Quote:
Originally Posted by Froide
Here's Christian Audio's free audiobook of the month:
Atheist-turned-Christian Lee Strobel is the former award-winning legal editor of The Chicago Tribune and New York Times best-selling author of over 20 books including this month’s free audiobook. In The Case For The Real Jesus Strobel investigates current attacks on the identity of Christ and explores many hot-button questions. |
Quote from skinmaan, from the Audiobooks thread:
'Ya beat me to it. This is the first one of ChristianAudio's free offerings I have been excited about. I've read most of Lee Strobel's stuff, and I think his work is outstanding. Highly recommended.
[While I was writing the comments below, the MobileRead program deleted the message (I had done a backup). I suppose that there is a size limitation; I wasn't aware of it until then. Anyway, I'm breaking up the message into two posts in order to give the entirety of the comments.]
Thanks, Froide, for your posts ("posts," counting the one on the Audiobooks thread) and to skinmaan for his post on the Audiobooks thread.
I was going to reply on the Audiobooks thread, and just leave it at that, because I didn't think that it was the place to have a big, long discussion about it. If anyone wants to reply here, I might respond.
I feel that some evangelicals among you may want to "crucify" me after I make some of the comments, however, because I may make some comments that will be very unpopular with you. It seems that Strobel is held in very high regard, to say the least, by many of evangelicals.
I have read only one of Strobel's books completely. I have read (and listened to) parts of several others. Please keep that in mind.
Strobel's "testimony," which he seems to give in all of his books, of how he came out of atheism and became a believer in Christ might be fairly compelling. I'm not sure that it really establishes or proves anything, however. The problem is that believers become atheists (or agnostics) also, and I'm not sure which one of those two groups would be greater in number. But, it makes for interesting reading.
Strobel is extremely prolific. It seems like he cranks out a new book on apologetics every few months! He has the time, intellect, and organizational and time management skills to do that even while taking the time to make what seem to be a huge number of personal appearances at various places, on top of everything else that he does. That's amazing to me, and I admire that about him.
Strobel has some really great quotes, in his books, from men (and maybe women) who are at the top of their respective fields. Their statements are well-stated and bolster Strobel's and their (the experts') case very well.
Criticism . . . . I feel that Strobel is overly melodramatic. The reason that I'm critical of the melodrama is that I think that that detracts and distracts from his message(s).
The primary example of what I see as melodrama is the fact that Strobel tells about his flying (traveling (or "travelling," British spelling) by airplane) to all of these farflung places to interview experts (and maybe other people).
Really, to begin with, was the flying necessary? Just to get a few pieces of information from each expert? He could have gotten those facts from some of the many books which have been written on the subject(s)--sometimes books written by the very experts that he travels to see--and literally, never leave his desk (ever heard of ebooks?).
But relating, in a book that you are writing, about how you read a book where an expert said this-or-that does not sell the voluminous number of books that Strobel does (I am not charging that Strobel does it for that purpose!). Stories about one's jet setting does.
The positive side of this melodramatic characteristic is that some people who would never pick up and read a traditional book on apologetics will read this one, because the melodrama makes for an interesting read.