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Why Jesus?: Rediscovering His Truth in an Age of Mass Marketed Spirituality Paperback – November 27, 2012
by Ravi Zacharias (Author)
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The author believes that over the past forty years movements like New Age spirituality and society's obsession with human potential have combined like a "perfect storm" to redefine for popular culture what has been for centuries the classic biblical definition of the person, work, and teaching of Jesus Christ. In Why Jesus?, Ravi Zacharias looks at the impact of this "storm" by discussing the 60s-70s "Age of Aquarius," actor Shirley MacLaine's book and TV series Out On a Limb, author James Redfield (The Celestine Prophecy), Rhonda Byrne (The Secret), Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code), and other books by Eckart Tolle, Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, the Dali Lama, and Marianne Williamson. Special attention will be given to the influence of Oprah Winfrey's media platform in reshaping society by introducing and promoting certain books and authors.
Major new age and human potential tenets will be discussed like: the belief that we are all gods and have to discover our divinity; Jesus was only a good teacher; Christianity is but one among many ways to eternal life; reincarnation is real; Jesus was married; truth is relative; there is no sin; and perfection is possible.
The truth of and the arguments for the bodily resurrection of Jesus will be presented as the most important argument for the exclusive claims about Jesus and Christianity.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Ravi Zacharias gives a powerful defense of how Jesus Christ brings meaning and hope to an individual life."―Billy Graham
"Ravi takes a scholarly yet imaginative approach to apologetics."―Bruce Wilkinson, author of the #1 "New York Times" bestseller The Prayer of Jabez
"The works of Ravi Zacharias are a vital resource around our house."―Frank Peretti
"I am not aquainted with a brighter mind or a more relevant and devoted defender of the faith than Ravi Zacharias."―Charles Swindoll
"To every generation God sends a prophet. Ravi Zacharias is that prophet for this generation. You must hear him."―Josh McDowell
"Ravi Zacharias presents an outstanding defense of the Christian faith for our times."―R.C. Sproul
About the Author
Ravi Zacharias is the Founder and President of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with additional offices in Canada, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Austria, South Africa, Spain, and Turkey. Zacharias and his wife, Margie, have three grown children. He is the author of many books, including Can Man Live Without God and Why Jesus?
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Publisher : FaithWords; 10/28/12 edition (November 27, 2012)
Language : English
Paperback : 304 pages
ISBN-10 : 0892963050
ISBN-13 : 978-0892963058
Item Weight : 8.6 ounces
Dimensions : 5.25 x 0.75 x 8 inchesBest Sellers Rank: #567,306 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)#1,608 in Christian Apologetics (Books)
#13,225 in Christian Spiritual Growth (Books)Customer Reviews:
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Ravi Zacharias
“I promise I will leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth.”
When former skeptic and seventeen-year-old Ravi Zacharias heard the words of Jesus in John 14:19, “Because I live, you also will live,” the trajectory of his life changed forever. In a time of helplessness and unbelief—when he was on a bed of suicide—the truth of Scripture brought hope to Zacharias, and he committed his life to Christ, promising, “I will leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth.” Earlier in John 14, Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” This verse has become the cornerstone of Zacharias’s ultimate mission as a Christian apologist and evangelist: to present and defend the truth of Jesus Christ that others may find life in Him.
At age 71 he remains committed to his calling to represent the gospel of Jesus Christ through historical, philosophical, and moral foundations and to defend it against objectors with grace, clarity, and coherency. He has laid the framework of the truth of the gospel to millions of people in more than 70 countries, including on the campuses of some of the world’s most prestigious universities.
As Zacharias began speaking at churches and conferences and participating in open forums on university campuses worldwide, he noticed a significant need for ministry in the area of Christian apologetics—both in leading nonbelievers to Christ as well as in training and equipping Christian leaders to effectively share the gospel. This need led Zacharias to found Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) in 1984, headquartered in Toronto, Canada, until relocating to Atlanta in 1985, to reach and challenge those who shape culture with the credibility of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In 2017, his vision to establish an apologetics training center in the United States with global reach was realized with the launch of the Zacharias Institute in Atlanta.
RZIM has fifteen offices throughout the world in the United States, Canada, Peru, Kenya, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Austria, Spain, Romania, Macedonia, Turkey, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, and the Middle East. Through its global team of speakers and more than 200 employees worldwide, RZIM seeks to impact the heart and intellect of society’s thinkers and influencers through:
Evangelism: RZIM shares the gospel through its global team of over 80 speakers and experts as well as its radio and television programs, podcasts, and publications that reach listeners and readers around the world.
Apologetics: A team of evangelists and trained RZIM speakers participate in open forums, speaking engagements, panels, and debates to answer objections to Christianity with gentleness and respect.
Spiritual Disciplines: RZIM strives to model and build Christ-like character through our books, group studies, and biblical resources.
Training: RZIM hosts a range of programs and courses in the US, UK, India, Singapore, and online, which are designed to instruct and equip all who desire to effectively contend for the Christian worldview.
Humanitarian Support: RZIM’s humanitarian arm, Wellspring International, identifies and financially equips existing organizations aiding women and children at risk and provides individual scholarships to support education, healthcare, and basic living needs.
Zacharias has spent the past 45 years commending the Christian faith and addressing life’s great existential questions of origin, meaning, morality, and destiny with eloquence and grace. He fully believes the truth of Jesus Christ can endure the toughest critiques and philosophical attacks. He has authored or edited over 25 books in the fields of theology, apologetics, comparative religion, and philosophy. Zacharias and his wife, Margie, have been married for 45 years and have three grown children. They reside in Atlanta.
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Top reviews from the United States
Dr. David P. Craig
5.0 out of 5 stars In Jesus We Have It All!Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2012
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Ravi Zacharias is a very gifted communicator. Whether he is discussing literature, philosophy, religion, or everything in between - he makes it interesting, engaging, and thought provoking. In this book he tackles the search for meaning in the West and in the East and how that ultimately all searches are empty if they do not lead to truth. He gives a very solid case for how all truth is God's truth and that the ultimate truth that we all long for leads us to the person and work of the historical Jesus revealed in the Bible and the accounts of His life, death, resurrection, ascension and future return.
