Timothy Keller … If he is willing to compromise in one place, everything else now potentially includes compromises, and I can't trust him as a good source of christian apologetics. --This text refers to the. But my experience as a pastor in New York has given me another incentive to write this volume. Some people say, “I don’t believe in Christianity because I can’t accept the existence of moral absolutes. My family later found its way to a more conservative church in a small Methodist denomination. This is a bitter pill for secular, nonreligious people to swallow. Helps me see things in a different light. He doesn't yell or thump his Bible. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. Most of these people just laugh at the idea of church, I was told. Something went wrong. Though she can’t pinpoint one moment, she came to feel, for the first time, “unconditionally loved as a true daughter of God.” Gradually she received freedom from her self-destructive behavior. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know about the Christian faith, and also to fellow Christians. We start down the road to Hitler’s death camps and Stalin’s gulag, he warns, whenever we refuse to recognize in fellow humans the divine image of God. As somebody who was brought up as a Catholic I have a fundamental faith that God exists. “All major religions are equally valid and basically teach the same thing.”. At first I thought this was going to be a struggle to read with how it started off. Timothy Keller demonstrates that caring for needy people is the job of every believer—not just church deacons—as fundamental to Christian living as evangelism, nurture, and worship. Each side demands that you not only disagree with but disdain the other as (at best) crazy or (at worst) evil. And so I became a believer in Christ.”11. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. Prime members enjoy FREE Delivery and exclusive access to music, movies, TV shows, original audio series, and Kindle books. It's certainly the best book I've read of its type. Even in much of Europe, there is some growth in church attendance.4 And despite the secularism of most universities and colleges, religious faith is growing in some corners of academia. Making Sense of God: Finding God in the Modern World, The Reason for God Discussion Guide: Conversations on Faith and Life, Desiring the Kingdom (Cultural Liturgies): Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Encounters with Jesus: Unexpected Answers to Life's Biggest Questions, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters, "It is easy to understand [Timothy Keller's] appeal.". It does so by stating and restating certain axioms that eventually achieve the status of common sense. A case in point was the person of Jesus. Liberate the oppressed and sleep with who you wanted! Atheist author Sam Harris and Religious Right leader Pat Robertson should each admit the fact that his particular tribe is strong and increasing in influence. Those who deviate from them are stigmatized as foolish or dangerous. Letter to a Christian Nation. Timothy Keller, the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, addresses the frequent doubts that skeptics, and even ardent believers, have about religion. While the first half of the book lays out a pathway that many of these Christians have taken through doubt, the second half of the book is a more positive exposition of the faith they are living out in the world. Which Rationality? One of the things that kept them on the trail, however, was the large number of believing Christians they met that were every bit as sophisticated and smart as anyone else they’d met in the city. This is an excellent book of popular theology which presents some compelling evidence and arguments for trusting in the truth of Christianity. Everyone should determine moral truth for him-or herself.” Is that a statement they can prove to someone who doesn’t share it? I have found myself lacking language to adequately express the "Reason" behind my belief in God and thus for my faith, and I was eager to read this book the moment I read the title. We have an impasse between the strengthening forces of doubt and belief, and this won’t be solved simply by calling for more civility and dialogue. This leads to a strange conclusion. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 20, 2018. I want to make a proposal that I have seen bear much fruit in the lives of young New Yorkers over the years. He clearly believes evolution to be correct, and thus begins a convoluted section trying to rationalize the rather obvious nature of Genesis 1-2 into something it just isn't. I think these younger Christians are the vanguard of some major new religious, social, and political arrangements that could make the older form of culture wars obsolete. About the Author. I thank God for him. Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2018. Both his father and mother suffered terribly with cancer, his mother succumbing to it. "- Marvin Olasky on The Reason for God. So the proponents of this view do the very thing they forbid in others. Several of her Christian friends at college spoke to her of their faith, but she was “rocky soil for the seeds” of their testimonies. Being well acquainted with logic and rhetoric, the blatant logical fallacies often times presented as "proofs" is an embarrassment to Christian intellect. In 1989 he started Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City with his wife, Kathy, and their three sons. Prime members enjoy FREE Delivery and exclusive access to music, movies, TV shows, original audio series, and Kindle books. It was painful, and was, as is typical, triggered by disappointments and failures. Christianity’s growth, especially in the developing world, has been explosive. It reads like a Mere Christianity (CS Lewis) for the 21st century. When the Chinese Communists expelled Western missionaries after World War II, they thought they were killing off Christianity in China. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine--, *Starred Review* Keller has just made life harder for preaching atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. The culture wars are taking a toll. Finally they were not only convinced of Christianity’s intellectual credibility, but were attracted by its vision for life. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. He liked the sermons “until that Jesus business came around at the end” at which point he’d stop listening. Rather, it is a robust supernaturalist kind of faith, with belief in miracles, Scriptural authority, and personal conversion. As the pastor of an inner-city church in New York City, Timothy Keller has compiled a list of the most frequently voiced doubts sceptics bring to his church as well as the most important reasons for faith. What follows are several of these axioms and the problems with each. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. Kindle Edition. Then there will be an understanding, sympathy, and respect for the other side that did not exist before. I commend two processes to my readers. Unfortunately, I don’t believe any of them will be effective. Also, Keller occasionally gets caught up in presenting philosophical arguments and has a slight tendency to speed up as he lists his points. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller Book Review The most common oppositions people have against Christianity are, why miracles are real, how did we know that Jesus … Therefore the population is paradoxically growing both more religious and less religious at once. (Billy Graham) Book Description. He contended that doctrinal differences between Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism were superficial and insignificant, that they all believed in the same God. There Jesus modeled a view of doubt more nuanced than those of either modern skeptics or modern believers. Nothing like that is imminently possible. --Bryce Christensen He doesn't try to skirt around objections but faces them head on. Unable to add item to List. Unable to add item to List. Believers should acknowledge and wrestle with doubts—not only their own but their friends’ and neighbors’. )—things began to change for me. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. A nice book with compelling information and philosophical arguments, Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 31, 2017. After all, what did her life mean? The great majority of people would almost certainly agree that they are. And that means sadly I can't even give the book away, and it must be consigned to the garbage bin. Top subscription boxes – right to your door, Christian Evangelism (Audible Books & Originals), Christian Apologetics (Audible Books & Originals), © 1996-2020, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Religious believers should also be much less dismissive of secular skepticism. Those who don’t believe are “enemies of truth” and “purveyors of relativism and permissiveness.” We don’t reason with the other side; we only denounce. I had also read the brilliant books Sapiens and Homo Deus recently which really was the first brilliant book I have read where the author has pinned his staunch beliefs in a non-spiritual human to the wall. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. But what happens when you actually doubt your doubts? As a twelve-year-old, Kelly watched her grandfather die of cancer and her two-year-old sister undergo surgery, chemo, and radiation therapy for a brain tumor. He confuses scientists with science, and physical science with historical science. Church most of all meant belief, but Manhattan was the land of skeptics, critics, and cynics. It may be the greatest enemy of peace in the world. She came to see that she was heading for self-destruction, but she also realized that she had no particular reason to stop being reckless with her life. The End of Faith. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism … There have been several massive efforts to do this in the twentieth century. This is an articulate, … As somebody who was brought up as a Catholic I have a fundamental faith that God exists. It further grounded my own heart in the strength of the arguments for the truths I believe, and I am deeply grateful for the increased confidence I feel in dialoguing with friends with other perspectives. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism “ Keller mines material from literary classics, philosophy, anthropology, and a multitude of other disciplines to make an intellectually compelling case for God. This book does not have all the answers and as some of the very lengthy reviews explain, some of the arguments are not backed up by much substance. Its aim was to bring young people into a fuller understanding of the faith, so they could publicly commit to it. Buy The The Reason for God by Keller, Timothy (ISBN: 8601401233060) from Amazon's Book Store. It is getting both more religious and less religious at the same time. As the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, Timothy Keller has compiled a list of the most frequently voiced “doubts” skeptics bring to his church as well as the most important reasons for faith. This assertion is so common that one journalist recently wrote that anyone who believed that “there are inferior religions” is a right-wing extremist.7 Do we really want to say that the Branch Davidians or religions requiring child sacrifice are not inferior to any other faith? Unfortunately the author compromises, i.e. We once needed religion to help us cope with a very frightening, incomprehensible world. Using literature, philosophy, real-life conversations, and potent reasoning, Keller explains how the belief in a Christian God … Older white people who ran the cultural business of the city definitely were quite secular. Respectful dialogue between entrenched traditional conservative and secular liberal people is a great good, and I hope this book will promote it. $14.95 a month after 30 days. Kelly was an Ivy League atheist. Using literature, philosophy, real-life conversations, and potent reasoning, Keller explains how the belief in a Christian God … For example, if you doubt Christianity because “There can’t be just one true religion,” you must recognize that this statement is itself an act of faith. Timothy Keller is renowned for his clear, reasoned approach to Christian apologetics and his book THE REASON FOR GOD: BELIEF IN AN AGE OF SKEPTICISM was named Book of the Year for 2008 by … The problem with this position is its inconsistency. That may be true or it may not be true, but, again, it is quite a leap of faith.10. He is the author of The Songs of Jesus, Prayer, Encounters with Jesus, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering, Every Good Endeavor, and The Meaning of Marriage, among others, including the perennial bestsellers The Reason for God and The Prodigal God. In the past several years, my social circle has expanded to include many friends from backgrounds very different than mine. There are more Presbyterians in Ghana than in the United States and Scotland combined. