fools.

The newest book by the brilliant British social critic and apologist Dr. Os Guinness may strike some as rather odd ... that is, unless you add "and humorist" to his bio. Before the table of contents, he includes five pages of notable quotables on the place of humor, satire, joke-telling, laughter, exaggeration, etc. My favorite, by one history's intellectual heroes, Blaise Pascal: "Nothing produces laughter more than a surprising disproportion between that which one expects and that which one sees." The same can be said for this book. Highly recommended.

Os Guinness's latest book, Fool's Talk, is devoted to a very important topic: apologetic persuasion. And the time couldn't be better for such a book: While contemporary Christian apologetic arguments have attained an impressive level of sophistication, all too often the apologists who use them are comparatively lacking in persuasive, rhetorical ability. Enter Guinness to introduce "the art of speaking to people who, for whatever reason, are indifferent or resistant to what we have to say." (18)

The book is written in Guinness's crackling prose which calls to mind the writing of two of his greatest influences, G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis. It also includes many rich seams of argument such as an intriguing discussion of the power of laughter which culminates in this provocative observation: "The dynamics of the cross of Jesus are closer to those of comedy than tragedy." (77)

In addition, Guinness also distributes many nuggets of wisdom throughout the text like this bit of good sense: "Very few people are strictly and consistently logical, so to catch their small inconsistencies is merely to annoy them and put them off." (121)

Despite those undeniable virtues, my overall response to Fool's Talk can be summarized in one word: disappointment. This disappointment is traceable to two shortcomings: (1) a lack of practical guidance in the methods of persuasion; (2) an unseemly, abrasive and dismissive tone toward one's interlocutors. In the remainder of this review I'll expand on these two points.

*In search of the means of persuasion*

Satisfaction is inextricably linked to expectation. Before reading Fool's Talk I was anticipating a text that would provide significant practical guidance in how to become more persuasive in engaging with others. Unfortunately, save for the above-mentioned occasional nuggets of good sense, I was largely disappointed.

The problems begin in chapter two as Guinness launches into a bold critique of the use of technique which he derides as "the devil's bait for the Christian persuader today...." (30) While I share Guinness's concern over the abuse of technique, I find his attitude to be far too dismissive here. We may agree with Guinness that "there is no McTheory when it comes to persuasion" (32) while still pillaging the wisdom of the Egyptians in fields like persuasion psychology and communication theory. It would have been far more helpful if Guinness had provided more guidance in how to appropriate the insights of these fields judiciously so as to communicate apologetic arguments in a more winsome and effective manner.

In the moments that Guinness did broach concrete questions of method, his advice often struck me as vague and unhelpful. For example he warned, "The lost art of Christian persuasion certainly includes a method, but a method that is overwhelmed and utterly lost in the message that shapes it and the Master whom it serves." (45) To be honest, I'm not even sure what this means, let alone how this can productively inform my real world interactions with others.

Similar problems were evident in the fourth chapter which takes up the central theme of Christian persuasion being informed by the way of the cross. Guinness envisions here the theme of Christ's weakness (the "fool") being vindicated in power and thereby revealed as the "jester":

"The fool maker is the person who (once again) is not a fool at all, but who is prepared to be seen and treated as a fool, so that from the position of derided folly, he or she may be able to bounce back and play the jester, addressing truth to power...." (72)

There are some profound, architectonic themes being explored in this chapter. But once again, I found the end result still left the apologist with little concrete guidance in how to become more persuasive. One of Guinness's favored examples of a masterful jester is found in Erasmus' work In Praise of Folly. But few of us will ever approach Erasmus' rhetorical brilliance, nor does Guinness provide much guidance as to how we might begin to close that gap.

*A most unpersuasive tone*

If the lack of practical guidance into the means of persuasion was disappointing, the book's abrasive and alienating tone toward others was deeply ironic and counterproductive to the book's stated purpose. The problem here, in short, is that Guinness tends to caricature the views of others and present them in the worst light. And to be frank, it is hard to think of a more effective way to undermine the goal of persuasion than engaging in this kind of behavior.

Strong words, I know, so I'm going to turn now to providing several examples of these rhetorical slights.

Consider, first, Guinness' scathing dismissal of postmodernism, a movement which, so Guinness claims, is "inherently hypocritical" (193). As Guinness puts it, postmodernists say that "truth" to nothing more than a "compliment we pay to claims and ideas that we agree with...." (194) No doubt one can find postmodernists who have said things like this (e.g. Richard Rorty), but there is no justification for painting the whole incredibly diverse movement (if it even can be considered a "movement") with the same brush. I can only assume that Guinness is simply ignorant of the work of scholars like James K.A. Smith (e.g. Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church (Baker, 2006)). Apart from ignorance, there simply is no defense for such an uncharitable and unqualified dismissal.

