Areopagus

This book, arguably more of a booklet, is a great little work by evangelist Roger Carswell. It's only about fifty pages long and very speedy-easy to read, being as it is designed for mass dissemination by christian students to their friends who they want to give more thought about the gospel. I had a stack of a dozen of them from somewhere, quickly read through it to get the gist, and hopefully will disperse them throughout the next year.

   Anyway, it's centred around Paul's missional speech at the Areopagus in Athens (see actual passage): basically he's alone in the city for a few days, and notices idols strewn about to multitudinous gods - which provokes him to start speaking to everyone there about the one true God and the grace shown by him in the person of Jesus. Ancient Greece was, of course, a fantastic place for bandying about philosophies at the time; critical intellectual debate was a pretty common public pastime, but when Paul's message of the gospel is heard, it's strikingly different to any other current ideas in Athens - and people engage. They invite him to the Areopagus, formerly a court but turned into a public debating arena, where new ideas are presented for critical reception. Here Paul lays out starkly the gospel, emphasising especially Jesus' exclusivity in truth and salvation. Carswell discusses the passage to show how Paul's message speaks deeply to a key focus in modern evangelism; worldview pluralism. Just as Athens' streets were lined with many gods, some even without name, representing many differing conflicting interpretations of truth and rightness; so too in postmodernism-laden 21st-century England are people's worldviews various beyond apparent necessity. However, unlike then, public critical debate of the ideas and values one lives by is not a social norm: many people hold worldviews out of convenience rather than intellectual assent; it's not that they think they know best how to live, but that they like living how they are doing and so would prefer not to bother thinking too much about the reasons, values and motives underlying it. Which makes evangelism bloody difficult, speaking from experience (hello christian philosophy students everywhere).

   So, as to this book, it's not one to buy to read yourself (unless you're an interested non-christian, in which case, maybe do and get stuck into critical thought). It was designed to be bought en-masse by christians and given to friends, and for that purpose it's good I think, though not just by itself. As a starter to probe ideas, fine, but accompany it with slatherings of prayer, and if your friend is genuinely digging their intellect into gospel, then suggest to them Tim Keller's The Reason For God or similar excellent titles to smooth out apologetic issues, or even critically going through scripture together. Anyway, this is meant to be about Roger's book, not general how-to-do-evangelism spewage from a definite amateur, sorry - but yes, as a buy-twenty-to-prayerfully-give-away kind of little book, it's a good one.