Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Unchristian - A brief review

...AND I MEAN BRIEF. I finished this book back in feb 09 so going back i am just remembering a few things off the top of my head.

1) being that I took three years of stats in college this book was quite interesting to me. One of my stats professors had a saying about stats...."They don't tell stories, they don't answer questions, they are numbers!" I think this is important to remember when reading this book

2) The nature in which the questions had to be ask to gather the research. To garner the information they did the questions had to be rather direct. A draw back to this is it is really hard to get a general feel. They had to address specific issues in the questions.

3) The book doesn't point out anything no one with a brain doesn't already know. We have an image issue in Christianity. Ghandi replied, "Oh, I don't reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It's just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ."

4) This book tries to claim that it points to an issue, gives statistical evidence to it basis and then provides solutions. You can't get from stats to solutions. Stats are numbers! But even so the solutions are generic and don't really try to address any one issue in a direct front manner. They "beat around the bush". This was a disappointment.

5) I HATE the use of the word "outsider". Because the words saved and unsaved are christian words we can't and or should use them. This might be true but outsider is just as offensive. Why don't we drop labels and just live out the gospel.

Overall the points of the book are quite predictable and generic. I don't disagree with alot of the premise of the book and even some of the solutions/ways to address the problems where ok I didn't come away changed in one way or another by this book. That is a sad fact to me!

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