I’m currently reading…The Case For Christ

In the last year or so, I’ve gone of on a completely different tangent when it comes to issues of faith.

Maybe it’s simply a consequence of growing older; perhaps it was further accelerated by a number of challenging events. I’m not sure which, but I’ve felt a desperate need to take a more critical approach to my faith, which is odd in some ways, since I’ve been a Christian for several years.

One of the things that became really important to me was to have the ability to explain my beliefs rationally, and to hold my own in logical discussions with others who may not necessarily share them.

In the course of my intellectual search for more of God I came across this book, which completely blew me away.

I’m currently reading The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel.

In it, Strobel, an investigative journalist and former atheist, details his own journey from a standpoint of non-belief to belief in a Saviour who died and rose again.

I find his approach novel; he wanted scientific proof that Jesus actually lived, performed miracles, was psycholgically competent to declare Himself the Son of God, was crucified and truly resurrected. He also tackles burning issues such as the reliability of what we now know to be the New Testament.

And he set about finding the evidence by traversing the length and breadth of the United States to interrogate qualified and eminent archaeologists, historians, medical experts, philosphers, researchers, and theologians.

I don’t know about you, but I found it simply amazing! I had not known there was so much hard evidence of the existence of Jesus, and I had not realised, for example, that mention of Him had been made in writings other than the Scriptures.

I found the book refreshingly thorough, and while some may accuse me of being of little faith for needing reinforcement in the form of hard facts in the first place, it drove home to me that He really did take the form of a living being who walked the earth, whose mission was to spread the message that all can access the enormity of the Person that God is.

While I admit that there are a couple of parts where Strobel could have been more critical - such as the section that examines Jesus’ claims to be God’s Son - he raises many of the issues which Christians and non-Christians alike struggle with, putting forward arguments which prove Jesus’ existence and the occurence of pivotal events in Christian history.

A must read for the enquiring mind, The Case For Christ is available on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation/dp/0310226465/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209299265&sr=1-16