_Research by Barna indicates that 75 to 85 percent of adult Christians made their initial faith commitment before age 15. At 32%, the highest probability of people accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior occurs between the ages of 5 and 13. That means sharing Christ with younger children could have a 5 to 8 times greater impact than evangelizing the same number of older children or adults.

Despite this age group’s openness to the gospel, Barna’s evidence also suggests that children’s ministry is not the highest priority for churches. About 41 percent of those at church on any given Sunday are under age 18. Yet, less than 15 percent of the church budgets go to youth and children’s ministries.

Campus Crusade for Christ has developed some of the most effective and widely used evangelism tools in the last half century. Think about the impact of the Four Spiritual Laws tract and its derivatives. More than 3 billion copies of the Four Laws have been printed and distributed worldwide. It is popular because of its simple, clear presentation of the gospel. For decades Campus Crusade has offered children’s versions of these tracts. But this year, they wanted to take it a step further.

For more information on how to get 2 FREE copies of this excellent resource for your children's ministry, go here.

From Man in the Mirror to MAN ALIVE, author Patrick Morley hopes new book will help men leave “spiritual mediocrity” behind.

Best-selling author Patrick Morley says that the desire to make a contribution and leave the world a better place is a “primal” need. “We have a raw, restless energy that is different from women. It needs to be channeled, chiseled, transformed.”

Morley estimates that as much as 90 percent of Christian men lead lukewarm, stagnant , often defeated lives. And he believes these men hate the spiritual mediocrity they’re mired in. But the typical response, says Morley, is for men to lose heart, go silent, and anesthetize their pain.

According to his research, 80 percent of men are so emotionally impaired that not only are they unable to express their feelings, they are even unable to identify their feelings.

This statistic, one assumes, goes hand in hand with the next one reported in his book: Sixty percent of men are in financial trouble, paying only the monthly minimums on their credit card balances. In addition, readers learn that 50 percent of church-going men actively seek out pornography, and that 40 percent of men overall get divorced, which affects one million children a year. One third of America’s 72 million children live in a home without their biological dad.

The residual effect of this physical absenteeism of fathers, writes Morley, is a practical absence of mothers. “Essentially, one person must now do the work of two. As a young woman who grew up without a dad said, ‘When my mom and dad divorced, I didn’t just lose my dad. I also lost my mom, because she had to work long hours to support us.’”

Patrick Morley asserts that men who lead powerful, transformed lives do things differently than their lukewarm counterparts. “In business, we call these the ‘differentiated success factors.’” He continues: “Jesus made a direct connection between knowing the Bible and leading a powerful life.” Morley insists that the reason lukewarm men lead lives of error is that they don’t know the Scriptures to begin with. Not knowing the Scriptures, in turn, means these men don’t know the power of God.

“Their capabilities don’t equal their intentions,” writes Morley. “Without the right training, their soil becomes bare, stony, and full of weeds.”

Transformed men, on the other hand, “truly hear and understand God’s Word and produce a harvest.”

The author’s conclusion therefore, is that combing the Scriptures is easily the number one factor that differentiates men who have tapped into God’s power.

In the chapter entitled “Every Man has a Story” Morley examines the subject of community and how it affects the lives of men. “Most men live in isolation.” Patrick Morley is quick to distinguish isolation from being a hermit. While we talk to other men during the day, and may have a lot of acquaintances, our relationships tend to be shallow. When not talking about work issues, Morley says, men usually stick to news, sports, and weather.

To keep this real, he asks, “do you know the names of your friends’ children?” The author also asks his readers to think for a moment about the men in their lives they know best—the ones they call best friends. “Have you been in each other’s homes?”

The isolation, according to Morley, begins for men when they encounter the “ouch” factor that goes along with becoming a man. The “ouch” factor includes the put-downs, cut-downs, sarcasm, snarky remarks, critical spirits, disrespect, disloyalty, lies, insults, betrayals and jokes made at your expense. “We don’t need to go through these painful experiences before we think, It’s just not worth it. Then we shut down and become islands.” While Morley points out that some men become stronger islands than others, they all become emotionally isolated. “It just seems easier to go it alone. We live, work, play, and even worship in communities of strangers.”

Patrick Morley’s MAN ALIVE is set for release in March 2012.

Not all childhood evangelism has to involve multiple generations. When we think of sharing the Gospel with children, it's natural to assume the presence of an adult, who is going through some series of outline points, using words and Scripture verses, the meaning of which may be lost on the kids.
Think of the last time you went to a sit-down chain restaurant. If you took small children, more than likely, the hostess grabbed a menu for each child that served two purposes: to help the kids decide between chicken nuggets and corn dogs, and to keep the kids occupied during the time it took between sitting down and delivering the food to the table.

