Fool's Talk: Recovering The Art Of Christian Persuasion
by Os Guinness /
2015 / English / PDF
5.8 MB Download
2016
2016Christianity Today
Christianity Today Book of the Year in
Apologetics/Evangelism
Book of the Year in
Apologetics/Evangelism
One of Desiring God's Top 15 Books of 2015
One of Desiring God's Top 15 Books of 2015
Hearts & Minds Bookstore's Best Books of 2015, Social Criticism
and Cultural Engagement In our post-Christian context, public life
has become markedly more secular and private life infinitely more
diverse. Yet many Christians still rely on cookie-cutter approaches
to evangelism and apologetics. Most of these methods assume that
people are open, interested and needy for spiritual insight when
increasingly most people are not. Our urgent need, then, is the
capacity to persuade―to make a convincing case for the gospel to
people who are not interested in it. In his magnum opus, Os
Guinness offers a comprehensive presentation of the art and power
of creative persuasion. Christians have often relied on proclaiming
and preaching, protesting and picketing. But we are strikingly weak
in persuasion―the ability to talk to people who are closed to what
we are saying. Actual persuasion requires more than a
one-size-fits-all approach. Guinness notes, "Jesus never spoke to
two people the same way, and neither should we." Following the
tradition of Erasmus, Pascal, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis,
Malcolm Muggeridge and Peter Berger, Guinness demonstrates how
apologetic persuasion requires both the rational and the
imaginative. Persuasion is subversive, turning the tables on
listeners' assumptions to surprise them with signals of
transcendence and the credibility of the gospel. This book is the
fruit of forty years of thinking, honed in countless talks and
discussions at many of the leading universities and intellectual
centers of the world. Discover afresh the persuasive power of
Christian witness from one of the leading apologists and thinkers
of our era.
Hearts & Minds Bookstore's Best Books of 2015, Social Criticism
and Cultural Engagement In our post-Christian context, public life
has become markedly more secular and private life infinitely more
diverse. Yet many Christians still rely on cookie-cutter approaches
to evangelism and apologetics. Most of these methods assume that
people are open, interested and needy for spiritual insight when
increasingly most people are not. Our urgent need, then, is the
capacity to persuade―to make a convincing case for the gospel to
people who are not interested in it. In his magnum opus, Os
Guinness offers a comprehensive presentation of the art and power
of creative persuasion. Christians have often relied on proclaiming
and preaching, protesting and picketing. But we are strikingly weak
in persuasion―the ability to talk to people who are closed to what
we are saying. Actual persuasion requires more than a
one-size-fits-all approach. Guinness notes, "Jesus never spoke to
two people the same way, and neither should we." Following the
tradition of Erasmus, Pascal, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis,
Malcolm Muggeridge and Peter Berger, Guinness demonstrates how
apologetic persuasion requires both the rational and the
imaginative. Persuasion is subversive, turning the tables on
listeners' assumptions to surprise them with signals of
transcendence and the credibility of the gospel. This book is the
fruit of forty years of thinking, honed in countless talks and
discussions at many of the leading universities and intellectual
centers of the world. Discover afresh the persuasive power of
Christian witness from one of the leading apologists and thinkers
of our era.