Evangelism in a Skeptical World: How to Make the Unbelievable News about Jesus More Believable
Evangelism in a Skeptical World: How to Make the Unbelievable News about Jesus More Believable book cover

Evangelism in a Skeptical World: How to Make the Unbelievable News about Jesus More Believable

Hardcover – March 13, 2018

Price
$13.79
Format
Hardcover
Pages
288
Publisher
Zondervan Academic
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0310534679
Dimensions
6.38 x 1 x 9.25 inches
Weight
14.5 ounces

Description

Review “This practical guide not only provides a biblical description of evangelism but also includes helpful strategies for gospel sharing in everyday situations. This book will be helpful for all who desire to see those who are hostile to God become followers of Jesus.” -- ED STETZER, Billy Graham Distinguished Chair, Wheaton College“Every Christian has an implicit theology: a set of beliefs about God and about what God was doing in Jesus Christ. To communicate this good news---the gospel---to others is every believer’s privilege and responsibility. Sam Chan’s book helpfully shows how to do this in a way that fits our twenty-first-century multicultural contexts.” -- KEVIN J. VANHOOZER, Research Professor of Systematic Theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School“If you are looking for an evangelism textbook with biblical foundations, strong theology, real-life illustrations, passion for the heart of God, and tools to move people out into a skeptical world with the good news of Jesus, look no further. Sam has done a masterful job of taking evangelism from concept and theory to practice and action.” -- REV. DR. KEVIN G. HARNEY, author, Organic Outreach trilogy; founder and visionary leader, Organic Outreach International“This is an important book. In it, one of Christianity’s smartest voices, Sam Chan, shows us how to bring our secular neighbors into a lifegiving encounter with the gospel. Highly recommended for use in universities, seminaries, and churches.” -- BRUCE RILEY ASHFORD, provost and professor of theology and culture, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary“Sam Chan has written the evangelism manual we’ve needed. Evangelism in a Skeptical World combines cultural understanding, theological acumen, and practical apologetics to equip the church to bear witness to the gospel in a secular age. It is lucidly written and full of real-world wisdom. I expect it to be a featured text for ministry students for many years to come.” -- JOSHUA D. CHATRAW, executive director, Center for Apologetics and Cultural Engagement, School of Divinity, Liberty University“This book provides readers a comprehensive theological overview of evangelism, challenges outdated high-profile models, and offers new models centered in Scripture and applicable to multiple contexts. A masterful contribution.” -- TOM STEFFEN, emeritus professor of intercultural studies, COOK School of Intercultural Studies, Biola University“How do we express a transcultural gospel to an enculturated audience in postmodernity? Chan provides a biblical foundation with more than forty different means to engage communities, contexts, and common grounds. This is a superb work, undergirded by Scripture, rich in relevant methods, and impressive in contextual scope of audiences. Finally, we have a go-to resource in the twenty-first century.” -- REV. SAMUEL E. CHIANG, president and CEO, The Wycliffe Seed Company“Chan has written a helpful resource for sharing the gospel in our world. He helps students of evangelism think through ways to present the good news, as well as means to handle skeptics’ objections. His stories and insights show that his words are more than theory; he has practiced this! I recommend this contribution to the literature on evangelism which every serious student should read.” -- DAVID M. GUSTAFSON, chair of mission and evangelism department, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School“This is one of the most thoughtful books on evangelism I’ve read. It is both theologically sound and informed by practice. Chan avoids oversimplifying the gospel. At the same time, he never makes evangelism feel complex and cumber- some. His approach is balanced and flexible. If I could recommend just one book on evangelism, this would be it.” -- JACKSON WU, seminary professor; author, One Gospel for All Nations“This book is a brilliant and practical explanation of how to show the beauty of Jesus’ gospel to a world that thinks it has “moved on.” From understanding the many aspects of the gospel’s engagement with a dying world to the practicalities of “shaping a gospel talk,” this book will help the pastor, the evangelist, and any Christian to speak about Jesus in a way that can be heard by people who have become deaf to a message they consider irrelevant.” -- AL STEWART, City Bible Forum, Australia Review If you are looking for an evangelism textbook with biblical foundations, strong theology, real-life illustrations, passion for the heart of God, and tools to move people out into a skeptical world with the good news of Jesus, look no further. Sam has done a masterful job of taking evangelism from concept and theory to practice and action. -- Kevin G. Harney, author, Organic Outreach trilogy; founder and visionary leader, Organic Outreach International -- Kevin G. Harney About the Author Sam Chan (PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; MBBS, University of Sydney) is a public evangelist with City Bible Forum in Sydney, Australia, where he regularly shares the gospel with high school students, city workers, doctors, and lawyers. He is the author of the award-winning book Evangelism in a Skeptical World and regularly speaks at conferences around the world on the practice of evangelism in a post-Christian culture. Sam blogs at espressotheology.com. Read more