These restaurant chains print activities and coloring objects on the kids menus. The smarter ones use the activities to reinforce that particular restaurant's core products. Red Lobster's children's menus, for instance, features games, word problems, and coloring objects featuring sea creatures (most of them edible and available at their restaurant). The kids like to engage their siblings for a partner—or competitor—for the tic tac toe games. They sometimes even ask their parents for help in solving the cross word puzzles. This type of engagement not only helps keep the otherwise rambunctious kids in their seats during meal time, but it also serves to help create stickiness—the kids, at a young age, begin to learn that it's fun to eat at Red Lobster or Red Robin or whatever restaurant takes the time to engage them.

What's truly great about this type of piece is that it allows the restaurant to engage the party—and their children—in such a way that doesn't require the direct handling of a restaurant executive or manager. It's not as if every time a hostess hands one of these out that a restaurant representative has to come sit down at the table and carefully explain everything that's on the menu: how to do the crossword, what color the crab should be, etc. The kids, in the process of figuring it out, soak in the very things that the menu is trying to communicate.

The truth is, evangelistic materials for children can be the same way. But the problem with tracts is that 1) most kids aren't easily engaged by simple reading, especially in an age of multi-media entertainment and distractions. 2) Tracts are normally just complicated enough, using language that may be difficult to understand for children, that it would require the presence of an adult in order for there to be a seed-sowing opportunity.

The educational materials industry has understood this principle for decades. The introduction of coloring and big activity books as a means to reinforce lessons about geography, social studies, math, and language has both launched and sustained companies who publish nothing but.
Imagine a coloring and activity book that shares the gospel with kids and actually engages them, using activities that are fun to do and that reinforce the principles that the text is communicating. Imagine not only sharing this activity book with your child, but also encouraging your child to share one with their friend... An evangelistic tool to share the gospel with children that can be used both vertically (adult sharing with a child) and horizontally (child sharing with peer).

Such a tool would be a useful children's evangelism piece that can also be used as a peer-to-peer Gospel presentation. Either way, it would be seed for the spiritual soil.

The Four Fantastic Facts Coloring and Activity Book is the newest and best-formatted evangelism tool to date from Campus Crusade. It contains a thorough Gospel presentation, a four-point outline that is based on the Four Spiritual Laws, customized for children. What it has, that no tract could possible offer, is page after page of engaging activities—games, cross word puzzles, word finds, and coloring objects that reinforce the gospel message share in the text. In short, this is a piece that a child will want to keep, most when offered, will want to share a blank copy with their friends. It's a tool whose demand keeps multiplying, as kids get excited to not only use the book for themselves, but share with others.
The best part is that giving your child a book, or sending them with one, is sowing a seed in the heart of that child. It is also an easy and effective way to share the Gospel with children. The Four Fantastic Facts Coloring and Activity Book was designed for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders (or ages 8- 11), since their penchant for using coloring books with moderate degree activities for educational purposes is congruent with the format of Campus Crusade’s new tool.

In early field testing with the beta version of this piece, some of the best results came from children sharing the activity book with other children. In the specific experiments involving the Four Fantastic Facts Coloring and Activity Book, the adult would give a nine- or ten- year old child two unused copies of the book to take over to a friend's house as part of a regular visit or play date—nothing particularly out of the ordinary. But it was the positive responses to the piece, and the message communicated by the piece, that was most encouraging. But there is a secondary, but not less important benefit. Children who may not be comfortable sharing their faith with words or testimony found it easy to share the coloring books with their friends. Some couldn't wait to "show it off." It proved to be a great way for them to share what was important to them in a presentation that was both relevant and fun.
—© 2011 UCATL Research Dept.

Closer look at the book is available here.

James Bryan Smith contends that the early eighteenth-century Methodists were one of the purest examples of the power of accountability in community. Their leader, John Wesley, would preach to countless people, seeing thousands of conversions. Wesley’s outdoor preaching to the masses was encouraged by his longtime friend George Whitefield, himself a preacher to even larger audiences and who saw far greater numbers of conversions.

According to Smith, a theology professor in Wichita, Kansas, the biggest difference between the two historic preachers was in how they instructed people to live after conversion. Whitefield, Smith writes, had no plan and simply assumed that people who gave their life to Christ would naturally find a church and live out the Christian life.

By contrast, it was Wesley who insisted that people join what were then called “societies.” These Methodist societies encouraged people to attend several times a week to hear Wesley’s (or some other minister’s) preaching. Attendees were also asked to join a class, which consisted of twelve students and one leader. The purpose of the weekly class was for the attendees to come and share candidly about the state of their souls. In fact, Smith writes, Wesley was so serious about faithful, regular attendance that anyone who failed to attend a meeting would be banned from future meetings unless they approached Wesley himself with the reasons for their absence.

