N.T.Wright Bishop of Durham is surely one of God’s gifts to the church particularly the church of the western world. He is able to interpret historical Christianity in terms that are clear to the seeking mind of today. This particular book is a classic statement of the Christian faith and can be given to any reasonably educated enquiring person. Up to this time many have used Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis as a classic introduction to the faith, but it is likely that Simply Christian will take over that role. N.T. Wright is an interpreter of the Faith who writes with grace and skill. Those who are pastors and ministers will also benefit from this book as it presents Christian answers to the basic questions of life such as why all generations struggle with such as why to we expect justice? Why do we crave spirituality and why are relationships so painful? A fourth question undergirds the book also, namely, why do we have a thirst for beauty? Wright regards these questions as the echo of a voice we distantly hear and long to hear more clearly and these issues take us right into the heart of who and what God is and what He wants from us. In this book Bishop Wright takes the time to explain to those wishing to know an answer to these questions from the Christian perspective. He shows what it means to be a Christian and takes things right from the ground up and walks the reader through the faith step by step. The whole is based on a panoramic view of God’s story and purpose in the whole process of history. The creation, fall, redeeming work, the place of the Jew in the way things have unfolded, the Person of the Lord Jesus and His life and work leading to the sending of the Holy Spirit and the forming of God’s community on earth, the church. All culminating in the bringing together of heaven and earth in the way intended by God. Throughout the book he refers to the two extremes into which mankind falls, either regarding God as in everything and everything being God (pantheism) producing no distinction between heaven and earth, and the opposite which considers heavenly and Divine things as utterly separate from the material world. In this view God is a disinterested party far off from the creation which He has made. Instead he clearly shows how the Divine and Human intersect and meet, the heavenly and earthly with them and that the God’s great purpose is the harmony of all things and this is accomplished through Christ. The aim of the book is to describe what Christianity is all about, both to commend it to those outside the faith and to explain it to those inside. Not everything is covered, the book does not pretend to answer all questions or make distinction between various sections of the Christian church, it simply seeks to state what it means to be SIMPLY CHRISTIAN and it succeeds in this admirably.