Features & Highlights

  • Most Christians already know that they should be telling their friends about Jesus. But they have been poorly equipped with methods that are no longer effective in today's post-Christian world. As a result, many people become frustrated, blame themselves, and simply give up.
  • Evangelism in a Skeptical World
  • is a textbook on evangelism that is ideal for the church or the classroom to equip Christians with the principles and skills they need to tell the unbelievable news about Jesus to friends in a skeptical world.
  • Many of the older principles and methods of evangelism in the twentieth century no longer work effectively today. In a post-Christian, post-churched, post-reached world we need new methods to communicate the timeless message of the gospel in culturally relevant ways. Dr. Chan combines the theological and biblical insights of classic evangelistic training with the latest insights from missiology on contextualization, cultural hermeneutics, and storytelling. Every chapter is illustrated with real-world examples drawn from over fifteen years of evangelistic ministry. These are methods that really work - with university students, urban workers, and professionals - getting past the defensive posture that people have toward Christianity so they can seriously consider the claims of Jesus Christ.
  • Field-tested and filled with unique, fresh, and creative insights, this book will equip you to share the gospel in today's world and help as many people as possible hear the good news about Jesus.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
60%
(188)
★★★★
25%
(79)
★★★
15%
(47)
★★
7%
(22)
-7%
(-22)

Most Helpful Reviews

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The Unchanging Message for A Rapidly Changing World

This was a very helpful, practical, thought-provoking book! Even if you do not agree with every point the author makes (I didn't), he makes them in a thoughtful, persuasive manner that really cause you to wrestle with them! In our rapidly changing cultural context, this book provides great wisdom in learning how to apply the unchanging message of the Gospel so that it will both be heard, and not be presented in a way that is either unnecessarily offensive or unacceptably compromising of the message. The book effectively blends theory with examples of how to put these methods into practice. I have a feeling that a second reading would be helpful to really internalize some of his points and methods. One of the most challenging and thought provoking books I've read this year, and one that I hope has an impact on my attempts to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
10 people found this helpful
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Chan has a helpful section on contextualization and wonderful chapters on evangelism

Sam Chan’s new book Evangelism in a Skeptical World, is a very important book for all of us committed to relevant communication of the Gospel in the world. He has a clear understanding of the presuppositions and lifestyles of postmoderns and demonstrates throughout the book the ways to connect with this younger generation. He helps people move from the traditional western propositional approach of sharing the Gospel and gives very practical ways to reframe the Gospel within postmodern thinking. He encourages communicators to Resonate: describe, understand, and empathize with their presuppositions.…The goal is to get our audience nodding their heads and agreeing with us. (p. 197), dismantle: show a deficiency or dissonance in their presuppositions), gospel: complete their cultural storyline with the gospel (p. 255). Chan has a helpful section on contextualization and wonderful chapters on evangelism, gospel culture hermeneutics, and Story telling the Gospel. He makes an interesting observation that most international students are concrete – relational learners ... This simply means that they prefer learning from stories and not from abstract concepts … They learn better from hearing a story about how something works then from hearing an abstract theory that needs to be applied (p. 173-174). As a communicator, his approach has help me restructure how I preach and teach, and I’m looking forward to the positive results.
5 stars M.L Codman-Wilson, Ph.D. 4/14/18
9 people found this helpful
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Gold for anyone trying to communicate the best news in the universe to people who don't think so!

This book is gold. It is possible to read it straight through but its strength is that it is a book to go back into and dip in to the relevant section. For example, if someone asks you to speak at a wedding or special events - chapters eight and nine would make your task far easier and give you an understanding of what you're trying to achieve and why.
Many of the topics in this book, I've learned about through experience (making mistakes and trial and error). How I would have loved to have read this book years ago. Chan's strength is his ability to analyse and explain why our talking is failing to actually communicate.
Chapter 4 on 'Evangelism to Postmoderns' - a favourite chapter. So clear with many 'aha' moments.
Full of illustrations. Full of stories.
This book is for anyone trying to communicate the best news in the universe to those who don't think so!
8 people found this helpful
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Great layout and design

Very practical book! Great layout and design. Love the examples and stories used to exemplify points. Very well-written. Hope there are more books to come :D
3 people found this helpful
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To believe in Jesus, he must be accepted as infallible, which is impossible in a scientific cosmos.

Evangelism in a Skeptical World: How to Make the Unbelievable News about Jesus More Believable

Yes! So that is exactly the right problem, believability! And I disagree with much of the answer proposed.

In the back of the book four spiritual laws are presented. The problem with this packaged box containing unalterable beliefs is what is left out, the crucial underlying law that must be accepted before the rest can be. You must believe that the Bible is the infallible message of God to humankind, and its teaching must therefor be accepted by everyone, or to hell you go for eternity after death. This is the part that is left out after the presentation of the first spiritual law: "God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life."

