Weekend Reads: A good combination in making converts

The Bible is an obvious choice, but what else do you give someone who is interested in Christianity but hardly knows where to begin? Two new books aim to fill that gap: Hope Reborn: How to Become a Christian and Live for Jesus (Christian Focus, 2014) and Start Here: Beginning a Relationship with Jesus (David C Cook, 2014). Both books share a goal (making converts), are written by pastors, assume the reader has virtually no familiarity with Christianity, and aim to give the reader enough basic information to make a clear decision.

Hope Reborn is very strong on facts. Co-author Adrian Warnock is a medical doctor and a research scientist, and his ability to convey information about the Christian faith is very well-developed. Warnock, part of the leadership team at Jubilee Church in London, writes with his pastor, Tope Koleoso.

Oddly enough, the books don’t follow their titles. Start Here, co-written by David Dwight (pastor of Hope Church in Richmond, Va.) and Nicole Unice, contains more testimonies, more anecdotes. It goes for the heartstrings. So the one with the cerebral content has a title drawing on the visceral resonances of hope and birth, while the one with the emotional appeal has the oh-so-visceral metaphor of a map.

The two books’ differing orientations is perhaps best expressed in their first chapters. Koleoso and Warnock begin with a chapter on the Pharisee and the tax collector, and they emphasize first and foremost the objective reality of the Christian faith. It is not about being good; it is about being forgiven. Thus, in a brilliant insight, they note that some Christians “pretend to be pure by rejecting others.” But God shows His purity by accepting sinners and granting them His righteousness.

Dwight and Unice start at the other end, with an appeal to the subjective. Their introduction is on “God Stirrings,” and the reader is told about people who felt the need to know God and ultimately came to faith. But Start Here goes on to present the same message: Christianity is not about judgmental people, but about a relationship with Jesus Christ. Koleoso and Warnock tend to emphasize more the objective results of communion with Christ: You were dead in sin, then made alive, then raised with Christ. This results in the visible outward steps of baptism and church membership. Only after this do they begin to speak about how change is possible with the Spirit’s indwelling power.

Start Here tends to emphasize the subjective components of knowing Jesus. Who do you say He is? And thus, when you accept the gospel offer, the point is not that you embrace “all of this,” the whole cloud of beliefs and practices and lifestyles associated with Christianity, but that you acknowledge Jesus to be God come in the flesh and (here’s Dwight and Unice’s brilliant insight) form “a relationship with Him rather than an agreement with Him.” The authors then present the renovating power of God’s free grace. You grow into Christ through worshipping (in church), through reading (in the Word), through serving (in the body), and through prayer (in conversation with God).

The cerebral tendencies of Hope Reborn manifest themselves in its curiously misplaced polemic against infant baptism (intramural debates are not helpful for new Christians). Start Here presents both views on baptism, and ultimately, despite its otherwise internal focus, it emphasizes the sacraments more heavily than does Hope Reborn, which focuses on the Word and prayer as the primary means of grace.

Both books preach the same gospel, and read in conjunction, they are powerful indeed. May the Lord use them to usher many into His kingdom!