In chapter one after a scintillating discussing of movie making agendas in the East and the West he writes, "Why are we always beguiled by something foreign? In the West, Eastern mysticism is `in' -chants, sounds, and practices with foreign words have made an appeal of culture-shifting proportions- while in the East, where these very same techniques have been tried for centuries, many are disillusioned and seeking solace somewhere else. Before me the entertainment elite of the East gave their full attention to a talk on `Why Jesus Is the Ultimate,' while in the West, entertainers are looking toward the East for their answers."
In the first half to about seventy percent of the way into the book Ravi tackles what he calls "Weastern" thought - a hybrid of western and eastern thought blended into one. He takes the time to demonstrate how eastern thought has penetrated the west, and how western thought has penetrated the east. He cogently and brilliantly synthesizes how this has taken place through the medium of television, philosophy, religion, and irreligion and highlights old and modern voices alike. Zacharias weaves the themes of induction, seduction, deduction, and reduction among these differing mediums of communication resulting in a "New Spirituality."
Ravi makes so many excellent observations with reference to the "New Spirituality" that it would make for a very long review were I to recount the excellencies of his presentation. On the postmodern influences of the likes of Michael Foucault and Jacques Derrida on "Weasternism" he writes about the authority of the "New Spirituality" in this fashion by way of a modern tale:
"In the beginning, God. God spoke. But that was a long time ago. We wanted certainty--now. For this, only Reason and Rationalism would do. But that was not enough. We wanted to `test.' So we went into the senses and found the empirical. But that's not what we meant by testing. We really meant `feeling.' So we found a way to generate feeling into the picture. Truth was framed into a scene. But the scene was left open to interpretation. Scenes are not absolute. So the story was told as an art form. But the reader still didn't like it, because he was not the author. So he read the story while he sat in a reconstructed and deconstructed cubicle to make of the story whatever he wished. But what does one do with the long reach of the empirical? The best way was to find a blend between the empirical and the satirical and end up with God again. The only difference was that God could not be the storyteller. We still needed God. So we became God."
Ravi talks about Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, and various other "isms" and demonstrates how people in the East like Deepak Chopra, and people in the West like Oprah Winfrey have developed syncretistic systems of thought that have blended eastern and western thinking and religion. One interesting example of this mixing is when he quotes Elizabeth Lesser when she writes of the difference between the "Old Spirituality" and the "New Spirituality:"
AUTHORITY: In the "old" spirituality authority is held by the church; in the "new" spirituality the individual worshipper has authority to determine what is best for him or her.
SPIRITUALITY: In the old spirituality God and the way to worship have already been defined and the worshipper just follows the rules; in the new spirituality the worshipper defines spirituality for him- or herself.
THE PATH TO GOD: In the old spirituality there is only one way to God, all else is wrong; in the new spirituality there are unlimited paths or combinations of paths one can follow...you can string a necklace all your own making.
SACRED: In the old spirituality parts of yourself are considered evil (the body, ego, emotions) and must be denied, transcended, or sublimated; in the new spirituality anything goes.
TRUTH: In the old spirituality truth is knowable and constant. Leading to the same answers at every stage of life; in the new spirituality you never quite arrive at the truth as it is constantly changing to accommodate your growth.
Zacharias responds to Lesser in this manner, "With the safety net she has provided for determining truth, who can ever fall? The evangelist from the Old Spirituality pleaded with his audiences to `invite Jesus into your heart'; the New Spirituality tell you to invite yourself into your heart."
Ravi spends the rest of the book answering the following questions: Why Jesus? What difference does it make what you believe? Is truth really even knowable? Could it be that postmodern spirituality is really the expression of a universal hunger rather than an answer to anything? What are the deep-seated questions that drive the quest for spirituality? Why is it that in the West we seem to have discarded the message of Christ, while in the East they have begun to realize that he is the one they are looking for?
Ultimately all worldviews and religions need to examine their beliefs and views and answer these three unavoidable questions: 1) How do they handle the question of exclusivity as it relates to their own belief? 2) What is the ultimate source of their authority for belief and behavior? And 3) How relevant is what they believe to the common experience and what difference does it make?
According to Zacharias correspondence to facts and systematic coherence are the test for any worldview. In constructing a good worldview they must consist of the following eight components:
"A good worldview must have a strong basis in fact. This point alone has a two-edged reality: First, can the assertion being made be tested against reality? And second, is the assertion clearly false? If one assertion in the system is clearly false or cannot be tested against reality, there is a failure to meet the test of truth."
"A good worldview must have a high degree of coherence or internal consistency."
"A good worldview must give a reasonable and logical explanation for the various undeniable realities that we sense all around us.
"A good worldview will avoid the two extremes of either being too complex or too simplistic."
"A good worldview is not explained by just one line of evidence."
"A good worldview must explain contrary worldviews without compromising its own essential beliefs."
"A good worldview cannot argue just on the basis of private experience, but must have some objective standard of measurements."
"A good worldview must justifiably explain the essential nature of good and evil, since those two alternatives are principal characteristics differentiating human beings from all other entities or quantities."
Two thousand years ago when Jesus quoted the prophet Isaiah in Luke 4 on the Sabbath day in the Synagogue, and stood up and read, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed be to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Then he rolled back the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
Ravi comments on this passage and concludes in this manner, "This is the message of freedom for those in bondage, a message that will open the eyes of our darkened spirituality to the bright light of his grace, that will convince a Church to live the love of God by taking care of the poor and taking up the cause of the oppressed, that assures us there is an end of time where eternity awaits, and that all who long for his presence will live in the fulfillment of their faith to the grand consummation of seeing the Ultimate One, face-to-face....It is in him [Jesus] that we find it all."
Zacharias meticulously and clearly shows in this book the miserable failure of the "New Spirituality" to deliver on any of these 8 components that make up for a coherent and compelling worldview. On the other hand, in a very captivating manner he demonstrates how all of the best thinking of the west and east when brought together converge in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth - and the worldview known throughout the world as "Christianity."