It is not made clear to most conservative Christian converts that everything they have come to believe is based on first accepting the infallibility of the Bible. Without accepting that often unspoken belief, conservative Christianity false apart.

But in a scientific world, many key beliefs taught in the prescientific Bible are no longer believable.

The problem with all books like this is that they do not address the underlying errors in the biblical vision of God exposed by scientific discoveries. Often they are simply denied. It cannot be explained here in detail, but this book fails to address the problem that the nature of God in the Bible depends on the cultural-bound view (not true for all times and places) of the cosmos assumed to be true in the Ancient Near East but is in fact false. To summarize, in the Bible the heaven of God literally surrounds the only planet in the cosmos, Earth. The blue sky is actually the floor of Heaven, located just beyond the stars, thought to be small and close to Earth, lamps suspended from heaven's floor. In the future sometime, the sky God of the Bible is supposed to appear to Earth from out of heaven above, turning Earth into an eternal divine utopia to live in for those who now trust in Jesus to save them or else . . . . That is the actual plan of salvation in the Bible, which is cosmic in scope, not focused on individual salvation as the four laws emphasize. In other words, the four laws are themselves flawed and misleading. They come out of acceptance of false, western individualism, not the Bible.

In any case, the only way to make Jesus believable for persons who are theologically well-trained in the critical study of the Bible and modern science is to admit the Bible is fallible and evaluate what of Jesus is savable and what is not. Only after that can the question of what believable salvation is be adequately addressed.

Most persons have heard about the blunder many Christian theologians fell into in relation to the Galileo affair, a Roman Catholic (theologians that included Martin Luther and John Calvin). Most persons think that the problem for biblical Christianity Galileo discovered, using an improved telescope to look up in to the stars of the sky, concerned Earth revolving around the Sun, not the Sun revolving around a motionless Earth surrounded by eternal Heaven, as taught in the Bible. Wrong. The real problem Galileo discovered concerns Heaven surrounding Earth having vanished from which Jesus is supposed descend at the end of time for all to see, as he himself taught! That is why skepticism in western culture about Christianity exploded after the Scientific Revolution.

Christian apologists love to point out errors in competing belief systems while ignoring defeaters for biblical Christianity. When Heaven surrounding Earth vanished 400 years ago, so did the biblical vision of God soon to appear to Earth therefrom. Both Jesus and Paul clearly taught that the New Creation was coming soon, in the lifetime of first and second generation Christians. They were wrong. It has still not appeared and will not ever appear in the way the Bible depicts.

Thus, the whole plan of salvation in the Bible needs to be reformulated to accord with scientific facts. This can indeed be done. Atheism is not the only believable response to a scientific cosmos. Liberal Christianity is the only viable way to make Jesus believable for skeptical persons who live in modern culture. After 55 years of being a conservative Christian, pumping the four spiritual laws, I painfully realized that they require a person to go back 2,000 years and live in the faulty cosmology of the Bible.

Christianity does indeed have much to offer persons yet today in this incredibly difficult world of suffering, evil and death. But the false hope it pumps is delusional. Even the well-respected Christian apologist, C. S. Lewis, admitted Jesus was deluded about the timing of his soon reappearing to Earth. And just that alone makes Jesus fallible, even if the other stuff here pointed out is denied.

Sadly, lots of research shows that people tend to twist facts into their existing beliefs, rather than adjusting beliefs to fit demonstrable facts. Other research shows that people who are the least educationally informed about a subject are the most dogmatically certain of their views or beliefs about it.

Still, conservative Christianity continues to have a great deal of life-transforming power because some of it is true. This spiritual power is equally available for persons who choose to become liberal Christians, who reject the four spiritual laws and all that they leave out.

Good book to recommend, if you want persons to go back and live in a prescientific culture 2,000 years ago. Fundamentalist Christians who pump Creation Science are correct: to believe the Bible requires denying scientific facts, such as the age of the universe. If the universe is only 6,000 years old, it is conceivable that God could pop out of the sky soon. But if the cosmos is 13 billion years old, as scientific instruments show, it could go on for billions more. In 2,000 years or less, conservative Christianity will have vanished from Earth, as Heaven surrounding a motionless Earth did 400 years ago.

And Creationists are also correct to outright deny that the Bible teaches Geocentrism, twisting relevant scriptures away from their literal interpretation, which they champion, in order to keep the Bible from being fallible and therefore nonbinding. Dogmatic Creationism is required to believe in the Jesus this book presents.

No doubt the author has good motives. Christians do a lot of good for the world. Nothing is totally black or white. Christianity is not a matter off all or nothing. What is praiseworthy in this book ought to be praised, much of which I have left out of this review.
3 people found this helpful
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Fantastic!

This book has it all, from different Gospel messages to dealing with Gen X and millennials. Just wonderful.
1 people found this helpful