In A Christianity Worth Believing Doug Pagit writes "My hope is that this book is my invitation for people to pursue a Christianity that is good for world, good for their spirits and good for their faith."
Doug's latest work is by far his best. It is simple and accessible because it reads like an old-school testimony, but it accomplishes this without sacrificing any of the depth needed to address the issues Doug sets out to cover.
Doug invites readers to follow along as he recounts his own faith journey of growing up as an un-churched child and then becoming a Christian while experiencing a Passion play as a teenager. Doug details how he was immediately immersed in the Christian culture and was quickly leading Bible studies and even involved in court cases for Christian rights.
Doug explains that he is a contrarian (a person who questions any majority opinion) by nature. And how this led him to question and explore the roots of the theology and doctrines of the modern western church culture.
For longer than I care to admit, I naively assumed that the popular theology and widely accepted doctrines of the church were well, unchanging biblical truths. I simply took it for granted that were the apostle Paul to show up at my door he would recognize and affirm all of the theology and doctrine I was taught. But the truth is our Christianity has been passed down through a great many generations and our doctrines have been shaped and reshaped by many folks who were simply trying to make sense of things in their time. The danger here is that we have come to view these doctrines as set in stone and allowed them to become stagnate.
Doug presents a unique critique of western Christianity. Unique in the fact that it is not meant to be an argument about who is more "correct" in their theology. Doug shows how Greek philosophy, mid-evil superstition, and modern reasoning have permeated into the story of Jesus and left their mark on our own theology and doctrines. Such as the idea that Greeks, who worshiped vengeful impersonal gods, did not have any frame of reference or understanding of an intimate or personal God such as Yahweh. He walks through the ideas that developed through the centuries to explain Jesus and the Kingdom of God and how they have shaped our own theology.
This book offers us all a beautiful, holistic, compelling vision of the Kingdom of God. One that will resonate with many people who have always felt there must be more to Jesus and the kingdom of God than what you were taught on the flannel-graph. If you are drawn to, mystified, or even intrigued by Jesus, but put off by the religion that bears his name then this book is exactly what you need. It truly is "a hope-filled pursuit toward an alive and well faith for our day."
"I want it to be an invitation to a Christianity that makes sense in the world we live in." - Doug Pagitt
You can give A Christianity Worth Believing to seminary trained pastors as well as people who can not name a single book of the Bible and they will both enjoy its depth and simplicity.