I highly recommend this book because it makes a compelling case for the cogency of Christianity, and helps you to understand where eastern and western thought have large "holes" that can only be filled with the water of life by the same Jesus who said that in Him we will never thirst again - spiritually.
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sfs
3.0 out of 5 stars Zacharias Doesn't Go Far EnoughReviewed in the United States on July 17, 2017
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This book is, to paraphrase Matt 13:24-30, a mixture of weeds and wheat! Or, to put it another way, it reflects the strengths and weaknesses of the Evangelical brand of Christianity to which Zacharias adheres. And although I admire the great work that he has done, I must make my own his words on p. 55 :" ...what I am writing now I write with the deepest conviction that whether it is heeded or not, it has to be said."
As the subtitle indicates, Zacharias has the goal of showing how mass-marketed spirituality falls short - usually way short - of conveying the full Truth (as contained in Jesus' message). He does a good job of ravaging the New Spirituality of Deepak Chopra ,Oprah Winfrey, and three Eastern gurus, including the leading proponent of Transcendental Meditation. Because of his upbringing in India, Zacharias makes a special effort to discredit various aspects of Hinduism and Buddhism that made their way into the West and show how they failed to make the New Spirituality a relevant spirituality for the narcissistic, materialistic, spirit-starved Western world. Basically, he claims that they do not contain THE truth. Here is where my first problem with the author arises. "What is truth?" Pilate asked Jesus (in John's Gospel account of the Passion, 18:38). Zacharias deals with this passage and question throughout the book, but he seems to muddle "dimensions" of the truth with "relativistic" reductions of the truth. Let me give an example of what I mean. In Matthew 14:22-33 we have the only famous "story"/"account" of the walking on the water by Jesus and then Peter. Is this an account that gives us historical "truth" or is it a teaching that gives a "theological" 'truth" (about Jesus always being with Peter (the head of the Church) and the other apostles, during the stormy beginnings of the early Church when they were all prone to losing courage and despairing, or is it both. Most Evangelicals, including Zacharias, who are biblical literalists would argue for the first, claiming that it shows the "truth" of the divinity of Christ as manifested in his power over nature, but I would argue that they missed the boat (to change metaphors) and would side with many reputable biblical scholars would who would favor the second interpretation that it shows the "truth" of the divinity of Christ as manifested in his power over time, that he truly fulfills his words that Matthew used to complete his Gospel, "And, lo, I am with you always, even un to the end of the world." (Mt . 28:20 King James) Or perhaps the "truth" is the composite of the two "truths"
In regard to world religions, I thus take exception to Zacharias' view that they contain no "truth", as that word is understood by him. On the contrary, it seems reasonable and rational (to use words favored by Zaharias) that any religion that has survived thousands of years must possess some "truth(s)" in regard to God. St. Paul himself would seem to favor this viewpoint when he wrote to the Romans that "since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." (Rom. 1:20 NIV) In other words, to proclaim - and rightly so - that Christianity contains the full truth about man's quest for god (or "God in Search of Man" as the Jewish philosopher Abraham Heschel put it.) does not mean that the other great world religions contain no "truth." As the Roman Catholic Church so insightfully proclaimed at the Second Vatican Council: "The Catholic Church rejects nothing which is true and holy in these religions...She looks with sincere respect upon those ways of conduct and of life, those rules and teachings which...often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men." (Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, #2).
My second criticism of Zacharias is that, being an Evangelical (and being concerned exclusively with the biblical Word of God, he neglects the role of the Lord's Supper in a "true" expression of Christian spirituality. The Reformers (Martin Luther and Calvin and others) proclaimed that the Church is the "congregation of saints" in which the word of God is rightly preached and the sacraments (especially the Lord's Supper) is rightly administered. Notice the word "and". In his chapter 13, "The Greatest of All" Zacharias rightly states that for Jesus the Temple of Jews at Jerusalem was replaced by the temple of his person. However, where Zacharias goes astray is when he says, "a relationship with Jesus is an intimacy that transcends ceremony." p. 238) Of course, we can argue over the word "ceremony." But the ONLY passage in all of the Gospels where Jesus tells us to do something in memory of him is at the Last Supper. In all three of the Synoptic Gospels Jesus says: "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." (Lk 22:19 NIV) Besides remembering his words and deeds, we are to remember Jesus preeminently
by performing the "ceremony"/"ritual"/ "act of worship" known as the Lord's Supper (or Eucharist "liturgy"). Zacharias follows up on his quote above by saying that "the new temple Jesus spoke of, where he has promised to live and commune with each of us, is within the body of each believer. Zacharias has it backwards. We come to the table of the Lord and commune with him, and within him, through the gift of his body and blood Though the Eucharist we actually partake of and in the body of Christ - just as with baptism we are baptized not merely in his name but into his person. The Greek word translated as "in" actually is better translated as "into."
In conclusion, Zacharias gets 3 stars for his effort to show how the New Spirituality is lacking in many areas, but only 3 stars because his response is lacking in many areas, especially in regard to the sacraments, which join us with us our Lord more deeply than Scripture alone.
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Lainey
2.0 out of 5 stars Sadly unable to recommendReviewed in the United Kingdom on January 11, 2017
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Rather than giving a great treatise on Why Jesus?, Ravi has used this work to make scathing reviews of others. I view this as very unworthy of Ravi Zacharias, a person I thought of a scholar and whose lectures I view often and generally enjoy. He writes with very little real knowledge of the New Age movement - more or less what he might get from the internet, and certainly little understanding. He writes quite scathingly about Deepak Chopra whose work has been of immense help in shifting people's views to a deeper level on spiritual matters. He also misquotes Eckhart Tolle in such a way as it appears to be deliberate, saying that Eckhart writes 'God is nothing.' Actually the quote is 'God is no thing' a VERY different statement and actually a very accurate statement. I don't like to take issue with a fellow Christian but I was VERY disappointed with this book and definitely would not recommend it.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Jargon busting: He helps simplify a very confusing field.Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 12, 2016
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Great analysis of Eastern beliefs and a great tracking by Dr Zacharias of how it has infiltrated the West. He expounds well on the unfortunate implications of Eastern Religion which is often missed amongst all the "jargon" used to stun new followers. He does this however with tact and great respect. He finally provides a gentle and caring answer to the problems the West and East both find in their search for "True Spirituality"
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Dr Kevin
3.0 out of 5 stars Its OK, maybe a little long.Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 6, 2016
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Starts off well but I lost interest about a third of the way through. I understand his argument and I agree with him so there was nothing left to convince me of, I just lost interest in the argument.
