Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense by null

Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense Reviews

• 
  art

  I will be 82 years old in two and a half months. Been in and out of church many times. At this point in my life I need a better understanding of Christianity. This was a good place to start.
• 
  Douglas A. Nicely

  In other reviews, this book is compared unfavorably to C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity." I beg to differ. I'll give you an example. I was visiting with a patient at the hospital where I serve as chaplain. She was unconscious for about a week at the beginning of her stay, so I talked with her husband almost every day. He considers himself "spiritual," but has some problems with Trinitarian theology. I had a hardbound copy of this book in my library. I gave it to him to read and review with me. He loved it! His problem with most churches is in their inability to appreciate what we would call the First and Third Articles of the Creed (God as Father and the Holy Spirit as our "comforter"). He likes both of these Articles! He just can't figure out where Jesus fits in. I believe this book has helped him to rethink his understanding of God. He may not be where I would like him to be, but he respects me for having the convictions of this book. Because of it's emphasis on the First and Third Articles, I think this is a great resource for teaching "spiritual" people in the 21st century why Christianity makes sense.
• 
  Paul T.

  O.T. Wright is the modern day version of the highly acclaimed Oxford and Cambridge professor, C.S. Lewis, a twentieth century theologian who wrote Mere Christiananity and the highly acclaimed The Screwtape Letters. Wright spends a number of chapters cleverly setting up the true messages he wants to convey. At times, his thinking sounds anything but simply Christian but ultimately his book will challenge your process through your endeavor of being the person God wants you to become and helps you to aha moments.
• 
  Paul V

  Just finished NT Wright's Simply Christian and I can't help but gush a little. Its a modern Mere Christianity and he is a living C.S. Lewis. I've sensed a fraying in our culture and church when it comes to theme and purpose. Perhaps we have overly diced our Bible and hinged our theologies on favorite fragmentssomehow the themes and the hope is lost. Wright weaves the story back together. He's refreshingly fuzzy where life and the Bible get fuzzy and clear and vivid where our souls hunger and break. If you are content with your faith or lack there of don't read this bookotherwise buckle up and enjoy.
  (P.S. highly recommend getting the kindle book and the audible book and listening and reading together as the Kindle app now flips the pages for you as you listen to the book. Very well read.)
• 
  Grabbag

  I am somewhat intellectual. I have been a Christian since the 1970's. I have always known WHY I came to believe but have been challenged to explain rationally to a modern skeptical generation that accept Darwinian evolution without question, WHY Christianity makes sense.
  
  N.T. Wright does it pretty well. Yes it could be rewritten to make a few chapters a little clearer, and should be, but overall, it makes the argument that Christianity makes sense, and gets the point or arguments across.
  
  I have a friend who is an animist, whose mother is French. My wife and I have talked with her socially in French at least 4 times. She likes us because we are loyal and faithful friends to her son.
  
  Well, I sent her the book with a friendly introduction how how my Christian conversion stopped me from committing suicide at age 21.
  
  She responded by starting to read it and thanking me and sending me a thank you card entitled: Thanks so much A simple act of kindness has a beauty all its own. COOL
• 
  Erin J

  Wow, another great book from N. T. Wright. This has to be the book of the year for 2006. This is a great book for anyone looking to defend or learn about Christianity. He deals with two world views that are false throughout the book. One is pantheism or the idea that God is everywhere and in everything or is everything and the other view is deism. Deism is the idea that God created the world but stays distant to it and does not even dream of getting involved in it affairs. He sees the latter as being the idea of God behind left behind type of theology that sees to goal of Christianity as being getting people saved to get them out of this world. Wright's view makes better sense of God and the world. In Wright's view heaven overlaps and interlocks with Earth and is not distant from it and neither is God in everything. The world was created good and became distorted by Adam and Eve's or humanities disobedience. God went to work to restore his good creation by calling Abraham. His seed was to be the means by which the world was put back to rights. The story of the nation of Israel includes slavery, Exodus; judges and kings, tabernacles and Temples being built; disobedience through injustice and idoloatry and all kinds of uncleaness brought about exile. The prophets then came an promised return from Exile. Jesus brings the story of Israel to it climax and brings about New Creation through resurrection. Wright works through this story like nobody else can and then in he end acts as a pastor when it comes to coaching on such things as prayer, Bible reading, fellowship, and sacraments. This is a book that should be read by everyone. It is destined to be a classic.
• 
  Movelda Hyer