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism - Kindle edition by Keller, Timothy. Major universities, media companies, and elite institutions are heavily secular, they say, and they control the culture. However, it helped me and I found some of the arguments compelling. Once we recognize how religion erodes peace on earth, what can we do about it? Tim Keller's new book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, is currently #7 on the New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction Bestseller's List - and for good reason. “Religion has led to untold strife, division, and conflict. The great majority of people belonged to one of the historic, mainline Protestant churches or the Roman Catholic Church. Kelly wrote, “As an atheist I thought I lived a moral, community-oriented, concerned-with-social-justice kind of life, but Christianity had an even higher standard—down to our thoughts and the state of our hearts. I found the author to stumble mightily when I got to chapter 6, page 95, "Doesn't Evolution disprove the Bible?" I urge skeptics to wrestle with the unexamined “blind faith” on which skepticism is based, and to see how hard it is to justify those beliefs to those who do not share them. I needed to balance myself by reading something from the other side of the argument. I found questions that I had long pondered answered and my faith in God deepened. Really interesting. Church meant families; New York City was filled with young singles and “nontraditional” households. The time for making elegant dismissive gestures toward the other side is past. Helps me see things in a different light. Fantastic resource for Christians and seekers, Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 10, 2015. Nonetheless, it should serve both as testimony to the author's encyclopedic learning and as a compelling overview of the current debate on faith for those who doubt and for those who want to re-evaluate what they believe, and why. Drawing on sources as diverse as 19th-century author Robert Louis Stevenson and contemporary New Testament theologian N.T. Full content visible, double tap to read brief content. The Reason for God makes a tight, accessible case for reasoned religious … Best seller lists are filled with doubters. Great stuff. The result, however, was not more peace and harmony, but more oppression. Their pilgrimage toward faith was slow and painstaking. The result will exceed anything you can imagine. But the theory that technological advancement brings inevitable secularization is now being scrapped or radically rethought.7 Even Europe may not face a secular future, with Christianity growing modestly and Islam growing exponentially. Tim Keller's treatment of the Christian faith is one of the most helpful books I've read. Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2019. I didn’t know it at the time, but this spiritual “unreality” stemmed from three barriers that lay across my path. New York isn’t alone. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions. I answered like a shot: religion.”6. In the second year, we heard of a spirit of love in the universe, who mainly required that we work for human rights and the liberation of the oppressed. Several of the students were quite disturbed by this. And although Keller frankly acknowledges that inquisitors have justified atrocities as religious duties, he nonetheless traces the modern concept of human rights back to religious roots and exposes the fragility of such rights when shorn from those roots. Different from other books on the Christian faith I’ve read. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 8, 2018. But at the same time, robust, orthodox belief in the traditional faiths is growing as well. He doesn't try to skirt around objections but faces them head on. Liberals’ individualism comes out in their views of abortion, sex, and marriage. But what? In the first half of this volume we will review the seven biggest objections and doubts about Christianity I’ve heard from people over the years. Finally she had the confidence to seek an encounter with God himself. This item: The Reason for God: Conversations on Faith and Life - Six Lessons (Discussion Guide) by Timothy Keller Paperback CDN$10.76. I had also read the brilliant books Sapiens and Homo Deus recently which really was the first brilliant book I have read where the author has pinned his staunch beliefs in a non-spiritual human to the wall. She turned to church and sought an understanding of God’s mercy and an experience of his reality. DURING my nearly two decades in New York City, I’ve had numerous opportunities to ask people, “What is your biggest problem with Christianity? There are still many of a secular turn of mind who confidently say orthodox faith is vainly trying to “resist the tide of history,” though there is no historical evidence that religion is dying out at all. Being well acquainted with logic and rhetoric, the blatant logical fallacies often times presented as "proofs" is an embarrassment to Christian intellect. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 8, 2018. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. Pastor and author Timothy Keller meets with a group of skeptics over six sessions to debate their doubts and questions about Christianity. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading. Timothy Keller was born and raised in Pennsylvania and educated at Bucknell University, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and Westminster Theological Seminary. A person’s faith can collapse almost overnight if she has failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection. “Don’t tell people they have to believe in Jesus—that’s considered narrow-minded here.” They were incredulous when I explained that the beliefs of the new church would be the orthodox, historic tenets of Christianity—the infallibility of the Bible, the deity of Christ, the necessity of spiritual regeneration (the new birth)—all doctrines considered hopelessly dated by the majority of New Yorkers. Skepticism, fear, and anger toward traditional religion are growing in power and influence. I was raised in a mainline Lutheran church in eastern Pennsylvania. However, when her sister had a stroke and was paralyzed at the age of fourteen, it moved her not to give up on God but to begin more deliberate searching. Such an admission is not only reassuring, but also humbling. How do you know your belief is true? The only way to doubt Christianity rightly and fairly is to discern the alternate belief under each of your doubts and then to ask yourself what reasons you have for believing it. Tim Keller visits Google's Mountain View, CA, headquarters to discuss his book, "The Reason for God." One survey showed that in the last several years more than a hundred churches had been started in New York City by Christians from Africa alone. Because of a variety of physical ailments from his youth, he took up the practice of Chinese healing arts, along with Taoist and Buddhist meditation, and became extremely focused on physical wellness. In THE REASON FOR GOD, he addresses each doubt and explains each reason.Keller uses literature, philosophy, real-life conversations, and reasoning to explain how faith in a Christian God is a … I was once invited to be the Christian representative in a panel discussion at a local college along with a Jewish rabbi and a Muslim imam. Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca. Soviet Russia, Communist China, the Khmer Rouge, and (in a different way) Nazi Germany were all determined to tightly control religious practice in an effort to stop it from dividing society or eroding the power of the state. Buy A Seal Upon the Heart: God’s Wisdom and the Meaning of Marriage: a Devotional by Keller, Timothy (ISBN: 9781473690578) from Amazon's Book Store. In 1968, this was heady stuff. Lewis for the modern age. In response to this honest admission, Jesus blesses him and heals his son. he assumes man to be correct over God. There was once a confident belief that secular European countries were the harbingers for the rest of the world. How could I turn back to the kind of orthodox Christianity that supported segregation in the South and apartheid in South Africa? After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. 5.0 out of 5 stars 5. Timothy Keller is renowned for his clear, reasoned approach to Christian apologetics and his book THE REASON FOR GOD: BELIEF IN AN AGE OF SCEPTICISM was named Book of the Year for 2008 by World Magazine. When he understood that Jesus had surrendered his physical health and life to save the world—and him—it moved him deeply. The Reason for God: Belief in an age of scepticism Timothy Keller… This was the form of the objection I got from the student the night I was on the panel. How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell? Find all the books, read about the author, and more. Then Keller argues against various critiques of Christianity. When I found that “band of brothers”—and sisters ( just as important! Keller's writing is lucid and accessible, and uses arguments which are intellectually convincing. If Christians continue to insist that they have ‘the truth’—and if other religions do this as well—the world will never know peace.”1. Our problems are not going away soon. There is a great gulf today between what is popularly known as liberalism and conservatism. With great humility, Keller shows how rather than being a leap of blind faith the gospel answers some of life's deepest questions. Often the Christian faith seems to those outside of it to be foolish and unreasonable. The Reason for God is assuredly one of the best Tim Keller books that we’ve had the chance to enjoy. In the fall of 2006 The Economist ran a story with the subtitle “Christianity is collapsing everywhere but London.” The crux of the article was that despite the fact that church attendance and profession of the Christian faith was plummeting across Britain and Europe, many young professionals (and new immigrants) in London were flocking to evangelical churches.8 That is exactly what I’ve seen here. Something more is now required. My teacher for the first year was a retired minister. Instead, this move only served to make the leadership of the Chinese church more indigenous and therefore to strengthen it. Korea has gone from 1 percent to 40 percent Christian in a hundred years, and experts believe the same thing is going to happen in China. Emotions and rhetoric are intense, even hysterical. … If you went to the Middle East and said, “There can’t be just one true religion,” nearly everyone would say, “Why not?” The reason you doubt Christianity’s Belief A is because you hold unprovable Belief B. During my college years, these three barriers eroded and my faith became vital and life-affecting. And that means sadly I can't even give the book away, and it must be consigned to the garbage bin. It holds a specific view of God, which is touted as superior and more enlightened than the beliefs of most major religions. He confuses scientists with science, and physical science with historical science. The second barrier was an interior, personal one. I found the author to stumble mightily when I got to chapter 6, page 95, "Doesn't Evolution disprove the Bible?" Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video! Different from other books on the Christian faith I’ve read. It may surprise you that though I am a Christian minister I agree with this. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 11, 2018. Wright, Keller attempts to deconstruct everyone he finds in his way, from the evolutionary psychologist Richard Dawkins to popular author Dan Brown. Why not be self-destructive? She became so obsessed with her physical image that she developed eating disorders and substance addictions. Amazon.in - Buy The Reason for God: Belief in an age of scepticism book online at best prices in India on Amazon.in. This book of Christian apology is a 21st-century version of C.S. That achieves civility in a pluralistic society, which is no small thing. But by recognizing that image, Keller affirms, we open sacred possibilities not only for redemption in the hereafter but also for social justice here and now.