Bit dry and self serving but I did appreciate the viewpoints on homosexuality and how the author describes sin. Thank's Mark ( )

A useful book, but from a UK perspective it is culturally distant in some respects from the culture in which we operate, and some of the insights are now a little dated. It is, however, a provocative and challenging read to anyone who is concerned with bringing the good news of Jesus into a culture that really doesn't know him. It is also a challenge for Christians to get off our hobby horses and get on with loving one another and those around us, and demonstrating the life-changing power of Jesus to this world. ( )

It was okay.

Really love hearing Winkie Pratney on YouTube talking about how God wants to use our generation. Much more exciting and encouraging for me. ( )

A lot of thoughts on how the perception of Christians by
non-Christians is and what to do about it. ( )

I was raised as a Christian, but I've been an atheist for more than 40 years; yes I am waaay out of the age range that Kinnaman is studying. I still agree with a great deal of what they say. I will add one idea from a blog that I found interesting. The author asked if churches are designed for extroverts, and introverts felt left out.

I've read this book twice, years apart. My first piece of advice is to read a hard copy. The ebook version doesn't have the formatting that the paper version has, and it gets a bit confusing. I couldn't tell when I had left the parts that Kinnaman wrote and got into the comments by other authors until I got to their names.

What I like about this is the authors' willingness to actually pay attention to what other people think, and the statistical analysis that reduces the tendency to let wishful thinking and personal opinions override what is actually being said. The opinions of others that he scatters throughout the book don't mean as much.

The one problem that I have is that it is not always clear of whom Kinnaman is speaking. His main focus is on Evangelicals as he defines them, and he is good enough to define them. On the other hand, when he is defining who are outsiders, he speaks of "other unchurched adults who are not born-again Christians." How about people who consider themselves to be Christian and go to church but are not born-again? That must amount to millions of people, and would include almost all of the Christians that I know personally.

When he says that 8 out of 10 students participate in their church in their teenage years, but 6 of those 8 leave, is he talking of all self-identified Christian churches or just Evangelicals? If the former, is there any variation according to the type of Christianity? We outsiders have noticed that Christian apologists often switch between referring to the 2+ billion people world-wide who profess to be Christians, and the people that they consider to be "real" Christians, which ever is most convenient to the argument that they want to make.

Kinnaman has noted that Christians are often surprised by the claim that they are perceived as self-righteous and judgemental, and apparently were quite angry with him for saying so, but most of the non-Christians I know laugh in disbelief that they were surprised.

In sum, very interesting, if not always as informative as it might be. ( )