Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense by N. T. Wright (PDF)

Description

Not since C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity has such a wise and informed leader taken the time to explain what Christianity is and how it is practiced. In Simply Christian, renowned biblical scholar and Anglican bishop N.T. Wright makes a case for Christianity from the ground up. Walking the reader through the Christian faith step-by-step and question by question, Wright’s Simply Christian offers explanations for even the toughest doubt-filled skeptics, leaving believers with a reason for renewed faith.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I will be 82 years old in two and a half months. Been in and out of church many times. At this point in my life I need a better understanding of Christianity. This was a good place to start.

⭐In other reviews, this book is compared unfavorably to C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity.” I beg to differ. I’ll give you an example. I was visiting with a patient at the hospital where I serve as chaplain. She was unconscious for about a week at the beginning of her stay, so I talked with her husband almost every day. He considers himself “spiritual,” but has some problems with Trinitarian theology. I had a hardbound copy of this book in my library. I gave it to him to read and review with me. He loved it! His problem with most churches is in their inability to appreciate what we would call the First and Third Articles of the Creed (God as Father and the Holy Spirit as our “comforter”). He likes both of these Articles! He just can’t figure out where Jesus fits in. I believe this book has helped him to rethink his understanding of God. He may not be where I would like him to be, but he respects me for having the convictions of this book. Because of it’s emphasis on the First and Third Articles, I think this is a great resource for teaching “spiritual” people in the 21st century why Christianity makes sense.

⭐NT Wright is a world class scholar Iwho knows how to write for the popular mind. Don’t mistake what I’m saying Wright is quite profound in this book but he takes very complex themes and makes them, if not understandable, certainly applicable to Christian life. I grew because of reading this book and endorse it to anyone, Christian or not, who wants to understand more of what it means to be Simply Christian.

⭐I am somewhat intellectual. I have been a Christian since the 1970’s. I have always known WHY I came to believe but have been more challenged to explain rationally to a modern skeptical generation that accept Darwinian evolution without question, WHY Christianity makes sense.N.T. Wright does it pretty well. Yes it could be rewritten to make a few chapters a little clearer, and should be, but overall, it makes the argument that Christianity makes sense, and gets the point or arguments across.I have a friend who is an animist, whose mother is French. My wife and I have talked with “her” socially in French at least 4 times. She likes us because we are loyal and faithful friends to her son.Well, I sent her the book with a friendly introduction how how my Christian conversion stopped me from committing suicide at age 21.She responded by starting to read it and thanking me and sending me a thank you card entitled: Thanks so much – A simple act of kindness has a beauty all its own. COOL

⭐Just finished NT Wright’s “Simply Christian” and I can’t help but gush a little. Its a modern “Mere Christianity” and he is a living C.S. Lewis. I’ve sensed a fraying in our culture and church when it comes to theme and purpose. Perhaps we have overly diced our Bible and hinged our theologies on favorite fragments…somehow the themes and the hope is lost. Wright weaves the story back together. He’s refreshingly fuzzy where life and the Bible get fuzzy and clear and vivid where our souls hunger and break. If you are content with your faith or lack there of don’t read this book…otherwise buckle up and enjoy.(P.S. highly recommend getting the kindle book and the audible book and listening and reading together as the Kindle app now flips the pages for you as you listen to the book. Very well read.)

⭐I buy used books with the expectation that they will show the wear and tear of time. I’ve received very old items, yellowed and dried. But when a label about it’s condition is way off, and the book is heavily marked and written in, in pen, the labeling has maybe caused me to purchase a more useable used book. It doesn’t take long to check the condition of a 228 page book. I hope that better labeling and more careful perusal will occur, so that this doesn’t become a problem. I will be looking again for the title, again from the used items.