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Matthew Reading
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant BookReviewed in the United Kingdom on October 15, 2013
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I bought this book on behalf of my Christian friend. He was very pleased with it. The book effectively discusses why Christianity can't be mixed with other spiritual ideas and the claims that Jesus is the only way to God.
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Steve Davies
3.0 out of 5 stars Challenging readReviewed in the United Kingdom on September 11, 2014
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I found the first half of the book very difficult to follow, perhaps due to my lack of knowledge of Eastern culture. However the second half of the book more than made up for the difficulty I experienced. The second half of the book gave a wonderful defence and rationality of the Christian world view and the shallowness of the alternative. I would recommend reading this book and feel I personally will gain a better understanding following a further read.
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Profile Image for Ravi Zacharias.
Ravi Zacharias
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Ravi Zacharias was a speaker and an author of over 25 books. He fully believed the truth of Jesus Christ can endure the toughest critiques and spent nearly 50 years addressing life’s great existential questions of origin, meaning, morality, and destiny. He was founder and chairman of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (www.rzim.org), headquartered in Atlanta with sixteen offices worldwide. He and his wife, Margie, were married for almost 50 years before his passing in 2020.
[Biography and photograph from Zondervan's author detail page for Ravi Zacharias.]
Read Ravi Zacharias's obituary at rzim.org.
- - - - -
The following is a longer biography, which was a former biography at Zacharias's author detail page from Zondervan:
For over thirty-five years Ravi Zacharias has spoken all over the world in great halls and universities, notably Harvard, Princeton, and Oxford. He is listed as a distinguished lecturer with the Staley Foundation and has appeared on CNN and other international broadcasts. The author of several books for adults and children, he powerfully mixes biblical teaching and Christian apologetics. His most recent works include Walking from East to West, a memoir, The Grand Weaver, an exploration of God’s intention and pattern in both the ordinary and the startling elements of life, and The End of Reason, a rebuttal of the claims of the so-called New Atheists. His weekly radio program, Let My People Think, is broadcast over 1,500 stations worldwide, and his weekday program, Just Thinking, is on almost 400. He is founder and chairman of the board of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with additional offices in Canada, India, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates. Dr. Zacharias and his wife, Margie, have three grown children and reside in Atlanta.
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November 17, 2018
"Why Jesus" tackles one of the biggest themes currently in Western spirituality. The subtitle of the book, "Rediscovering His Truth In An Age of Mass Marketed Spirituality", covers a wide ground and Ravi Zacharias does an admirable job in presenting his argument for Christianity.
The book explains how the New Age Movement got its roots from Eastern pantheistic religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism. The attractiveness of these religions have been craftily repackaged for Westerners who are seeking spirituality away from Christianity. Zacharias argues that all religions are not the same and have exclusive tenets for their believers. However, one of the effective marketing methods of the New Age Movement is that you can have spirituality without the religious and theological dogma of monotheistic religions like Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
Reading "Why Jesus" reveals that most people have a spiritual hunger inside them, and are determined to seek it. Now that we have a religious supermarket where people can choose some of this religion and a little bit of that religion unfortunately misses the mark. All religions have a worldview, and to create a spirituality salad will truly not make you spiritual or religious.
Being a Christian, reading a book like this one does affirm and strengthen my faith. That’s easy. Nonetheless, I believe that non-believers should give a book like this one a try because it isn’t always about affirmation but information. Even though you may not believe in Christanity, whatever your beliefs are have an origin and worldview they subscribe to. At least one should have some kind of knowledge on where your beliefs come from. "Why Jesus" shows that knowledge and truth about different faiths is needed in order to satisfy the spiritual hunger that man has always had.
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Anne Hamilton
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April 24, 2015
The main focus of this book is New Age spirituality as it is mediated by Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra, in particular.
He looks in depth at the career of Oprah, starting with a comment I find fascinating: her name comes from a misspelling of the biblical Orpah. Would it have made a difference to Oprah's success, he asks, if she'd had another name? (Of course, I think it would have: that's the whole point of God's Poetry: The Identity and Destiny Encoded In Your Name.) He also looks at the increasing embellishment of stories surrounding her childhood years to the point they have become lies. This is a question one of her own relatives asked, only to receive the answer that 'that is what people want to hear'. Ravi, of course, examines concepts of truth throughout the book.
Today's spirituality, he contends, reverses the hymn to say instead:
Once it was the Lord, now it is the blessing,
Once it was His Word, now it is the feeling,
Once I knew the Giver, now the gifts I own.
Once it sought Himself, now it is the healing and my 'self' alone.
Moving on to Chopra, Ravi analyses his philosophy, pointing out its origin in the ideas of Swami Vivekananda. They share a belief in identity with the Absolute. Chopra's sophistry involves 'a brilliant philosophical move of believing in the divine and of being divine, of reflecting and being the reflector, of being both the subject and the object of one's meditation.' Although Ravi asks, whether we're back to the question of the dream or the dreamer, I think there's something higher at stake: this, to me, is an expression of counterfeit oneness in opposition to covenantal oneness.
We prefer to believe, Ravi says, that we are gods ourselves when, in truth, we are the glory of creation gone wrong. As Alexander Pope suggested and Ravi quotes:
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod;
Rejudge his justice, be the god of God!
Not to suggest at any stage that Christianity has not made mistakes. Ravi admits it freely and talks of the positives and negatives of the Christian mysticism that parallels much of New Age Spirituality. He recommends a book about the great mystics: Water from a Deep Well: Christian Spirituality from Early Martyrs to Modern Missionaries.
