Is Christianity dying? Is the Church in terminal decline? Or is there a bigger, more exciting story happening?
This was the topic for my latest social media reel; you can find it on my YouTube channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/@andygbannister
An excellent book on this is Lamin Sanneh’s Whose Religion is Christianity? and I also have a longer video on this topic here.
It’s out now! Have You Ever Wondered? is a gentle, engaging book that helps our friends begin to ask spiritual questions by starting with the things they already care about or are intrigued by: from beauty to justice, science to suffering, art to music to films.
How to Talk About Jesus Without Looking Like An IdiotLearn how to have natural conversations with your friends and family about your faith. Discover four key questions that invite people into engaging discussions about what matters most in life.
How to Talk about Jesus without Looking like an Idiot explores why you don’t need to be afraid or uncomfortable, the four questions that help people open up, the five steps to respond to tough questions, and how to effortlessly bring faith into a conversation. It doesn’t need to be awkward. Everyday conversations that open the door to evangelism can be painless and natural. Let me help you find easy ways to talk about the true meaning of life and learn how to share the gospel with your neighbours, friends, and family.
The book is now available in the USA and Canada; it launches in the UK on 8 August. You can order (or pre-order) it below or if you support Solas, the evangelism organisation I lead, we’ll send you a free copy as a gift! (So if you’re in the UK, you don’t have to wait until August!) If you’re not already a Solas supporter, sign up today and we can send you a free copy as a thank you — again, ahead of the release date! You can also read a free sample.
USA:
Canada:
UK (pre-order, release date 8 August 2023):
Australia (pre-order):
Download chapter 1 (and the table of contents and foreword by Lee Strobel) as a PDF.
I’m delighted that How to Talk About Jesus Without Looking Like An Idiot is also available as an audiobook (narrated by me!):
You can also read How to Talk About Jesus Without Looking Like An Idiot as an e-book:
I have a confession to make. I love James Bond films. I love all of them. I even enjoyed Quantum of Solace, which in the eyes of some fans would condemn me to the outer darkness of cinema hell. Thus I was overjoyed when the twenty-fifth Bond movie, No Time To Die, long-delayed due to COVID, premiered last autumn and I rushed to book tickets faster than you could say “shaken, not stirred”.
Bond movie titles are an artform in themselves, ranging from the sublime (The World is Not Enough) to the slightly bonkers (Octopussy). The title of the latest episode, No Time To Die, is—on one level—a reference to the fact this is actor Daniel Craig’s last outing as the eponymous spy, before he is replaced by a fresh face. It’s no time to die: so Bond will live on in a new incarnation.
For the rest of us who are not multi-faced secret agents, however, life is more brutal: there will, for each of us, be a time to die. Death is the great leveller: no matter your race, gender, politics, or bank balance, all of us will eventually meet our end. Although our culture desperately tries to distract us from thinking about this, events like the pandemic bring us face to face with the spectre of our own mortality.
After the release of No Time to Die, movie critics busied themselves writing about how Daniel Craig’s era as James Bond will be remembered. And death raises for us that same question of remembrance. How will we be remembered when we are gone? A few years ago I attended the funeral of a cousin who had died tragically young. It was a secular service and the officiant closed by saying “Jonathan will live on forever in our memories”. But that isn’t true. We will be forgotten.
Last summer we took the kids to visit their grandparents and my mother showed me an old photo she had found in the attic. A grainy black-and-white image from the 1880s, it showed some long-dead relatives. “I know a couple of their names,” she said, “but the others …” Eventually we won’t be remembered.
If we live in a godless universe, that’s the fate awaiting all of us: gone; forgotten; extinct. No wonder that atheist writer Julian Barnes titled his book about death Nothing to Be Afraid of. For nothing is very much something to fear because if oblivion is our final destination, that also entails that nothing we do now makes any ultimate difference.
But what if atheism isn’t true? If Christianity is true, then there is a God who had you in mind before the world began; a God who calls you by name; a God who offers you—in and through Jesus—an eternity with him.
If there is no God, then there is no time to die and death is to be dreaded. But if the God who revealed himself to us through Jesus is real then we need not fear death. For Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.” For those who trust in Jesus, tomorrow never dies.
(This article originally appeared in The Scotsman newspaper).
I’m pleased to announce that I’ve teamed up with two friends to create an an experimental and occasional podcast. Each episode, I join evangelist Michael Ots and theologian Aaron Edwards to explore a contemporary issue in culture from a Christian perspective. Featuring banter, philosophy, culture, theology, bad jokes, apologetics, and more — the podcast aims to help Christians think wisely about the challenges of living in the 21st century.
You can find it on:
(More platforms to come soon).
Do check it out and let us know what you think! If you like the podcast, you can also support us on Patreon.
On Tuesday 23 January 2018, I had a dialogue with Dr. Howard Nye at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. We had a wide ranging conversation covering atheism, Christianity, goodness, justice and a wide range of other topics.
Here are a few resources for folks who want to follow up on some of what we talked about:
One bright spring morning in the early 1630s, a wealthy Dutch merchant was delighted to receive a visit from a sailor bringing a tip-off that a very valuable cargo had just arrived at the docks. As a reward for the information, the merchant presented the sailor with a fine red herring. Whilst the merchant was distracted for a moment, the sailor saw, lying among the debris on the shop counter, what he thought was an onion. Thinking it would go nicely with his fish breakfast, the sailor surreptitiously slipped it into his pocket. That, however, was no onion — it was a Semper Augustus tulip bulb and this was the height of the “Dutch Tulip Craze”, which saw bulbs valued higher than gold and sold for extraordinary sums of money. That one bulb alone was worth three thousand florins (over $1,000)! As soon as he spotted it missing, the furious merchant launched a search of the docks. Finally the sailor was found, sitting happily on a coil of ropes, chewing the last mouthful of his herring and “onion”.[1]