“Though Wesley’s practice might not work in today’s world, it certainly did in his time,” Smith declares in his book The Good and Beautiful Community (2010 InterVarsity Press). “He offered people a method (hence the name Methodists) to grow in Christlikeness in the context of communities. The movement spread rapidly and continued to grow in astounding numbers. He asked a lot of his people, but he saw a lot of transformation.”

The work and the legacy of Wesley lives on. George Whitefield, however—the book points out—left no such legacy. Despite his giftedness as an orator and evangelist, Whitefield never started an actual movement. It was a fact of which he was painfully aware.

Smith writes that Wesley believed that preaching like an apostle “without joining together those that are awakened and training them in the ways of God is only begetting children for the murderer.”

James Bryan Smith shares that he spent two weeks one summer working with Dallas Willard, assisting him in a class he was teaching on spirituality and ministries. The lessons learned about spiritual formation, especially in the context of community, were abundant. “Dallas Willard believes that in any given church approximately 10 percent of the people are ready to grown and willing to make an effort to make it happen.” Smith says that Willard thinks that the church puts too much emphasis on trying to light a fire under the 90 percent and neglects to challenge the 10 percent who are sitting idle but wanting to help.

James Bryan Smith is the director of the Christian Spiritual Formation Institute in Wichita and an ordained United Methodist Church minister. In addition to The Good and Beautiful Community, his other Apprentice Series books include The Good and Beautiful Life and The Good and Beautiful God.

In this book, Smith shows his readers how to bring spiritual formation and community engagement together. “Apprentices of Jesus are not part-time do-gooders,” he writes. “They live in continuous contact with the kingdom of God and are constantly men and women in whom Christ dwells.” His books seeks to offer spiritual practices that root new, true narratives about God and the world in our souls.

Jesus Mission Author Says Being Born Again Is Not What Most of Us Think

 In his book The Jesus Mission (2011 Waterbrook)  Steven Scott tells the remarkably true story of Jason, a survivor of the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11. Starting his workday that Tuesday morning in 2001 on the 104th floor of the South Tower, Jason heard what he describes as a big whoosh. From his window, he witnessed the horrific scene that included a giant hole in the World Trade Center’s north tower. Jason and his assistant headed to a stairwell and began the long flight down hundreds of steps. When they finally arrived at the sky lobby on the 78th floor, Jason and his assistant heard a series of announcements coming over the building’s PA system. “This building is secure. Please return to your offices immediately.” The announcer also declared that the explosion in the north tower was “an isolated event” and that no danger was posed to the south tower.

While his assistant started to head back up to their floor, Jason didn’t quite believe that his building was safe. As Steve Scott puts it, “he didn’t feel right about going back to the 104th floor. It was as if a voice were warning him, ‘Get out of the building as fast as you can.’” Although he tried to convince his assistant to join him, Jason would make the trek to the bottom of World Trade Center Two alone. Overweight and out of shape, Jason hurried down the remainder of the seventy-eight floors while his co-worker and other friends waited for the elevator to take them back up. Jason had made it down exactly one floor when he heard and felt a terrible explosion.

“The impact was so violent,” Scott writes, “that it felt as if the tower swayed to the ground and then sprang back up.” Everyone in the stairway with Jason was thrown down. But the urgency of this new situation was enough that they resumed their long trip down.

It turns out that this second explosion, the one that occurred in the south tower, was caused by the second hijacked plane, whose wing cut through the 78th floor, killing Jason’s friends as they waited for the elevator to take them back to their offices.

“Once on the ground, Jason felt he had to run as fast as he could to get far away from the building The voice told him to keep running, and so he did.” Scott wraps up the story saying, “After questioning the Port Authority’s instructions (to remain in the building and return to his office) Jason had survived the worst day of his life.”

Steven Scott uses this true story from 9-11 to illustrate what he calls The Danger of Trusting the Wrong Authority. It begins a subject covered by three chapters in The Jesus Mission. The chapter titled Being Born Again is Not What Most of Us Think poses the question: Are you ready to risk your eternal destiny on your definition?

Scott reminds his reader that Jason’s friends and co-workers did exactly what their trusted authorities told them to do. The authorities, he clarifies, acted in good faith, but their actions were based on the only information available to them. And did their actions, based on this limited, and eventually incorrect, information lead to the deaths of hundreds? Thousands?