Solomon used the phrase 'under the sun' in Ecclesiastes which we usually take to me 'on earth'. However, it literally means 'with no input from above or below'. No help from heaven or from hell. It means he lived without heaven to aspire to or hell to shun.
On the topic of names, Ravi relates the gorgeous story of a boy in an orphanage who was always passed over for adoption because of a brain malfunction which means he finds it difficult to connect thoughts together. The boy nevertheless became extremely despondent when no one chose him. One day, through an incredible series of events, a couple who had adopted one of his house-mates called to see if he was still there. His name being quite hard to pronounce, the adoptive parents said they would call him Anson Josiah - AJ for short. Soon he was walking around the home and saying,'You can call me AJ. My names is AJ.' Even with the debilitation of disconnected thoughts, he is able to understand the significance of relationship that comes with a new name.
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Ron
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February 27, 2012
I really wanted to finish this book... but made it to page 67 (of 271 pages, not counting the Introduction or Appendix) and finally gave up. The reason I kept on going this far was that I hoped to find something on the 'next' page, that and I wanted to get my money's worth... this book is not inexpensive. But it never came. Sixty-seven pages of babble without one nugget of "truth."
I heard that Ravi Zacharias was a "good" author, and even told my friend that while we were browsing the Christianity section in the bookstore (yes, I bought the book at a real, "brick & mortar" store). But had not read any of his books myself. The subtitle grabbed me, "Rediscovering His Truth in an Age of Mass Marketed Spirituality." Interested in current trends and thought in a post-modern, so-called enlightened culture, I wanted to know what Mr. Zacharias thoughts were. I struggled through the first three chapters and finally threw in the towel part-way into Chapter 4, "From Oprah to Chopra."
The reason for my failure to continue is that Zacharias wasn't saying anything, at least, not anything worthwhile, yet I kept hoping that he would. The book is written as if he is talking, which doesn't make for good reading. The one thing I took away from the first two chapters was that the masses are being manipulated by the media; television being the main culprit, and forming their worldview from that media. The problem is that he could have said that in half as many pages (or less).
As I read, I wondered if he even knew what the words meant, such as "Electronic dissemination became the progenitor of the computer, and now the visual has gone viral with each person having his own network." (p. 28). Huh? What did I just read? And he makes statements that do not have any foundation whatsoever (concepts taken from the words of a poet are not foundational to Truth), like this one: "We are intended to see through the eye, with the conscience. Instead, the visual media, especially television and movies, manipulates us into seeing with the eye, devoid of the conscience, whose role it is to place parameters around what we see." (p. 24) Who said that is the "role" of television and theatre," or even of that of "conscience?" In either case, I'm left wondering if he knows what the word "parameter" means.
He is also fond of stringing rhyming words together, as if he is presenting something profound, such as found on page 29: "Four words that are easy to grasp capture the medium of television: induction, seduction, deduction, and reduction." He goes on to explain what he means by the first two words, but then drops the ball and goes on to something else.
He admits that he is a Christian (p. 54), and he explains the reason, "... the whole teaching of Jesus stands unique in all of the world's religions." And that's when I realized his concept of Christianity is shallow... very shallow. He has missed the point of Christianity (or has he missed the Person?). Sure, Jesus' teaching is unique, without question. But it's not the "teaching of Jesus" that concerns us, rather the Person of the Lord Jesus Himself.
I could say more, but will stop here. Buy the book if you must, but be forewarned. I didn't find what I was looking for, and likely, you won't either. Even though I could not finish the book, I cannot recommend it.
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Melanie
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January 19, 2012
This book was not what I had expected. I am ashamed to admit this because it points out just how narrow-minded my personal, American world-view really is. When I received a review copy of this book, I thought I would be reading about how the American church has watered down and legalized the message of Christ to something unsatisfying and unpalatable. While this is part of the book, I'd say the majority of it is pointing out how Christ is the only way among many world religions and directly attacks the new movement of spirituality. I am not familiar with Deepak Chopra, but I would say 60% of this book is a rebuttal to his particular worldview.
Because he was born in India, raised a Hindu and later converted to Christianity- along with his vast traveling throughout the globe, Ravi is able speak candidly in a way that is sharp and unapologetic, yet still above criticism of a narrow mind. He is respectful and even loving, but also far from politically correct. He even says: "I have been fairly blunt because I want readers to be brutally honest with themselves." (p. 230)
Early on he points out how television has changed our culture and even attacks, yes attacks, Oprah of all people. I mean, who doesn't like her? I was surprised, and my preconditioned - "try not to be offensive to anyone ever"- mentality was shaken. But as I continued to read, I began to understand why he would bother with Oprah or her philosophy. He explains that it is rationally "impossible to sustain truth without excluding falsehood. All religions are exclusive." He shows us how this is true and has a great understanding of Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and other world religions.
I love the message of Christ, and the "good news," which it really is! I have never read a philosophy book that was so excited about God's love, and this book is definitely that. You can love God, Jesus and the Bible and not throw reason out the window. This book is not light reading but it is clear that Ravi loves Christ and is passionate about His truth. He says: "the message of Jesus is beautiful and magnificent and life-changing... Spirituality is not good enough. Jesus proclaims the truth- that is why it must exclude all that is contrary to it... his message bridges the greatest gulf within us- that is why it is relevant even today. (p. 269)
I will definitely read more of Ravi Zacharias' work. I have been a Christian for a long time, but I haven't been exposed to the gods of other world religions like I was in this book. I never fully understood how loving and gracious the God of the Bible is compared to the others. I will leave you with two, out of the many quotes I could have chosen, to show this point:
"...Belief in the equal value of every life is a bequest only of the Christian faith." (p. 106)
"God alone knows how to humble us without humiliating us and how to exalt us without flattering us... this is the grand truth of the Christian message" (p. 59)
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Lee Harmon
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October 21, 2012
This started out as a five star review! I love Ravi's writing! He's opinionated, intelligent and interesting. He seeds his discussion with fascinating, relevant stories.
Ravi challenges the truthfulness of contemporary religion—mostly, what he calls "New Spirituality"—in the early pages of his book, and promises to steer us away from mass marketed shallowness toward the Truth. Capital T. It's a noble quest.
