Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World's Largest Religion

Named the 2020 Beautiful Orthodoxy Book of the Year by Christianity Today

Christianity is the most widespread global belief system, and promises to remain so well into the future. But for many educated westerners, biblical Christianity is a dangerous idea—challenging some of their deepest beliefs.

Channeling state-of-the-art research, personal stories, and careful biblical study, Confronting Christianity explores 12 questions that keep many of us from considering faith in Christ. Look more closely, McLaughlin argues, and the reality of suffering, the complexity of sexuality, the desire for diversity, the success of science, and other seeming roadblocks to faith become signposts. Jesus becomes not a relic from the ancient world, but our modern world’s best hope.

• Considers how research from a range of disciplines, including sociology, psychology, and science, lines up with claims in the Bible 
• Includes personal stories from the author and the experiences of Christian professors from a range of backgrounds and disciplines
• Explores how the Bible offers compelling answers about important topics such as morality, violence, biblical authority, science, gender, marriage, sexuality, slavery, suffering, and hell

“This book is compelling reading, not only because of its intellectual rigor and the fact that it is beautifully written but also because of its honest, empathetic humanity. Readers will find themselves expertly guided on a journey that involves them not only in confronting Christianity but also in confronting themselves—their worldviews, hopes, fears, failures, and search for identity and satisfaction—and, finally, in confronting Christ as the altogether credible source of life as God means it to be.”
—John C. Lennox, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics, University of Oxford

Format: Hardcover with Jacket