  There are few writers as intellectually qualified and spiritually mature to write with such assurance concerning the topic Simply Christian, as N.T. Wright. It is an excellent book on the level with Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis. Though N.T. Wright is an intellectual giant he wrote Simply Christian on a level easily understood by those less blessed educationally. I heartily recommend this book to believers and unbelievers alike.
• 
  simon

  He does write from a perspective I view as blind faith convincement, despite all his learning. I also think that as a reputed new testament scholar (and I am not totally ignorant in this regard) he is ignoring what the historical record really tells us! Are the gospel writers really as unbiased and idealistic as he would happily portray them? Can you really rule out the Q source so casually and all of the higher criticism in understanding the synoptic gospels and their biased message? Is John's gospel and the Johannine dualism it recycles from the ancient Persian faith of Zoroastrianism not crucial to our understanding of these texts. was Paul not creating a religion palatable to imperial Rome! Did all members of the early Church believe in the divinity of Christ, or was a nice Trinitarian divinity deal struck at the council of Nice a several hundred years later? And the arguments go on and they require explanation and a strong counterargument to be discounted, which is not offered here. I have read and remain convinced by the strong evidence based arguments of Vermes and Ehrmann whose valid arguments he doesn't counter argue. When you look at the gospels and Paul's letters they are clearly propagandist. Here are individuals expecting their leader back imminently and here we are two thousand years later, post Darwin and natural selection knowing only full well that the second coming never occurred. God yes, Jesus as messiah, maybe, resurrection, miraclesreally? A lovely scholar and genuine, but blinded by faith,not history as he would claim. I'm going to give his Paul's teachings book a go though, anything to counterbalance my intense dislike of this apostle. I do recommend, the book and it's a good read, but I remain unconvinced by his arguments. It did nothing to dispel my dislike of Anglicanism (the Tory party at prayer) and I would have loved a chapter on how Tories who claim to be Chritian can justify their party's treatment of the poor and disenfranchised and its promotion of inequality, selfishness, consumerism and greed since 1979.
• 
  crimefan

  It may even be worth five stars, as I haven't yet quite finished reading it! As usual with Tom Wright, it verges on the dense in places, but each premise is thoroughly explored and justified. It has opened my mind to a number of alternative interpretations of scripture that I thought I was familiar with. There are also some statements that have been challenging. For example, at the beginning of Chapter 11, Worship, Tom writes When you begin to glimpse the reality of God, the natural reaction is to worship him. Not to have that reaction is a fairly sure sign that you haven't yet really understood who he is or what he's done. That stopped me in my tracks! Having reread it several times and pondered, I see what he is driving at, but I am not sure I totally agree. Maybe because my reaction to knowledge of God is yet to compel me to worship him in the ongoing, unrestrained manner that Tom continues in the chapter to imply by reference to and quotes from Revelation chapters 4 and 5. I am certainly glad I bought the book and I recommend others to do the same and give it the careful study and consideration that I believe it merits. I think just about anyone will get some worthwhile fresh perspectives on Christian living.
• 
  S. Meadows

  I was reminded about the existence of this book recently when I read an extract from it that was used in Francis Collins' compilation of the writings of others, entitled Belief. The extract from Simply Christian was included at the start of this anthology and was taken from the first part of the book.
  
  What I anticipated was a modern version of C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, being a outline of apologetic reasoning with some, though not many, sources being cited as evidence. Given the difference in backgrounds between C.S. Lewis (a pretty ordinary bloke with a gift for clear writing) and Tom Wright (one of the world's foremost New Testament scholars), I was expecting this to be a little scholarly, but that the discussions would follow a broadly similar path. This turned out not to be the case.
  