Says Ravi, "I have followed through on my promise to pursue truth and have devoted my life to the study and understanding of all the major religions and systems of belief in the world." He poses a question: "If the truth is so important [in the courtroom], how much more important is it in the search for the spiritual answers to our deepest hungers?" He quotes Winston Churchill: "The most valuable thing in the world is the truth." He concludes, "Nothing is so destructive as running from the truth."
With this intoxicating buildup, he raises our expectations for great revelation. Yes, Ravi! Bring us the TRUTH! Can I hear an amen?
Instead, Ravi embarks on a 272-page quest to discredit the competition (Ravi has a serious thing about Chopra and Oprah, and their feel-good religions; at least a quarter of the book is dedicated to the "deplorable and manipulative" Deepak Chopra). I kept waiting to learn about Jesus. Why Jesus? The best answer I could find is that Ravi likes Jesus-the-person, the man who befriended sinners and played with children on his lap. Jesus "makes reality beautiful." Well, heck, I think Jesus is cool, too.
Five stars if you love passionate ridicule and prefer attack to defense. One star if you're hoping to uncover a reason to turn to Jesus. Ravi keeps promising, but never delivers ... he actually never even tries, beyond a few of his own feel-good descriptions in the final few pages.
Tell you what—my next review will be a book with an identical title: "Why Jesus?" We'll see if a second attempt makes more progress.
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J.S. Park
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January 28, 2012
This is a shortened review. For full review click here.
Summary:
Dr. Ravi Zacharias writes a searing, incisive work on the New Age movement that has invaded every facet of Western American thinking. Taking to task two well known proponents, Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra, there are no minced words as Dr. Ravi utterly upturns many of the preposterous assertions given by nebulous, exploitative, "Oneness" religion endorsed by the two celebrities. We also find that such strange religion has been endorsed by us, an unwitting generation fooled by foolish claims.
Strengths:
I was almost taken aback by the force of Dr. Ravi's barbs against the New Spirituality. Had I not known that Dr. Ravi is one of the world's most compassionate evangelists today, I may have mistaken some of his writing as aggression. But I sense his urgency: he is fighting for the truth, as many of us today live in a blind fog of capitulation to relativism. Dr. Ravi's no-nonsense clarity by itself will knock most readers out of their reverie, quickly exposing how many strange lies we have believed.
The opening chapters may take time to settle in since Dr. Ravi hits the ground running. While at first I sensed almost a "conspiracy theorist" vibe in the way he approaches visual media and celebrity antics, I was soon on board with the many concrete examples Dr. Ravi offers of our deteriorating times. When he begins his attack on relativism is when the book takes off and continues soaring. It's something we've always known but never confront: that a self-referential starting point for morality leads to inevitable chaos and greed. As always, Dr. Ravi has such a clear-headed voice with a rich vocabulary that at times it will take you several moments to breathe it in. If you're used to reading some of what passes for literature today, particularly "Christian literature," be ready for a serious undertaking.
There are not many kind words for Deepak Chopra, a self-proclaimed mystical guru who has combined quantum physics, Christianity, and Hinduism into a hybrid mess of self-help programs. I suspected no real malice on Dr. Ravi's part here, as he only points out what many others simply will not: that Deepak Chopra is a profit-driven hack. His contradictory ideas, amassed fortune, one-size-fits-all religion, and upside-down ideas about Jesus reveal an opportunist who has unfortunately taken some Christian churches by storm. Just reading excerpts of Chopra's work without any extra explanation was cringe-inducing.
For Oprah Winfrey, it appears Dr. Ravi is much kinder. He presumes that success may have taken Oprah down a fork in the road where she has abandoned Christianity for a safe, believe-all mentality. Oprah is much a product of today's New Spirituality as she has shaped it herself, still using the name of Jesus but perhaps for profitable reasons. I felt a sincere compassion here for Oprah, as often success is harder to deal with than pain. Dr. Ravi makes note of this in one of the best chapters of the book, "The Ties That Bind," in which pleasure and pain reveal our need for something more than chants and chimes and daytime television therapy.
Weaknesses:
For a book called Why Jesus? I was hoping for more of him. The last couple chapters, Dr. Ravi makes him the spotlight, but some of this is rushed and pieces feel missing. While the affront on New Age is well done, the exposition of Christ himself is left a bit wanting.
There are also times, as with his last book, that Dr. Ravi spins some complex concepts that may lose you fast. I tried my best to read slowly through the more verbose sections, but could only conclude that Dr. Ravi is a much, much smarter man than I.
Bottom Line:
This is an excellent work on a subject that must gain more awareness. We live in a time now where values are easily compromised, vulgarities are the new normal, and the weight of relativism makes relationships impossible. Dr. Ravi Zacharias' clear, hard-hitting approach is at times a freight train and other times a precise scalpel, cutting away to the true heart of the matter. We must ask ourselves the tough questions of identity and purpose without numbing ourselves with mantras and oils and safety. I highly recommend it to those who are seeking Truth amidst so many "truths."
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Eric
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March 6, 2016
The tone of this book is typical of other works by Ravi Zacharias in that it deals with heavy philosophical and theological concepts using a folksy vernacular. However, the polemical tone of Why Jesus? is elevated, perhaps because Zacharias has less patience for some of the New Spirituality gurus than for ordinary people who maybe misled or misinformed. Zacharias does a service to the church in pointing out in detail the false teachings and untenable philosophical positions of certain named gurus of the contemporary popular religious scene, including Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra. Zacharias does maintain his constant position that the only hope for us individually or as a society is Jesus, as the historically understood son of God, very God himself, the perfect and necessary sacrifice for our sins. As such, Zacharias continues to do service to the church.
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Laila
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April 23, 2018
*Will reread and recommend this book for those searching for the Truth.
From the handful of books that I've had read from this author, I think this is his best work yet. Bravo.
Gold nuggets are everywhere in this book, so read slowly, you'll miss it if you rush the process.
I agree with the author's distaste of the attacks on Christianity by the like of atheists, academia, humanists, the new spiritualist figures to advance their respective agenda, yet silence on Islam--intellectual cowardice much, indeed.
