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Sky chose Beyond Opinion: Living the Faith We Defend
which is edited by Ravi Zacharias for our January book club read. I'm blaming her for the read and thanking her at the same time. To be perfectly honest, this book was a lot to take. It's meaty in a most fabulous way. It's scary looking too, and that's unfortunate because it is an incredibly worthwhile read. Still, it is difficult. (I am seriously intimidated by it, truth be told!)To continue on in the vein of complete honesty, neither Sky nor I were able to finish the book. It's just plain difficult to muddle through. (She got much further than I did. My C.S. Lewis class got in the way of my ability to read as much as I'd like of this book or my Montgomery choices this month! I'm telling myself not to feel guilty but to just keep doing as much as I can. That said, both Sky and I have every intention of finishing Beyond Opinion
over the course of the next few weeks (hopefully.)If you either started reading or (gloriously!) finished reading the book, please write up your post sharing your thoughts and link your post in the comment section. If you do not have a blog but want to comment on the read, we welcome you to do so! Join in and share your thoughts below!
This post will remain up as-is, so you can feel free to link your thoughts up in the comment section at any time.
Sky kindly wrote up some thoughts to share of the book but then we both read my friend Tim's post about this book over on his site, Diary of an Autodidact and we agreed to just point you off in his direction.
Tim makes the statement early on in his review that, "We as a culture have forgotten how to think." Reading his complete thoughts encouraged me to keep pressing on through this book and wrestle with the hard thoughts and arguments which are presented within the pages of Beyond Opinion. We have forgotten how to think and we don't like being forced to do it.
Let me rephrase that.
I have forgotten how to think and I don't like being forced to do it.
But if I do not exercise my brain and wrestle with these very issues then my faith will be weakened and watered down. And what, then, will I be passing down to my children?
I'm going to finish this book and I not only invite you to do so, but I encourage you to do so. For your own good. Even if it is hard.
Again, check out Tim's post HERE. Link and/or share your thoughts below in the comment section and we'll get this conversation started!
16 comments:
My post, for what it's worth. http://peaceloveandbooks.blogspot.com/2012/01/thoughts-so-far-on-beyond-opinion.html
Whew! I am blessedly close to the end, but this week I've had neither the time nor the mental fortitude or capacity to work through it. It is a fabulous read but one better done in small bites, I think. I hope to have my thoughts up ASAP.
I looked through the first few pages of this at Amazon and felt it just wasn't something I could get through at this point in my life. I do listen to Ravi on the radio sometimes, and he's fairly layman-friendly there, but the first several pages of this were too academic for me. Maybe some day...
I do think apologetics is an important subject and I've read a lot of Josh McDowell. I just think if it's written on a certain level it's going to be missed by some of the people who need it most.
I will finish the book this weekend. I will need every day possible to read it!! Looking forward to Tim's thoughts.
I'm not blogging these days, so I'll just post here. This definitely made my brain hurt. I like to think, but this was a stretch for me! That said, I really enjoyed it. I haven't quite finished it either. I should have just done it...now that I took a break, I'm having a hard time getting back into it. There was soooo much info that it is hard to retain a lot of it. That's the one thing I didn't like. It was like trying to pack a year of appologetics education into one book. On the positive side, it challenged me to think and strengthened my faith. I think it would be a great book to recommend to a brainy friend who likes reading about different religions. I think it's the kind of book that just might be an instrument in leading them to Christ. So much for a well written critique, but it's too hard to write well in a blog commment! :)
I haven't finished this book yet either, but I am still working through it. "Beyond Opinion" does provide a thought-provoking read.
I should have taken you up on your generous offer of the loan of this book, Carrie, because my copy came in the mail on Thursday. Yup. I think I ordered it the DAY after we talked about it, and it came on Thursday. Apparently it was shipping from the North Pole or something? I don't actually know why it took that long...
Anyway...after reading all the posts on this, I'm both intrigued and intimidated and can't WAIT to start it. I'll still be doing the book club, but have nothing to contribute on this one....yet.
Well, here's my post, for better or for worse:
http://www.hopeisthewordblog.com/2012/01/27/beyond-opinion-living-the-faith-we-defend-by-ravi-zacharias/
Whew. Done with my post ... not so much the book! : )
http://herdofsteph.blogspot.com/2012/01/beyond-opinion-reading-to-know-bookclub.html
Hard reads are, well, hard, but also good for the brain and for the faith, even better when interspersed with less-than-hard reads. Kudos to you for persevering!
Well...I finished it!! And put together a few sentences about it.
http://www.thissimplehome.com/2012/01/beyond-opinion-edited-by-ravi-zacharius.html
Still working through posts! So far the chapter that seems to have caught the most attention amongst the moms is the one on youth and apologetics. Stephanie S. drew out quite a few quotes and points to ponder that I'm pretty sure could make up their own post. And Annette did an awesome job explaining why the book was of value to her.
Still reading posts and thinking through this. Mostly I'm thinking that this is a book I'm going to want to linger on through the year.
This is one of those books I KNOW I don't have the brain power or concentration to read well. So I'll wait until my kids are older and I can read for a solid hour without being interrupted. :)
My final say. For now. http://peaceloveandbooks.blogspot.com/2012/01/i-finally-finished-beyond-opinion.html
I haven't had a chance to read this book, but I really want to. I haven't actually read any of Ravi Z's books, but I listen to his podcast and I love hearing him speak.
I'm with you and Sky--haven't finished it yet! That said, I have a really good excuse (moving to a different state with a family of seven in the middle of homeschooling--surely that's a good enough excuse, right?! giggle) and I am right at halfway through it. I think it is very, VERY good. A couple of the chapters I have read twice because there is just so much packed into them, and I keep bugging my hubby with a "ooooh, this is good, listen to this" prefacing a reading.
Our Feb choice looks like an easier read, so I'm thinking I'll read it and keep reading Beyond Opinion this month! :)
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