By Roger Forster and Paul Marsden
Monarch. 124 pages. £3.99
ISBN 1 85424 311 X
Roger Forster, leader of Ichthus, and Paul Marsden, lecturer in the history and philosophy of science, have combined to produce an apologetic book for non-Christians which seems to be a shorter version of their earlier book Reason and Faith (1989).
The cartoon at the beginning of the book shows their aim. A bearded Roger Forster sits in the offices of Slick Media Associates while the advertising men are falling about with laughter: 'So, Mr Forster, you want a consumer-desirable, slick, high-street image for a book taking Christianity seriously?' Good aim, but my verdict is that they have not delivered.
The style is simple, readable and punchy (though occasionally too breezy for my tastes). The cartoons at the head of each of the 14 brief chapters are good fun. The problem is content, not image. The authors divided their reasons for faith into three categories: nature (physical and biological sciences), history (the gospels and the resurrection), and experience (the self, miracles and religious experience). The treatment of these topics is uneven, often inadequate, and sometimes eccentric. For example, they raise some very difficult areas of physics (the anthropic principle, inflation, and the 'many worlds' hypothesis), but the discussion is too brief and haphazard to be useful. Those who are not already aware of these ideas will not understand them and those who are will not be persuaded.
The evidence from experience includes a very good chapter, probably the best in the book, on reductionism. They argue that the experience of self is hard to deny and is a pointer to something beyond biochemical mechanisms. By contrast, the discussion of religious experience leads to the rather bland conclusion that such experiences 'must count for something'.
Yes, we do need a book like this, but I'm afraid this isn't it. Those wanting something simple, persuasive and attractive to put into the hands of a non-Christian will do better with older titles such as Michael Green's You Must Be Joking or David Watson's Is Anyone There?