Next, consider Guinness's treatment of theological "liberals" and "Emergent Evangelicals". Guinness sets up his discussion of theological liberals against the backdrop of Enlightenment skeptics who have foolishly abandoned revealed truth in favor of popular opinion: "So 'one can no longer believe' was the cry of the chronological snobs and the techno-idolaters as they discarded whatever was not the 'latest and greatest, and the newer and truer.'" (218)

The problem with such rhetoric is that it utterly fails to grapple with the fact that everybody is a liberal (or progressive) relative to some other group. For example, most Christians today differ from their forbears of two or three centuries ago in how they read the Bible on topics like slavery, corporal punishment, the age of the earth, and the status of women. In short, compared to an earlier time, we're all liberals. So how liberal must one get before one is derided as a "chronological snob and techno-idolater"?

Guinness extends his derision to "Emergent Evangelicals" who "have emerged and aged until now only nostalgia or denial allows them to still claim that they are emergent." In fact, he adds, emergent evangelicals are simply "a recycled Protestant liberalism with the same feeble hold on the Bible and truth...." (224)

I find this kind of tone deeply offensive. The number of Christian leaders -- theologians, pastors, etc. -- who would identify as emergent is very broad and diverse. And there is absolutely no justification for dismissing all who share that affiliation as having a "feeble hold on the Bible and truth".

Guinness's attitude toward "liberals" and "Emergent Evangelicals" is well summarized in a passage he quotes from Thomas Oden. In the passage in question, Oden replied to the popular cry of the 1960s liberal "Don't trust anyone over thirty" by countering "Don't trust anyone under three hundred." (224) That's a nice bit of rhetoric, perhaps, but that's all it is. To return to the examples I cited above, do you really want to limit your opinions on topics like slavery, corporal punishment, the age of the earth, and the status of women to 300 plus year old theologians? With this attitude Guinness adopts a Luddite chronological snobbery in reverse which is no better than that of his all-too-trendy opponents.

As Guinness puts it, there is apparently an inverse relationship between theological change and Christian unfaithfulness: "the further the revisionists go, and the more extreme they become, the more disloyal they are to Jesus and the more damaging they become to the Christian faith." (225) I'm sure Christian reformers like William Wilberforce and Martin Luther King Jr. heard exactly that kind of conservative rhetoric as they made their bold entreaties for radical theological, social, and economic change. In short, Guinness's language here is nothing more than bully rhetoric for defending the present form of conservative doctrine, whatever that may be.

Next, consider how Guinness approaches all those who doubt the nature, providence, and/or existence of God (a diverse group that includes everyone from the committed new atheists to the struggling Christian). Here is how Guinness sets it up:

"Faith desires to let God be God. Sin has framed God, whether by the ultimate insults that he, the creator of all things, does not exist, or that he, the white-hot holy One, is responsible for the evil and suffering that humans have introduced into his good creation. So God's name must be cleared and his existence and character brought to the fore beyond question. Thus 'Hallowed be thy name' is our prayer and the defense of that name is our burning motive in apologetics." (54-55)

Guinness concludes, "In short, so long as sin frames God, those who love God have a job to do in the world. We are defenders of the one we know and love." (55) Note the absolute, stark, binary opposition of this passage. Either you accept God or you sin. It's just that simple.

Except that it isn't. I have known many people on that spectrum from the new atheist straight through to the doubting Christian who struggled with the existence and/or nature of God. One example that I've invoked on several occasions in my books is Bob Jyono. At one time he was a faithful Catholic. But that changed when he learned that the local priest had raped his daughter in his house over several years. Jyono's faith never recovered. Is his loss of faith a manifestation of sin? What about Mother Teresa's famous doubts peppered through her posthumously published journals? Was that sin too?

Finally, consider Guinness's treatment of the "hostile atheist": "to a hostile atheist, mention of God at the start of a conversation is like a red rag to a bull, and invites a snort and a pawing of the ground." (33) While I agree that some atheists can be very angry and aggressive toward Christianity, this strikes me as a very demeaning and uncharitable metaphor and one that is likely to be anything but persuasive for the audience Guinness allegedly wants to reach.

At one point in the book, Guinness observes that hypocrisy is second only to the problem of evil as a purported basis for atheism (190). I wouldn't call Guinness hypocritical, but I do believe his abrasive tone is deeply inconsistent with his stated goal of persuasion.

Inconsistent, and ironic, and so very disappointing.

Thanks to InterVarsity Press for a review copy of the book.

www.randalrauser.com

I study MacArthur a lot, and recently I added Francis Schaeffer. I have a solid personal understanding of the great commission. This book's kindle sample stopped during the intro, which I liked, but I got no clue of what his proposal was to be. I don't believe I am called to bring people to Christ, but for my life to be a witness.