This same tragedy, Scott insists, is being repeated with millions of sincere church members and professing Christians—but with infinitely worse consequences. “People who followed the Port Authority’s instructions paid a terrible price for their misplaced faith,” Scott writes. He also says that an even more terrible price will be paid by millions who entrust their eternal destiny to the guidance of sincere religious leaders. “These religious teachers and pastors continue to teach that there is an accepted formula for receiving eternal life,” the author says. “However, Jesus did not give us a formula.”

Instead, Steven Scott argues that it is Jesus Himself that defines terms like “born again.” A second birth is a spiritual one and, according to Scott, a spiritual birth is not a mere act of the human will, but is initiated by God, independent of a person’s will or impulse. Since it is an act of God, Scott argues, its exact time of occurrence can’t be calculated by anyone on earth. Scott also insists, however, that when a spiritual birth takes place, it creates an effect and produces evidence that can be seen by others.

Scott writes: “Formulas have their place, but when it comes to eternal life, our tendency to fall back on formulas has steered untold numbers of people wrong.” Scott says that while well-meaning Christians often teach that praying a certain prayer or walking down a church aisle and “accepting Christ” produces a born-again event that Christianizes a person that Jesus—when asked directly about eternal life—said nothing of the sort.

Steven Scott asserts that the formulaic teachings have it backward. “Most of the supporting Scriptures that are used to defend a certain prayer or baptism...are taken out of context. They are broadened to apply to something beyond what their context specifies.”

For people choosing to follow Christ in the first century, the idea of confessing, believing, and receiving was a totally different commitment from what we know when compared to how these terms are used today. During New Testament times, anyone who was a Roman citizen was required to have only one “lord,” that being Caesar. So for someone then to publicly confess that Jesus is their Lord was to commit treason against the government. At the same time, Scott tells his readers, to believe in Jesus and His claims was to knowingly abandon all the rights of Roman citizenship. “They were trading a respected and highly valued citizenship in an earthly empire for a life of ridicule, rejection, and the real possibility of imprisonment and execution.” So basically, for the first-century Christians, the notion of confessing and believing equaled total abandonment to the person and ways of Christ. And it was costly.

For Steven Scott, the primary way that a person can know he has been born again is evidenced by fruitfulness. He quotes John 15:5 and 1 John 2:3-6 to support his assertion.

Chapter seven continues with incredible examples of what Scott called “God’s birthing process.” But this, and the preceding two chapters are almost a sidebar clarification in a book that claims that Christ completed twenty-seven missions while on earth and compels you to take up the four assigned to you.

Steven Scott is the best-selling author of The Greatest Words Every Spoken, The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived, and The Richest Man Who Ever Lived. An entrepreneur whose start-up companies have earned billions in sales, Scott says he learned the laws of success by studying Proverbs. His resume includes co-founding Total Gym, The American Telecast Corporation, and Max International. The Jesus Mission is available here.

Barna president offers insight into why the church is losing the next generation

David Kinnaman, in his new book, You Lost Me, writes that pop entertainer Katy Perry embodies the first, and most common, category of a Christianity dropout—the Nomad, the spiritual wanderer. “For these young adults, faith is nomadic, seasonal, or may appear to be an optional or peripheral part of life.” Kinnaman says that at some point in their teenage or young adult years, Nomads like Perry disengage from attending church or significantly distance themselves from the Christian community.

Katy Perry is the daughter of Penecostal ministers and grew up singing in church, speaking in tongues, and eating “angeled” eggs, as opposed to “deviled” eggs. Once she embarked on a career in pop music, the Nomad in her wanted to try everything that her strict upbringing had kept off-limits.

According to Barna, the estimates are that two-fifths of young adults with a Christian upbringing will go through a time of spiritual nomadism. Other Barna research indicates that half of all born-again adult Christians say they have gone through a prolonged period in their lives when they felt very distant or spiritually removed from God.

Kinnaman writes that nomadism among the Mosaic generation is less of an intentional choice and more of a “slow fade,” an increasing detachment that took many months or years. “For some, faith was never deep; they were ‘in the building’ but never really committed to following Christ.” For other Nomads, Kinnaman declares the opposite is true. Their spiritual nomadism follows a personal history of intense commitment. The book is thorough in pointing to several characteristics of the nomadic mindset.

First, Kinnaman writes that Nomads still describe themselves as Christians, not having disavowed Christianity, but no longer committed to churchgoing. Second, they believe that personal involvement in a Christian community is optional. Third, the importance of faith has faded, yet most are not angry or hostile toward Christianity. Last, Kinnaman argues that these Nomads are spiritual experimentalists, finding meaning and spiritual stimulation from a variety of activities in their lives.