⭐Wow, another great book from N. T. Wright. This has to be the book of the year for 2006. This is a great book for anyone looking to defend or learn more about Christianity. He deals with two world views that are false throughout the book. One is pantheism or the idea that God is everywhere and in everything or is everything and the other view is deism. Deism is the idea that God created the world but stays distant to it and does not even dream of getting involved in it affairs. He sees the latter as being the idea of God behind left behind type of theology that sees to goal of Christianity as being getting people saved to get them out of this world. Wright’s view makes better sense of God and the world. In Wright’s view heaven overlaps and interlocks with Earth and is not distant from it and neither is God in everything. The world was created good and became distorted by Adam and Eve’s or humanities disobedience. God went to work to restore his good creation by calling Abraham. His seed was to be the means by which the world was put back to rights. The story of the nation of Israel includes slavery, Exodus; judges and kings, tabernacles and Temples being built; disobedience through injustice and idoloatry and all kinds of uncleaness brought about exile. The prophets then came an promised return from Exile. Jesus brings the story of Israel to it climax and brings about New Creation through resurrection. Wright works through this story like nobody else can and then in he end acts as a pastor when it comes to coaching on such things as prayer, Bible reading, fellowship, and sacraments. This is a book that should be read by everyone. It is destined to be a classic.

⭐He does write from a perspective I view as blind faith convincement, despite all his learning. I also think that as a reputed new testament scholar (and I am not totally ignorant in this regard) he is ignoring what the historical record really tells us! Are the gospel writers really as unbiased and idealistic as he would happily portray them? Can you really rule out the Q source so casually and all of the higher criticism in understanding the synoptic gospels and their biased message? Is John’s gospel and the Johannine dualism it recycles from the ancient Persian faith of Zoroastrianism not crucial to our understanding of these texts. was Paul not creating a religion palatable to imperial Rome! Did all members of the early Church believe in the divinity of Christ, or was a nice Trinitarian-divinity deal struck at the council of Nice a several hundred years later? And the arguments go on and they require explanation and a strong counterargument to be discounted, which is not offered here. I have read and remain convinced by the strong evidence based arguments of Vermes and Ehrmann whose valid arguments he doesn’t counter argue. When you look at the gospels and Paul’s letters they are clearly propagandist. Here are individuals expecting their leader back imminently and here we are two thousand years later, post Darwin and natural selection knowing only full well that the second coming never occurred. God yes, Jesus as messiah, maybe, resurrection, miracles…really? A lovely scholar and genuine, but blinded by faith,not history as he would claim. I’m going to give his Paul’s teachings book a go though, anything to counterbalance my intense dislike of this apostle. I do recommend, the book and it’s a good read, but I remain unconvinced by his arguments. It did nothing to dispel my dislike of Anglicanism (the Tory party at prayer) and I would have loved a chapter on how Tories who claim to be Chritian can justify their party’s treatment of the poor and disenfranchised and its promotion of inequality, selfishness, consumerism and greed since 1979.

⭐First of all, I would like to thank Professor Tom Wright for this masterpiece. Everything that a Christian believer should be aware of is explored in this book. One needs to read this book with reference to the Bible (thinking and common sense are also required). This book touches all areas that a practicing Christian needs to be aware of; the gospels, Jesus himself, Holy spirit, worship, prayer, responsibilities of a Christian, the church and the new creation. The book discusses how in Christianity, heaven and earth (future and present) come together when they overlap and interlock through Jesus Christ/Holy Spirit. The book ends up beautifully covering 3 important factors which are at the heart of Christian ethics in today’s world: justice, relationship and beauty. Finally, it comes with a few proposals on how Christianity can achieve its purpose (Jesus’ words) through individuals and churches.I strongly recommend this book for everyone, whether Christian or just trying to find out about the Christian way of life. It is beautifully written. It will be good if this book can be translated into other languages and made available in their native languages in the Far East, South East Asia and Middle East. Once again, thank you for this wonderful book.

