3-2-1: The Story of God, the World, and You

This book by Glen Scrivener is a fantastic introductory exposition of Christianity; my church runs a video series using the same material as a seeker event series every so often and I thought it was worth checking out. It was. On a personal note, I'm extremely glad I ended up reading it alongside this other book, as the bubbling refreshers of truth in this considerably offset the misguided downers of the other.

   It's not a full-throttle attempt to provide an inarguable rational basis for Christianity, nor is it a vague doctrinal overview; Glen introduces it as if Christian beliefs were a house and this book the tour, organised into a superbly helpful framework of 3-2-1 (I'll explain what this is shortly), which he expounds with thorough biblical referencing, explanation of doctrinal, and sound philosophical reasoning. He writes with an easy charm, presenting enormous ideas without reducing their magnitude or complexity but making them generally comprehensible as he goes along, partly because of the brilliant simplicity of the 3-2-1 framework for explanation.

   After introducing the book, he gives us an overview of the life, claims, character, deeds, significance, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the central figure and absolute core of Christianity. Glen then leads us through: 3 - the three persons of the Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, how they together exist as love and how this conception of God is resoundingly different to any other faith and gives us a sturdy and beautiful foundation for our understanding of big questions; 2 - the division in the world between fallen humanity and God's original perfection, and what this means for us, especially in light of Jesus's entry into and triumph over the brokenness of creation; 1 - our individual decisions to live for self (remaining subject to fallenness and death) or to accept Christ's substitution as what we actually need and to be united to God through him. I have not done justice at all to the devastatingly lucid power with which Glen works through Jesus, the Trinity, the fall, and union with Christ as a progressive cogent whole explanation for Christian beliefs. He consistently grounds his points well in scripture, arguing them compellingly (well, he did study philosophy) but not with cold intellect, a style well-matched by his warm and conversational tone. It's extremely easy to read and extremely enlightening as to the coherency and plausibility of Christian truth as a standalone worldview.

   Having laid out Christianity's blueprints for itself, he then turns to consider some of the main external objections to it. How can we validate its truth? Can we actually trust the bible? Why select this above all the other multitudes of religions and worldviews? What about the problem of suffering and evil? And if God is love then what's the deal with hell? And why has Christianity and the church had so much hypocrisy and evil in its past, for that matter? Particularly, regarding sex and sexuality - why is Christianity so weird about that? Finally, hasn't science pretty much undone faith anyway? Glen tackles these questions using the understanding of the universe from Christianity that he's built up using Jesus and 3-2-1, perhaps not giving a completely satisfactory explanation regarding each, but there are literally thousands of other books on apologetics to do that; here he examines the general gist of why these objections may not actually pose much of a threat to the actual truth of Christian belief. He does this with the same punchy calmness and poignant vivacity that permeates the rest of the book.

   As far as general-readership introductions to Christianity go, this is probably the best I have ever read; it's rare to find one that might actually be accessible to non-christians and therefore effective as the give-away kind of book, but this is. If you're not a christian, I recommend you acquire a copy as it will better acquaint you with the contents of a worldview which you are probably dismissing without properly understanding. And if you are a christian, then I urge you to read this, digest it as an easily-communicable philosophically-fresh means of presenting our shared truth, and then buy like thirty of them and give copies to every non-christian friend you have.