When Nomads describe their faith journey, fourteen percent say they made an emotional decision to be a Christian early in life that didn’t last, while twenty-three percent say they used to be very involved in church but feel they don’t fit in anymore.

While Katy Perry says she values spiritual ideas and pursuits, she isn’t sure how they fit with her adult identity. She also sees her experimentation and exploration in very positive terms. “To grow up and come from something different than what you are now and to spread your wings . . . I think it’s a beautiful thing.”

In You Lost Me, David Kinnaman defines the other categories of Christianity dropouts, Prodigals and Exiles. Nomads, he’s quick to point out, walk away from church engagement but still consider themselves Christians. Prodigals, on the other hand, actually lose their faith, describing themselves as “no longer Christian.” Kinnaman actually deals with both categories (Nomads and Prodigals) in the same chapter, drawing distinctions between each. Nomads, he says, wrestle with their faith, while Prodigals reject their faith or switch the objects of their faith. Exiles, the third category, grew up in the church and are now physically or emotionally disconnected in some way, but are also energized to pursue God-honoring lives.

“One hallmark,” writes Kinnaman about the Exiles, “is their feeling that their vocation (or professional calling) is disconnected from their church experience. Their Christian background has not prepared them to live and work effectively in society.” Their faith, he says, is “lost” from Monday through Friday.

Kinnaman says his use of the term “Exile” comes from the Old Testament biblical narrative involving Daniel, Ezekial, and their less famous friends. He thinks the metaphor of exiles works especially well, given the modern-day North American parallels with Babylon. He writes that today’s western culture is indulgent, distracted, idol following, and hedonistic. “The time and place may be different, but the tension of living in-but-not-of lives describes the challenge for the faithful both then and now.

Recently released, David Kinnaman’s You Lost Me is available now.

A look at the new book by Chad Young, Authenticity

Chad Young says his passion is helping students learn what an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ looks like. A staff member with Campus Crusade for Christ for nearly a decade, Young currently serves as the director for the South Carolina Lowcountry with a scope of twenty-five college campuses and seventy thousand students.

In his new book, Authenticity: Real Faith in a Phony, Superficial World, he writes as a person who has struggled with a worldly lifestyle and the distractions of living in a busy culture. According to a recent study by the Barna Group, the number one reason people reject Christianity is a lack of “authentic Christians” among their peers. Chad Young says there are six major reasons why postmodern young adults have a negative view toward Christianity, which is perceived as being: 1) hypocritical, 2) too focused on getting converts, 3) anti-homosexual, 4) sheltered, 5) too political, and 6) judgmental. Chad goes into more detail on these six points in the introduction of his book, a section titled We have a problem.

Year after year, Young writes, Campus Crusade for Christ surveys college students, asking them two questions: Who is Jesus? and: What do you believe is the message of Christianity? He says that many of these recorded answers confirm some of the major misconceptions people have about Christianity. This is a regrettable fact for Young, who recognizes that college students are the next generation of leaders of our communities, our churches, and our country.

“A Christian life that doesn’t look any different from the world’s way of living,” writes Young, “is falling short of the fulfillment and happiness that God longs for us to have—and it’s probably turning off people to God’s good news as well.” Young says all this within a context of self-admission. “I wish I wasn’t part of the problem, but unfortunately I spent years living as a hypocritical Christian who turned others away from God. I was part of the problem.”

Authentic Christianity, according to Chad Young, begins with authentic people who are willing to be themselves. He writes that authentic people also relate with real love toward others and enjoy a genuine relationship with God.

Young states that as Christians, often our greatest struggle involves spending time with God. He shares that the average student in high school tries to feed his heart with exciting but empty satisfaction, going from thing to thing, searching for that joy and intimacy that the heart desires. Doing so, Young reveals, will often lead that high school student to addiction to drugs, alcohol, sex, popularity, or whatever else the world may offer. He says that some students even become “masters of disguise” at hiding these things from their families and Christian friends.

In Authenticity, Chad Young insists that it is only when we spend time with Jesus, remaining in Him, that we are transformed into people who bear the fruit of the Spirit in our everyday lives.

“It all starts with prayer,” Young asserts. How we pray, he says, reveals our view of God and also affects our view of God.  “If we were truly convinced that ‘everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened,’ then we probably would be praying all the time!” In Young’s view, this is why prayer is the most essential ingredient in becoming a more authentic follower of Jesus, as we seek to see God as He truly is and promises to be.

Expanding on this point—that prayer reveals our view of God— Chad Young dissects the Lord’s prayer, highlighting the specific meaning of each line and giving examples of his own life of the passage’s personal application. “As you grow in your prayer life,” Young tells his reader, “be careful that your prayers are Christ-centered, not self-centered.” He also quotes James, who wrote in his epistle, “You do not have because you do not ask.” Young believes James is implying that our failure to pray deprives us of what God was already prepared to give us.

