Summary:
A hard look into the common complaint leveled against the church, Dr. Zacharias declares that Christian drop-outs may have given up too soon. Pulling no punches and using that great brain of his, the book posits that faith in Christ is not a picnic nor a placebo, but a robust relationship that will take a beating in our everyday trials. Disillusioned Christians that have been burned out by false claims of the church — increased pleasure, reduced pain, an easier life — can only grow bitter in their weary bones. It’s these false claims that are examined against reality and then left behind as Dr. Zacharias moves forward into a durable faith.
Strengths:
This work presents one of the most convincing cases for Christianity not simply as the best way, but the only way. It is such a convincing intellectual case that I actually felt renewed in strength; if the goal of the book is to connect the head and the heart, then it succeeds at every level. One by one, Dr. Zacharias eliminates all other options: self-autonomy, moralistic religion, self-made reason. Humanity is broken and can only be redeemed by the saving love of Christ. This does not automatically answer every crisis or concern, but part of faith is trusting that a good God has already rescued us by His Son.
Dr. Zacharias is also one of the most intelligent thinkers of our time. He utterly destroys the movement of so-called rationalism by continually blasting its inhuman agenda: “This is the endgame of rationalism, where ideas are more important than people.” He overturns those who have persuaded themselves into deception, reminding us when Jesus commended the heart of a child: “It is because children are open to the truth and are not looking for reasons to believe a lie.” There are too many quotable one-liners in his work.
But Dr. Zacharias is no stranger to everyday reality. This man has seen, heard, and experienced whole lifetimes. He tells the story of a heartbroken woman who tried to leave her husband, resulting in the man’s suicide on her lap; another time in a poorer country when a man’s only request is for a new pair of shoes, which Dr. Zacharias’ son is able to provide; another story in which Dr. Zacharias prays for a group of successful men who were far from God, and how one man later that night comes to know Jesus is real. These personal experiences ground the book in tested truth. He grasps intellectual concepts as well as the gritty, often grim tragedies of life.
Weaknesses:
By far the worst section in this book is chapter five, in which Dr. Zacharias spends an inordinate amount of time breaking down Robert M. Price’s Reason-Driven Life. I found this strange since Price’s own work is a breakdown of Rick Warren’s Purpose-Driven Life, and I never sensed that Dr. Zacharias caught the irony. The chapter is an overwrought critique of culture that he better dismantles in other places of his book. One who has the same worldview as Robert M. Price could only feel insulted and belittled here; if Dr. Zacharias’ goal is to speak to those who feel that Christianity has let them down, this chapter would only alienate them with its incredulity. It is somehow unlike Dr. Zacharias’ otherwise gentle demeanor and doesn’t fit with the book’s overall purpose.
There are also times when Dr. Zacharias weaves a concept so wide that he either gets lost in details or spins his wheels in convoluted abstractions. He is a realist but sometimes speaks too idealistically. Other times he is so metaphorical that it appears he’s taking fancy shortcuts by way of pretty pictures to a conclusive point. But this isn’t a major problem: more frequently he does well to bridge the intellect with the heart.
Bottom Line:
By the end, Dr. Zacharias had made such a compelling case for Christianity that it left me a bit breathless. Though there is some long-winded loftiness and there’s the ill-advised fifth chapter, this is a book for both the skeptics and the saved to take a renewed look into the truth of Christ. With a fresh set of eyes, it’s obvious that the Bible is an infinite distance above all other ways, and that it does not fail.
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