While it's commendable for one to seek knowledge and use acquired knowledge to better oneself in the world or whatever one's pursuit in life, I agree with the author's caution that "knowledge without character is deadly." (pg. 245)
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Grace
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June 8, 2020
Fantastic book. So many gems. I began this audio book before his death and finished it soon after his home-going. He has made such an impact for the Kingdom and his books will continue to do so.
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Ross Blocher
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December 25, 2014
Ravi Zacharias is an apologist, and as one might expect from the title, he's going to be making a case for why you should believe in Jesus. Christianity is compared here with a number of other religions, religious figures and philosophies, but primarily Deepak Chopra, Oprah (he has fun with the rhyming there), Swami Vivekananda, Paramahansa Yogananda, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Hinduism in general, "The New Spirituality" (New Age), and atheism. Very little time is spent on Buddhism and Islam, and Judaism and Jainism are only mentioned in passing. A whole host of other religions, from Mormonism on down, are summarily ignored - this is primarily aimed at New Age spirituality, the Hinduism Zacharias was raised with, and (of course!) atheism.
The targets of Zacharias's critiques are distinct from his targeted readers. I cannot help but feel this was written for people who are already Christians, presumably to encourage them not to pursue some of these other paths, or to strengthen their resolve in calling loved ones away from errors of belief. The truth of Christianity is assumed here, and Zacharias does not waste any breath backing up his bold statements of Christian superiority.
Why would I, an atheist, read this book? My sister gave it to me as a gift, and I felt I should spend some time with it and learn more about Ravi Zacharias's arguments in favor of belief. When my sister had first told me about Ravi, I spent some time watching his videos online and reading his Wikipedia article. Zacharias's thinking seems fairly in lockstep with other well-known apologists in the same vein as William Lane Craig, and his major contribution seems to be his (I would say fairly arbitrary) list of requirements for a sound worldview. I remember at the time hearing him provide an atheistic quote that he said was written on the walls in the Nazi concentration camps. I looked it up, and that turned out to be a falsehood. More damning, I caught him plagiarizing in this book. More on that later.
First, I'll share some of the things we agree on. Zacharias feels that there is ultimate truth to be discovered, and that people can't just determine their own truths. Religions come built-in with exclusivity claims, and the simple fact of saying that something is true implies that alternate beliefs must therefore be considered false. We share an irritation at vaguely-worded spiritual sayings, such as Chopra's "Quantum healing involves a shift in the fields of energy information, so as to bring about a correction in an idea that has gone wrong." Blech. We also agree that Indian food is the planet's finest cuisine.
After that, we depart, and I find many of Zacharias's positions to be double standards when compared with his other beliefs. At one point he mocks an eastern text that was written anonymously yet borrowed the name of a famous yogi. A short while later he invokes Solomon as the author of Ecclesiastes (exactly the same situation being the case there, with scholarly consensus being that Ecclesiastes was written in 450 BCE at the earliest). The same could be said about the anonymous Gospel authors. Ravi rightly lambasts Deepak Chopra's nonsensical use of the word "quantum", citing the authority of real scientists. At the same time, he seems perfectly willing to reject science that counters Christian representations of cosmology or evolution (though he doesn't discuss those topics in this book). Ravi is quick to point out the moral transgressions of other religious leaders, and clearly points to those sins as revealing flaws in their philosophies. When he points out the mistakes of Christian leaders, he is quick to state that they were not following Christianity fully or correctly, and the problem is not with the beliefs themselves.
Zacharias is very quick to ascribe motives to other people. He states that Heath Ledger killed himself because his mind had internalized the character of Joker from Batman. I assume no one would need me to point out how that not only makes no sense in terms of the character, but is incredibly disrespectful to Ledger's memory and any depression he may have struggled with. Plenty of other actors have killed themselves after NOT playing awful characters, and plenty of actors who have played awful characters have not killed themselves. He makes similarly ridiculous statements about the failure to "see the seriousness of life and death" within Gilbert Gottfried that would enable him to make jokes about the Japanese tsunamis, not knowing that Gottfried did the same thing after 9/11. Gottfried is making a statement about the nature of humor and that it can never come too soon, whereas Ravi is assuming that the power of the camera has corrupted Gottfried's heart. Ravi's treatment of John Lennon is similarly bizarre and offensive. In another story, Ravi tells the sad story of a church member who came out as homosexual, and whose life fell apart with alcohol and depression. The passage is dripping with the homophobic implication that it was being gay that "[overtook] his life and [left] it in shambles." Perhaps that man just needed a more supportive community. In general, Ravi Zacharias seems very unaware of how media works, and seems to suspect some sort of conspiracy at play. He'll ascribe the voice of a single journalist or director to the whole of entertainment media, as if they speak with a singular voice. It implies some sort of scheming cabal that meets in secret to craft a devious message and subjugate the world.
Zacharias also says some ridiculous things about Oprah Winfrey. While I have many qualms with the ideas she peddles, I think he goes far overboard in accusing her of playing God. Read this example: "But every human god-maker needs a god while playing god. Fame and success alone do not satisfy. Spirituality was the next step..." Elsewhere he chastises her when Oprah says she has a problem with a jealous God: "Really, Oprah! This is what started it all? Do you really want us to believe that all of a sudden, after preaching the truths of the Bible for years and memorizing whole books of the Bible, you didn't like this God you had been following?" And yet, elsewhere in the book he lauds those who have found their non-Christian faiths lacking and abandoned them for Christianity. Zacharias is also prone to wild concluding statements that don't follow from the sentences that led up to them. Once again about Oprah, "She has ascended into ethereal ranks and the mountain now bows to her... She has turned stones into bread and gained all the kingdoms of this world." What? He seems to have a very hard time reconciling her success, and I suspect it is the success of some of these figures that rankles him the most. Those wins are ascribed to dirty dealing and compromised principles, where the success of Christian figures is chalked up to the validation and blessings of God.
