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Beyond Opinion: Living the Faith We Defend | 
 enlarge | Author: Ravi Zacharias
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Category: Book
List Price: $24.99
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Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 15753
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.5
ISBN: 0849919681
Dewey Decimal Number: 239
EAN: 9780849919688
ASIN: 0849919681
Publication Date: January 1, 2008
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Product Description
A definitive master work from the world's leading Christian Apologist. Respected apologist Ravi Zacharias was once sharing his faith with a Hindu when the man asked: "If the Christian faith is truly supernatural, why is it not more evident in the lives of so many Christians I know?" The question hit hard, and this book is an answer. Its purpose is to equip Christians everywhere to simultaneously defend the faith and be transformed by it into people of compassion. In addition to writing several chapters himself, Ravi Zacharias brings together many of today's leading apologists and Christian teachers, including Alister McGrath and John Lennox, to address topics present in the very future of worldwide Christianity-from the process of spiritual transformation to the challenges posed by militant atheism and a resurgent Islam. Destined to become a classic, Beyond Opinion is a touchstone that will affect Christians around the world.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 Sloppy Arguments and Faulty Logic November 28, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Every time I pick up a book like this, I do it wondering if I will be convinced. Clearly the author (or, in this case, authors, though the front cover misleadingly tells you there is only one) is so convinced of the beliefs in the book that he was compelled to write about them and to try to spread the ideas. You have to be pretty sure of where you stand to be willing to air your opinions so publicly, I figure.
But I was disappointed in this book, which claims to be an intellectual response to the attacks on Christianity (all of the authors are heavily trained in theology, and teach at places like Oxford, etc.). But from the opening chapter I began to run into intellectual lapses. Amy Orr Ewing, in her appraisal of postmodernism, does a terrible job of discussing the vastly different portrayals of God in the Old and New Testaments (she simply states that there is a "discontinuity," but makes no attempt to explain it or justify how Christians reconcile this discontinuity). Things only got worse from there. By the time I got to Ravi Zacharias' chapter on evil, wherein he presents an overly simplified (and therefore inaccurate) version of the problem of evil so that he can easily strike it down (this is known as a straw-man technique, because you're defeating something that isn't really there. The problem of evil is more profound than what Zacharias presents, and is indeed a real problem for theologians; Zacharias' proposed solutions for the Christian apologist would not pass as sound arguments in a university classroom, let alone among learned scholars and philosophers), I was pretty much ready to dismiss this book. Add to the above the fact that the chapter on science seems weirdly unaware of what science actually teaches (the author of that chapter is an Oxford mathematician--at one point he claims that belief in intelligent design is ancient and therefore respectable; but the ancients also believed in slavery and that the world was flat--does the ancient origin of those ideas make them respectable?), and you might begin to understand my frustration.
Maybe the problem here is that the book is meant to be a kind of quick but comprehensive guide to all of the different arguments against Christianity, and in its quickness it lost a lot of intellectual thoroughness and heft (the index pointing readers to other books is long). But I'm inclined to think the opposite, which is that these authors knew that they would have a limited amount of space to present their arguments, and so whatever they presented would have to be their best, most persuasive stuff, written in their easiest-to-understand style. It's all the more bizarre and disappointing, then, that they managed to fail. If there is a convincing reason to believe as the authors here believe, I'm still waiting to hear it.
 A great read. November 24, 2008
This book is a great book. It answers a lot of questions for christian believers and more so for those who do not believe God and do not believe in the God of the Holy Bible. This book is written by multiple great renown authors and edited by one of the current great international christian apologists.
 3 1/2 stars - Good, but inconsistent. November 5, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
There were parts of this book that were really top rate stuff, and great chapters. But as is prone to be the case with a work like this quilted together from the work of others, there are those chapters also which really are not well done or offer little of value.
The result is a finished product that sines in places but drags terrible and fails wonderfully in others. Overall it is still a good and worthy book, but it could have been so much more.
Beyond Opinion October 2, 2008
An excellent source of knowledge about how different cultures view Christianity. It also provides the foundation for someone looking to logically defend his or her faith in Christ.
Reaching head and heart September 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a collection of essays by members of the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries team. Except for two Oxford Professors - Alister McGrath and John Lennox - all the other authors are part of RZIM, working fulltime in various places around the globe.
In the fourteen essays contained here the authors seek to connect Christian apologetics with Christian living. Subtitled "Living the Faith We Defend", the heart of this book is to show that good apologetics is not just providing the right answers, but is about living a life that reflects the one we seek to defend.
The authors remind us that we are called to defend the faith, by meeting intellectual and worldview challenges. But we are also to be a living example of the faith, and show the reality of a Christ-transformed life. Providing honest answers to honest questions is obviously what apologetics is all about. But as Zacharias reminds us, "the role of the apologists is to win the person, not just the argument".
The various essays featured here cover many important areas. Some of the major topics covered include postmodernism, atheism, Islam, eastern religions, challenges from youth, challenges from science, the problem of evil and suffering, cross-cultural challenges, and the place of doubt.
One of the chapters by Zacharias, on the church's role in apologetics and the development of the mind, is alone worth the price of the book. The task of getting the church of Jesus Christ to actually use its mind for the glory of God is a most pressing need. Indeed, the title of Zacharias's radio show, "Let My People Think" has to be one of the great challenges facing believers today.
He begins the chapter by reminding us of the need to lead well-rounded apologetic lives: "I have little doubt that the single greatest obstacle to the impact of the gospel has not been its inability to provide answers, but the failure on our part to live it out."
He mentions a Hindu friend he had known long ago and his objections to the gospel. He felt Christian conversion was just a move to moral reform, without any supernatural element to it. He asked a question which really troubled Zacharias: "If this conversion is truly supernatural, why is it no more evident in the lives of so many Christians?"
Zacharias says Christians must first be willing to grapple with the difficult questions of the sceptics, and work through them ourselves. Then we must internalise the answers and live out these answers before a hurting and hungry world.
But we must not ignore or downplay the many honest questions which sceptics have. It is vital that we interact with them. "There is an exponential growth of knowledge in our time," says Zacharias, "and it is part of our Christian calling to work hard at understanding as much as we can the themes that must be addressed."
Yet this is rarely happening in the church today. Zacharias takes a dim view of the Christian mind. Walk into any Christian bookstore and the great majority of titles are simply fluff and froth, lacking in any theological or intellectual substance.
And in an age of intellectual mushiness, and a war on truth, Christians more than ever need to stand up for Christianity's absolute truth claims. Says Zacharias, "The first and foremost task of the apologist, then, is to stand for truth and to clarify the claims of the gospel."
Other chapters can be mentioned. L.T. Jeyachandran's article on Hinduism, Buddhism and the New Age Movement is a helpful and concise introduction to the Eastern worldview. Danielle DuRant's piece on idolatry and self-deception provides helpful insights and observations.
Taken together, the different parts of this book make for a powerful whole. They deal with intellectual and ideological issues, but also cover them from a personal and practical point of view. This is the way apologetics should be done: reaching both the head and the heart. This book is a most welcome addition to the apologist's library, and deserves a wide reading.
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