The book Authenticity is divided into thirteen chapters and three main sections. Parts one and two cover the two great commandments, while the last covers the Great Commission. Chad Young is a graduate of both Clemson University and Georgia Tech. After working in the paper industry, he went into full-time ministry. Young has also written a discipleship training manual and is a frequent speaker for retreats and conferences.

Order his book Authenticity here.

Book Review for: A Place for Truth: Leading Thinkers Explore Life’s Hardest Questions (edited by Dallas Willard)

In 1992, a chaplain named Kelly Monroe led a small group of Christians at Harvard who were inspired by the idea that the school’s motto--Veritas (truth)—was more than a historical anomaly. The group hosted the university for a whole weekend of lectures and discussions that explored some of life’s most important questions. The goal was to restore the university as a setting for pondering deeper questions, searching for real answers, and developing community around the quest for truth. Thus the Veritas Forum was born.

Now twenty years later, more than one hundred universities in North America and Europe have hosted their own Veritas Forums. Thousands of students and faculty have participated in this quest for truth helping to restore meaning in the academy.

Daniel Cho remembers being a freshman sitting in the crowd at the first Harvard forum back in 1992. Now the Executive Director of the Veritas Forum, Daniel says his life was profoundly shaped by the coherence of life, truth, and beauty in Jesus Christ that he tasted over that weekend within the community of seekers.

In the book A Place for Truth (2010 InterVarsity Press) Dallas Willard, along with Cho, has collected some of these remarkable transcripts featuring outstanding Christian intellectuals that deal with questions about truth itself, and several truths in particular. “The Veritas Forum,” Willard writes in the book’s introduction, “is interested both in the current status of truth on campus, and in how the basic claims of Christianity are now treated there. Its aim is to restore the university to its age-old character as a “place for truth.”

When the Veritas Forum made its way to Yale University in 1996, it was Richard John Neuhaus’s turn to bring “light and truth” (appropriately enough, the English translation of the University’s motto: Lux et Veritas). Neuhaus, in a lecture entitled Is there Life after Truth?, poses the question “Why should God have become humanum, to become one of us?” He answers, “To assert truth in public. It’s the great task of our generation, to learn how to do it persuasively and winsomely, and in a manner that does not violate, but strengthens the bonds of civility.”

Os Guiness describes 1989—the year the Soviet Union fell—as the “Year of the Century.” He remembers some of his favorite scenes of that extraordinary time: the dismantling of the Berlin wall, Soviet gun barrels filled with flowers, and the knocking down of the statues of the men-gods—Marx, Lenin, Stalin. Guiness says his favorite image that year was the nightly scene in November, when more than three hundred thousand packed Wencelas Square in the Czech capital of Prague to listen to then-dissident Vaclev Havel as he painted the contrast between the “Velvet Revolutionaries” and the Soviets. As Guiness recounts, the very quick-witted Czech crowd chanted: “We are not like them. We are not like them.” Some of the contrast, he says, was in the fact that the Velvet Revolutionaries would not reply to violence with violence. Perhaps a more striking dissimilarity was that the Soviets, Guiness says, were people of propaganda and lies, whereas the revolutionaries were people of truth.

“We realize how they were aware that there were only two ways they could bring down the Soviets,” Guiness reports in the Veritas Forum at Stanford University in 2005. “Either they had to trump Soviet power with equal or more power—” (which would have been unthinkable as the Velvet Revolutionaries were only a handful of dissidents— “or they had to counter Soviet power with another type of power altogether.” The dissident counter to the muscle-power of the Soviets, according to Guiness, was the power of truth. And he tells the 2005 Vertias Forum attendees at Stanford University: “And the unthinkable happened. They won.”

But Guiness also says that while the West applauded the tremendous courage and principled stand of the Czech dissidents of 1989, in many parts of America there isn’t a similar solid view of truth on which anyone could make such a stand today.

He sums up the prevailing opinion on holding to a truth-based worldview this way: “Anyone who believes in an objective truth, or an absolute truth, is Neanderthal and reactionary.” To this opinion, Guiness arugues that, “far from being Neanderthal and reactionary, truth is a very simple, fundamental, human gift, without which we cannot negotiate reality and handle life.” He asserts that truth is absolutely essential for a good human life.

“Equally important,” argues Guiness, “truth is absolutely essential for freedom.”

Guiness says that he’s been on campuses where today it is simply worse to judge evil than to do evil. This outcome appears to be a result of what Guiness, in his Veritas Forum presentation, calls the two challenges of truth. “There are two ways we can go. And we’re always tempted by these two: One way is to shape the truth to our desires. The other way is to seek to shape our desires to the truth.”

