The Case For Christ By Lee Strobel

The book takes after writer Lee Strobel on his journey to find reality about Jesus.

The process of the secularization is epitomized on the cover of Steve Bruce’s book God is Dead. The cover depicts a British church converted to a discount warehouse store called Mike’s Carpets. It can similarly be seen at the converted church hostel that our History of Christianity class stayed. There is noticeable evidence all around us that religion has a declining influence. We know fewer people around us that get married in a church or regularly attend church. Christmas and Easter (Christian holidays) have lost much of their religious meaning. The holidays are now an excuse to have a break from work and indulge in food and drink. For many Christian holidays are a cultural rather than a religious affair. It may seem like common knowledge

His life changes when his wife becomes a Christian. He fears he will lose the fun-loving companion and friend he has known for years, but instead he is surprised by subtle changes in her character. This not only intrigues him but prompts him to learn more about Jesus by using the same logical and factual approach he follows while working as an investigative crime reporter. He starts his learning quest as an unconvinced skeptic. His underlying question is, “Can a case for Christ

Often times we are at a loss for words when it comes to talking about the person of the Holy Spirit. Beth Felker Jones in her work entitled “God the Spirit” serves as an introduction to the study of the Holy Spirit in a distinctly Wesleyan and Ecumenical Perspective. Jones is working against the notion that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is often the most neglected of all Christian teachings (1). She recognizes her experience within the Wesleyan tradition as one that shapes her pneumatology and this book. She asserts that one of Wesleyan Christianity’s special gifts is it’s “leaning against any tendency to neglect the Spirit” (4). Even with this framework she aims to place the Wesleyan perspective in a larger ecumenical milieu that shows the continuity of a Wesleyan pneumatology with the Tradition of the Church. Overall, her approach is very accessible, as she assumes very little and writes in such a way that allows her to cover large dogmatic topics clearly and concisely. By merit of simply being an introduction only style book, there is the risk of glossing over topics and not providing enough in depth discussion to fully understand and comprehend the doctrine discussed. A reader should feel confident that Jones has indeed provided us with a solid introduction to Wesleyan pneumatology that has the ability to bear fruit and initiate growth in the life of the believer.

Often sermons pastors persuade their audience to behave in a spiritual or moral fashion such is the case in "Sinners in the hands of an angry God" by Jonathan Edwards where he educates that God will only save the sinners that repents and leave the others. Edwards wanted to impact his audience by appealing to the their fears, pity, and vanity. Edwards had an emotional impact on his Puritan audience because of his cautionary tone, descriptive imagery, and vivid figurative language. Foremost Johnathan Edwards has an emotional impact on the Puritan audience because of his cautionary tone. For example, in paragraph 1 it states ".. thus easy is it for God when he pleases to cast his enemies down to hell."

Always preach in such a way that if the people listening do not come to hate their sin, they will instead hate you – Martin Luther. When I first read this quote, a thought of me in high school came to my mind. When I was in high school my catholic religion teacher use to constantly give me detentions because I didn’t want to take flowers to a Virgin Mary statue. I use to end up getting in an argument and actually telling her that one of the commandments say do not worship any idols, and she will fight back saying it is part of the gospel. But did she really know what the gospel was?

The Case for Christ was written by Lee Strobel and Jane Vogel. The book is almost like a really big essay with a bunch of different sections, each one proving or disproving a certain point. The book focuses on disproving the existence of Jesus Christ but in the process of disproving the existence of Jesus he proves just how real Jesus is. I personally chose this book because I am a Christian and it looked interesting to see why other people who don 't already believe start to believe. Also I feel like the more I know about Jesus the more I know about God, since they are one in the same. I found this book to be extremely interesting because of all the textual and factual based evidence proving that Jesus existed.

Literature in the colonial period is most often used fear to convince people to believe in whatever the writer believes in. This is commonly used to communicate an idea about a problem in religion, politics, or culture. The most well known pieces of literature in the colonial period used to influence somewhat religiously is Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, a sermon by Jonathan Edwards. Its purpose is to scare people into not being sinful. He uses intense imagery to describe the afterlife for sinners and how God is the only thing standing between them and eternal damnation.

“The Sequel: The Church, Christ’s Body,” in the book Survey of the New Testament, by author Irving L. Jensen is a story in the Gospel of Acts that continues Christ’s earthly journey and the church. Jensen’ account of this story is important considering it is the first history of the Christian church. Meaning, it involves the history between the resurrection of Jesus also the death of the Apostle Paul. The book of Acts is also known as the “Acts of the Apostles” that can be traced to the second century. However, to understand the Gospel of Acts, it must first be understood that this was an era when Christian beliefs also the organization of the church was being developed (Jensen 200-201).

You may remember Lee Strobel's The Case for..., he and Mark Mittelberg, author of The Contagious Church, have worked together on this devotional.  So not only will you get easy background on why we believe what we do, but scripture, further thinking and truth for today.  The contents reveal any topical index you would need for the 180 devotions.  The devotions are interesting, concise and thought provoking.  One that sticks in my head is the 6 E's of the Resurrection; Execution, the Empty Tomb, Eyewitnesses, Early accounts, Extra Biblical reports, and the Emergence of the church all point to the truth of the Resurrection.

Bart Ehrman’s “How Jesus Became God”; is a book where Ehrman gives his insight on how Jesus became to be considered divine while Jesus himself didn’t even deem himself to be divine. Weather his insight is what you believe it really gets you thinking about the history of Christianity. His book is a study into the growth of the Christian religion and how Jesus wasn’t, but then was considered God. He draws a line between human and divine which makes you think deeper into how Jesus underwent a transformation from being a preacher to being a celestial figure and how Christians came to view him as that. Ehrman makes his case that Jesus wasn’t viewed by himself or his followers as divine until Christians gave him that title and I want to examine Ehrman’s

The book I’ve chosen for the book review was The Christian God by Richard Swinburne. The Christian God book is the third volume in Swinburne’s tetralogy on the philosophy of the Christian Doctrine. His other two volumes are Responsibility and Atonement and Revelation. Swinburne was from Britain and a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford before he retired. For the past 50 years Swinburne helped influence the philosophical argument for the existence of God. His work was influenced from major philosophers from the past, for example, Thomas Aquinas, Rene Descartes and several other philosophers.

For my observation essay, I chose the piece The Christian Martyr by Gabriel von Max, which is on display at the Frye Art Museum, it is oil on paper, painted in 1867. I find this piece illustrates multiple principles of design- the ones standing out most clearly to me being balance, implied line, and emphasis through repetition. Hue, saturation, and value play into most of these principles as well.

Michael Molly the author of The Life and Teachings of Jesus, begins the article by introducing the Saint Peter’s Basilica. Using first person story telling to represent the architecture itself to the audience. The readers can imagine the best known church in the world just by reading through the texts. Molly uses this method to introduce Jesus who was the founder and the figure Christians believed in. Jesus’s Christianity became the religion that grew out of Judaism, which turned out to be the official religion of the Western world.

God on Trial is an intriguing movie written by Frack Cottrell Boyce. This diverse cast of actors, tell a riveting story about some Jewish men in the concentration camp and their reasoning to put God on trial. As the movie begins, everyone is nervous because a new group will be arriving soon and in order to make room, some will need to be disposed of. Painstakingly, they endure the selection, left or right. There is no certainty as to which side would be safe and those who were selected to move right, automatically assumed safety. As the new group of men was settling in, some were saying prayers and were asked why they prayed to a God, whom was no longer present. It is thought that the Jews should not be on trial, but it should be God, He should