  It was very refreshing to see a new approach to apologetics where the book wasn't written in direct response to an atheistic polemic, but it felt far like it was addressing an unfulfilled need. The book is beautifully written and a large amount of credit is owed to the author for being such a clear and down to earth writer.
  
  It was also good to see the author tackle some difficult topics head on, which all too often many christian writers either avoid or give cursory answers that do little but enrage the critics.
  
  There are frequent glimpses of the breadth and depth of study that have gone into this book though if there is to one criticism of it, it would have to be the lack of references.
  
  This is not a book that I would recommend for dyed in the wool atheists. I think the matter of fact presentation is not designed to be persuasive it just states the case clearly. This is far helpful for those wanting to investigate Christianity (e.g. those who may be thinking of going on, or have just done, an Alpha course or something similar) and it serves as a useful reminder for those of us who are Christians about what it's all about. It can be easy to get sidetracked by various issues at one time or another, and this serves as a good reminder to tell us "this is what's all about. Don't ever forget it."
• 
  Harm Hilvers

  A few years ago I took up a master in Christian Philosophy. One of the first things I learned and that have stayed with me ever since is that God's redemptive work through Jesus Christ holds a promise for the whole of creation, namely that a renewal (or re creation) according to His standards is possible right now and will happen in full through the Second Coming of Christ. In other words: God wants his followers and believers we fellow Christians to make a right and a beautiful place where people can live in good relation with one selves, each other, the creation and God.
  
  This is the same premise on which Tom Wright starts. His book starts by describing four things everybody experiences in his or her life: that there is a lot of unjustness in the world, that the world contains a lot of spirituality and searching for real and true answers to life's questions, that people want to live in good harmony with each other but that this goes wrong much of the time, and a certain longing for beauty. These four topics are described through anecdotes and are recognizable for all.
  
  In the second part of the book Wright describes God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and how God's Kingdom has progressed through the ages. Every believing Christian should already know all of this. Nevertheless it's interesting to read it all again, because Wright presents a number of themes that can be found in the development of God's Kingdom, thereby showing that He wanted to make it all right again ever since it went wrong. When Adam and Eve sinned, for example, it was no longer possible that the sacral and the secular could intertwine, but through the Tabernacle, later the Temple and ultimately Christ's sacrifice, this was made possible again.
  
  The third section of the book starts with a beautiful chapter on worship, in which Wright makes perfectly clear that worship is not just singing and dancing for the Lord, but that it is a way of life: giving praise and being grateful to the Lord in all one does. See for example Romans 12,1 (ESV): "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." In the remaining chapters of this section he moves in on the question what it's like to live like a Christian, for example by describing what a healthy prayer life entails or what it's like to read in the Bible.
  
  In his final chapter he returns to the four topics that he described in the first section of the book, showing that it's our job as Christians to make the world a bit just, to make it a bit beautiful and to work on healthy relations. That a better world contains a lot of God over against vague spirituality is of course out of the question.
  
  There is to say about this book. It clearly shows that Wright knows what he is talking about. The way he describes different and sometimes conflicting theological and biblical ideas and interpretations is absolutely great. Moreover, the way he overcomes these differences is even better, for example when he discusses the different and partially conflicting views on the Holy Supper. This book does not presuppose a lot of knowledge about Christianity, which is a good thing, because it makes the book which is not difficult to read or that long easier to read.
  
  I have read quite some books of Tim Keller, who works on showing among many other things that being a Christian is being someone who has a message for the world: a message of hope and a message of (social) justice (see for example his
• 
  Mr. P. Gardiner

  I think that this book would be perfect for personal and small group study among Christians. I'm sure that most Christians will be surprised and challenged by some of the ideas put forward in the book, but even if you don't agree with everything you have to admire his passion for uniting the church and helping us to rediscover our mission. He doesn't hide his views on subjects that have divided Christians, but I believe he is right to do so whilst at the same time showing understanding of other opinions. At a academic level, his three volume work on Jesus and the resurrection has certainly helped my own understanding of Jesus but I think that Wright is than able to distill his insights down in a way that most people can understand. This is a book to read, digest and read again!