Os Guiness and Richard John Neuhaus aren’t the only scholars A Place for Truth records from the various Veritas Forums that have taken place on campuses. Timothy Keller, popular speaker, author, and pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, spoke on “The Exclusivity of Truth” at the University of Chicago, which hosted a Veritas Forum in 2008. Keller focuses on the exclusive truth claims in religion, and the five ordinary ways people deal with the subject.

Francis Collins, speaking at CalTech in 2009, presents “The Language of God,” a talk that deals with The Human Genome Project, DNA, and his reasons why scientific and spiritual worldviews don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

The book even showcases a debate called “Moral Mammals.” At this 2009 Veritas Forum held at MIT, Peter Singer and John Hare debate whether atheism or theism provides the best foundation for human worth and morality.

The “Sense of an Ending,” which the book clarifies was a multi-media lecture-performance with integrated images, sound clips, and illustrations at the piano, was given by Jeremy Begbie at UC Berkeley in 2001. The speaker admits that the title of the talk is purposely similar to a 1960s book by Frank Kermode. “In a lot of narrative fiction, the ending gives the whole story a unity, gathering the strands together, resolving the discord and dissonance into what [Kermode] calls a “grand temporal consonance.

N.T. Wright is also recorded giving his talk “Simply Christian” at the Veritas Forum at Georgetown University in 2006. “The Whole Gospel for the Whole Person” was the subject of Ronald Sider’s presentation in 1995 at Harvard (the university of the original Veritas Forum). Astronomy was the background of scientist Hugh Ross’s talk at Michigan in 1995.

A Place for Truth is available here.

David A. Horner’s Mind Your Faith Purports to be a Student’s Guide to Thinking and Living Well

David A. Horner (D.Phil, University of Oxford) says that his new book Mind Your Faith is the result of some fourteen years as a student in undergraduate and graduate university education.

It’s worth noting that he concurrently conducted thirty years of nearly continuous university ministry in the United States and Europe. His brother, and long-time Campus Crusade staff member, Bob Horner, has also devoted his entire life to engaging students in secular universities with the person of Jesus Christ in creative, winsome, and compelling ways. David says that growing up in the shadow of his older brother Bob, he developed a love of the university and a desire to influence it.

The university world, he writes, can be a confusing place, filled with many competing worldviews and perspectives. With his book, David Horner hopes to restore sanity to the collegiate experience and give students essential tools for thinking contextually, logically, and “worldviewishly.”

As president of the Illuminatio Project, David’s aim is to bring the light of a classical biblical vision of goodness, truth, and beauty into the thinking of the church and culture through strategic research and communication.

In the book Mind Your Faith, Horner discusses the impact of the Veritas Forum. Founded at Harvard University in 1992, Veritas (which happens to be the motto of Harvard—Latin for “truth”) sponsors public forums at secular universities to engage students and faculty in discussions about life’s hardest questions and the relevance of Jesus Christ to all life.

Apologetics, writes Horner, is based on a Greek word found in 1 Peter 3:15, apologia, which means “rational defense.” He says that Christian apologetics is the art and science of explaining and defending the truth claims of the Christian worldview.

As to why apologetics and general ministry on college campuses are so vital, the book points out this statistic: In 2010, 6.7 percent of the world’s population held college degrees—up from 5.9 percent in 2000. As of 2007, 40.4 percent of American adults aged 25-34 held at least a two-year degree or higher, which put the United States in the top 11 globally in post-secondary education.

As to the spiritual demographics of these American college students, Steve Henderson (author of the Christianity Today article “A Question of Price Versus Cost”) says: “More than 52 percent of incoming freshmen who identify themselves as born-again upon entering a public university will either no longer identify themselves as born-again four years later or, even if they do still claim that identification, will not have attended any religious service in over a year.”

According to Horner, part of the issue comes down to worldview. A worldview, he defines, is the set of beliefs, attitudes, and values that shapes the way we see the world and our life. “Your spiritual and moral well-being in the university and beyond, then depends crucially on how you think about what is real, about what is important and valuable, about how to live and why.”

Horner also says that college is a marketplace of ideas. “Our absence from the university disengages a thoughtful Christian presence from the give-and-take of the university’s marketplace of ideas.” Horner says this absence—and resulting disengagement—limits the perspectives to which students and faculty are exposed and the possible impact that biblical truth can have on them.

At the very outset, Horner seeks to clarify the target of his information. He states that Mind Your Faith is written primarily for those who are (1) university students or college-bound high school students, (2) followers of Jesus who aspire to grow and flourish as his followers while in college, and (3) attend a secular university.