⭐I was reminded about the existence of this book recently when I read an extract from it that was used in Francis Collins’ compilation of the writings of others, entitled Belief. The extract from Simply Christian was included at the start of this anthology and was taken from the first part of the book.What I anticipated was a more modern version of C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, being a outline of apologetic reasoning with some, though not many, sources being cited as evidence. Given the difference in backgrounds between C.S. Lewis (a pretty ordinary bloke with a gift for clear writing) and Tom Wright (one of the world’s foremost New Testament scholars), I was expecting this to be a little more scholarly, but that the discussions would follow a broadly similar path. This turned out not to be the case.It was very refreshing to see a new approach to apologetics where the book wasn’t written in direct response to an atheistic polemic, but it felt far more like it was addressing an unfulfilled need. The book is beautifully written and a large amount of credit is owed to the author for being such a clear and down-to-earth writer.It was also good to see the author tackle some difficult topics head-on, which all too often many christian writers either avoid or give cursory answers that do little but enrage the critics.There are frequent glimpses of the breadth and depth of study that have gone into this book though if there is to one criticism of it, it would have to be the lack of references.This is not a book that I would recommend for dyed-in-the-wool atheists. I think the matter-of-fact presentation is not designed to be persuasive – it just states the case clearly. This is far more helpful for those wanting to investigate Christianity (e.g. those who may be thinking of going on, or have just done, an Alpha course – or something similar) and it serves as a useful reminder for those of us who are Christians about what it’s all about. It can be easy to get sidetracked by various issues at one time or another, and this serves as a good reminder to tell us “this is what’s all about. Don’t ever forget it.”

⭐A few years ago I took up a master in Christian Philosophy. One of the first things I learned and that have stayed with me ever since is that God’s redemptive work through Jesus Christ holds a promise for the whole of creation, namely that a renewal (or re-creation) according to His standards is possible right now and will happen in full through the Second Coming of Christ. In other words: God wants his followers and believers – we fellow Christians – to make a more right and a more beautiful place where people can live in good relation with one selves, each other, the creation and God.This is the same premise on which Tom Wright starts. His book starts by describing four things everybody experiences in his or her life: that there is a lot of unjustness in the world, that the world contains a lot of spirituality and searching for real and true answers to life’s questions, that people want to live in good harmony with each other but that this goes wrong much of the time, and a certain longing for beauty. These four topics are described through anecdotes and are recognizable for all.In the second part of the book Wright describes God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and how God’s Kingdom has progressed through the ages. Every believing Christian should already know all of this. Nevertheless it’s interesting to read it all again, because Wright presents a number of themes that can be found in the development of God’s Kingdom, thereby showing that He wanted to make it all right again ever since it went wrong. When Adam and Eve sinned, for example, it was no longer possible that the sacral and the secular could intertwine, but through the Tabernacle, later the Temple and ultimately Christ’s sacrifice, this was made possible again.The third section of the book starts with a beautiful chapter on worship, in which Wright makes perfectly clear that worship is not just singing and dancing for the Lord, but that it is a way of life: giving praise and being grateful to the Lord in all one does. See for example Romans 12,1 (ESV): “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” In the remaining chapters of this section he moves in on the question what it’s like to live like a Christian, for example by describing what a healthy prayer life entails or what it’s like to read in the Bible.In his final chapter he returns to the four topics that he described in the first section of the book, showing that it’s our job as Christians to make the world a bit more just, to make it a bit more beautiful and to work on healthy relations. That a better world contains a lot of God over against vague spirituality is of course out of the question.There is more to say about this book. It clearly shows that Wright knows what he is talking about. The way he describes different and sometimes conflicting theological and biblical ideas and interpretations is absolutely great. Moreover, the way he overcomes these differences is even better, for example when he discusses the different and partially conflicting views on the Holy Supper. This book does not presuppose a lot of knowledge about Christianity, which is a good thing, because it makes the book – which is not difficult to read or that long – easier to read.I have read quite some books of Tim Keller, who works on showing – among many other things – that being a Christian is being someone who has a message for the world: a message of hope and a message of (social) justice (see for example his

⭐Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just

⭐). This spoke to me, since I have been long looking for an answer to the question what it means in practice to be a Christian. This book of Tom Wright has essentially the same message, but has it backed up by a good set of ideas that form the basis or foundation of one’s personal and communal believes in God.

⭐Good book, although not life changing for me. I’ve had a lot of issues in my life at that time and was looking for help in various Christian literature; however, I have found little help if any at all.NT Wright’s writings are are often convoluted, long-winded, without getting to the point which frustrates me so much. Even though I read many books by NT Wright I still often am not sure what he believes and why he cannot be clear about it. Maybe he just like being so cryptic, but this is not very helpful.

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