Reviews for Beyond Opinion: Living the Faith We Defend

The average rating for Beyond Opinion: Living the Faith We Defend based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-06-28 00:00:00 Dominic Gagliano There is a lot of good information in the book. The section on "Challenges from Science" is excellent, and the section on "Challenges from Islam" is a bit scary. Overall, the content of the book is very helpful, but the tone of the book in several sections bothers me a bit. What bothers me is the failure to show respect for beliefs (and those who hold them) that are contrary to one's own. I know this is difficult to achieve when the topic is "apologetics," the goal of which is to defend your belief system and persuade others that it is valid. But at times, some of the contributing authors fall into belittling other belief systems. In my view, the ideal tone for a book like this would be one where I could encourage those who hold to other belief systems to read it, and afterward we could discuss it. If I did that with this book, I would feel at times like I need to apologize for the tone of the book itself before we get into the content, and that is not the kind of "apologetics" that I want to engage in.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-10-11 00:00:00 Scott Hangen Very thorough, richly detailed, well organized. It's rather long, so this one is only for the dedicated Christian apologist investigator, but I'd recommend it. Of course all the essays have various levels of quality in writing, but the authors mostly keep the academic and professional tone consistent. In some spots I feel an author or two could have remained a little more focused or organized, but by the end I was really getting into a groove. There were several references to C. S. Lewis and Alister McGrath throughout all the essays, which I personally always enjoy. Zacharias's writings were perfect to top it all off at the end. If you don't have time to read all of it, I'd specifically recommend these essays: "Challenges from Atheism" by Alister McGrath, "Challenges from Youth" by Alison Thomas, "Existential Challenges of Evil and Suffering" by Ravi Zacharias, "The Trinity as a Paradigm for Spiritual Transformation" by L. T. Jeyachandran, and "The Role of Doubt and Persecution in Spiritual Transformation" by Stuart McAllister. Of course, the last two essays, both by Zacharias, are excellent as well. It ends on a really good note that the Christian must apply apologetics to everyday life in the church/through evangelism.