Horner also addresses the question: Should I attend a Christian or secular university? He says that it depends on a number of factors, including what you want from your college experience and what opportunities are available. But Horner stresses in Mind Your Faith, that of prime importance are the ideas you embrace. “Ideas have consequences; what we believe will determine how we behave, and ultimately who we become.” He shares that to understand the nature of the Holocaust, we must see that it did not begin at the death camps, but in books and classrooms and courtrooms and cafes—in short, the marketplace of ideas. Horner soberly reminds us that the origin of this dark moment in history lay not in the activities of Nazi thugs but of bookish intellectuals and their students.

In a chapter somewhat circularly titled The Truth about Truth, Horner reminds the reader of the historical Christianity of many of the country’s oldest universities. “The most common epigraph over entrances to American university libraries is a statement by Jesus: ‘The truth shall set you free.’” Its Latin translation Veritas Vos Liberavit also serves as the motto of Johns Hopkins.

The way to find common ground: Think contextually.
Assumptions, writes Horner, are underlying ideas that are not explicitly stated but are crucial for understanding those that are. “Often the most important ideas are unarticulated.” Horner argues that thinking well involves being aware of this and asking good questions that can help bring them to the surface. He even astutely points out that in the Gospels, Jesus is asked 183 questions. He asks 307. Horner even insists that asking thoughtful questions is a general life skill, one that can help those who struggle with making friends to draw people in.

Horner also assigns to worldview the three big questions, which he says are: What is real? Who are we? What is good? He says that these big questions and their answers share certain connections. He also insists that each distinct worldview falls into one of three categories—theism, naturalism, and pantheism. But Horner adds that many thinkers today have added a fourth category of worldview: postmodernism. A leading thinker of postmodern thought, Lyotard, writes that he defines postmodern as "incredulity toward meta-narratives."

From part 1 of the book--Mind, Mind Your Faith moves to the equally large topics of Faith and Character, providing sound and cogent arguments that any college student should be able to employ when the temptation to waiver in his faith presents itself.

David Horner is professor of philosophy and biblical studies at Biola University in California. He also serves as a research scholar for Centers for Christian Study International, an effort to develop intellectual Christian communities within secular university contexts.

A couple of years ago Robert Scott and a Muslim scholar friend shared a platform at a London university to talk about the “reasonableness” of their respective faiths. Scott says that his friend, Asad, had the idea to show secularists that they could reason with one another and explain how their respective faiths had a reasonable foundation. The point was to challenge the ideology of atheists, who assert that people of faith are irrational and dangerous.

The talk drew a mixture of atheists, Christians, and Muslims, which was precisely the point, says Scott. He describes an encounter with a Muslim student afterwards, who came up to him and asked, “I hope this doesn’t sound too silly, but where do Easter bunnies come from? Are they in the Bible?” Scott asserts that the question, however bizarre, highlighted a certain amount of confusion in the questioner’s mind.

Robert Scott also recounts another episode in which he was hosting a Pakistani family in his home. They asked a different question: “Why, when we have so much in common, do you eat pork?” He says a female Bengali friend made a similar point to his wife: “Why, when you are respectable and modest, don’t you cover your head like me?” He even admits that another friend asked: “Why do you have Christmas trees in your house, when they’re a pagan symbol?” Scott explains that many Begalis believe that trees themselves contain evil spirits and, believing this, they therefore refuse to walk in the woods. So, obviously a tree is a dangerous thing to bring into your home!

Robert Scott believes there are two broad themes that emerge from these questions. First, he says, is the problem of cultural symbols, which he argues that many Muslims are confusing with biblical Christianity. But the analysis doesn’t end there. He admits that the second issue is that of outward practices. Western Christians don’t tend to adhere to rules about food, drink, and clothing—unlike Islam.

Scott writes that what further complicates the second issue is the fact that some Christians across the world today do have such outward practices, as did other Christians in the past.

As a results, he argues, many Muslim people think that a lack of outward practices means that many Christians living in the twenty-first century Western world aren’t truly living biblical lives—and are not pleasing to God.

These and other matters are addressed in a book titled Questions Muslims Ask: What Christians Actually Do (and Don’t) Believe. Author Robert Scott oversees international outreach at St. Helen’s Bishopgate Church in London, where he hosts meetings for better understanding with Muslim and Christian partners. Peter Riddell, formerly professor of Islamic Studies, London School of Theology, says the book “focuses upon real questions posed by Muslims to real Christians on a regular basis.” Questions Muslims Ask is being published by InterVarsity Press and is currently in the editing stage. The expected release date is January 2012.