I have many more notes, and yet I've already taken up way too much space. Suffice it to say, I think Zacharias is quite the sniper - he loves to critique the beliefs of others and impute to them underhanded motives, all while not applying the same scrutiny to his own cherished positions. I think he's gotten away with making bold, unsupported claims on the force of his personal conviction. He feels Christianity is unique and therefore true, but offers no reasons to agree with him other than the firmness of his own opinion.
I'll finish with the aforementioned discovery of plagiarism. On page 151 he writes about a rare skin condition: http://rossblocher.com/hosted/ravizac... - I went online to read more, and found this remarkably familiar description written four years earlier: http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/harl.... He does not cite his source in the notes section.
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Paul Owusu
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December 24, 2021
I wish I had read this book before Ravi's death and his exposé. I really enjoy his teachings, but I cannot say much because of the secret moral decadence despite these wonderful perspectives on objective morality. In short, I enjoyed the book.
Jesus has proven through the scriptures and revelations that He is the ultimate answer to our need for spirituality. The New Age Spirituality, or personalised spirituality, or whatever you may call it, does not fill the void. Meditation, yoga, or what have you, are just attempting to answer the deepest longings of the human heart, but only Jesus does satisfy. From the teachings of Chopra to the marketed empathy of Oprah, the illusion of new spirituality reveals that man is, indeed, inadequate in providing his own spiritual needs. Only the Son of God!
Despite Ravi's issue, I suggest you have a read.
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Vicki
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February 25, 2014
Ravi Zacharias' book, Why Jesus? Rediscovering His Truth In An Age of Mass Marketed Spirituality, responds to the ever increasing interest in Spirituality in Western Culture. Since the 6o's, Americans have become more and more enamored with Eastern philosophies such as Hinduism and Buddhism, but in the "American Way," have felt free to take bits and pieces of a myriad of belief systems, often blending them with the Christian roots that are part of our heritage.
Zacharias, a great observer of history and analyst of popular culture, takes time to review how this came about. In his very readable style, he details the onset of the New Spirituality and the major players that have popularized it. Among them, Deepak Chopra, a mover and shaker in the movement, shows up early and often in Zacharias' tome, and is exposed as someone who has borrowed deeply from his Hindu roots, but doesn't credit his sources, much to the dismay of actual Hindu scholars who have called him to task. Chopra blends scientific terms lifted from quantum physics into his spiritual theorizing, but when questioned by an actual scientist, Richard Dawkins, Chopra responds that his use of scientific language is a metaphor. Though the explanation didn't seem to satisfy Dawkins, it still wows many in his mass audience.
Zacharias looks for truth and relevance, faith and reason, as he compares the world's major belief systems, and the New Age Spirituality that has recently emerged, to the claims of Jesus. As Zacharias mentions in the close of the introduction to his book, "Coming to the right conclusion on a matter such as this will define eternity."
A very readable and informative book, I recommend this to all who are intrigued by the claims of the New Spirituality.
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Bro
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October 22, 2012
This was not one of my favorite Ravi books. I liked all the work and research on the "New Spirituality." I somehow got lost in it all even though I study these religions myself to learn how to deal better with people who believe like this. There were lots of good moments in the book. He dealt with the issues head on and called a spade a spade. I loved all that. It was harder to finish than any other of his books for me, but it was worth the effort. We all need to know these things so we know how to better communicate the truth in a world that would rather believe a lie than the truth.
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Kelly
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June 9, 2012
As always, Zacharias presents a clear, bold, and profound analysis of this time the New Spirituality and its false claims about Jesus and the path to God. Once again, he has given me new weapons in my arsenal of defense for the gospel of Christ. The reason I didn't give this book five stars is the fact that the first couple of chapters highlight Oprah and Deepak Chopra as the peddlers of the New Spirituality, and I didn't like giving them so much attention or focus (which I have just done now, too). But as I read the book, I understood why Zacharias did it, but it still irritated me.
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Kara Neal
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February 5, 2017
This was wonderful and in many places laugh/out-loud witty! I have read "Jesus Among Secular Gods" for a Bible study and loved that. This book is a sort of precursor to that one in my estimation. This one explains more about New Age spirituality and the religious belief systems from which is is drawn. Neither book is a light read. Most apologetic writing isn't! I found both an excellent investment of time, intellect, and soul.
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Michael Vincent
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July 9, 2013
Zacharias gives great information from the perspective of growing up in India and being very familiar with the "new spirituality." Argues rationally and logically with issues of truth. Very helpful for those interested in truth and apologetics and seeking God in the midst of the many options of our day.
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Aggie
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January 28, 2018
The message of the book is pretty simple: Those in the East are unfulfilled with the lack of solid answers for the meaning of life from their religions and are finding them instead in Jesus, meanwhile those in the West are not satisfied with the answers Jesus gives and search for an escape and 'positive vibes' in a mix of Eastern religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, etc). In a time where people in the West have been conditioned to make decisions based on feelings rather than logic and reasoning, it's easy to see how New Spirituality would appeal to them. Unfortunately those who are ignorant to the study of religions may not see that New Spirituality distorts Christianity and makes up a Jesus who never existed. Ravi does also criticize Christians and how a lot of them have discredited Christianity in the West and turned it into something it never was meant to be.
The book may sometimes come across as harsh when discussing the problems with New Spirituality but Ravi has a reason for it: "But it is hard not to get passionate when you read the bizarre twists of truth offered by proponents of the New Spirituality. I have been fairly blunt because I want readers to be brutally honest with themselves."
The book had a lot of good points but this one really stood out to me: "Why are Christians so dogmatic? Why do they think their way is the only way? These lines are repeated again and again and reveal a prejudice on the part of the questioner. What else can be expected but exclusivity when truth claims are expressed?" Look, as soon as anyone claims something to be true, including the claims by the New Spiritualists, they are making an exclusive claim. That's how truth works, there's no way around it.
This part made me laugh out loud: "I was recently listening to a group of mystics discussing how serene life is when we serve 'Mother Earth.' How ironic, I thought, that following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami nobody questioned 'Mother Earth' or asked where she was in all this. After all, it was the earth that shook. Strange, is it not, that those who believe in Mother Earth blame Father God when Mother Earth misbehaves?...But maybe that is the key to New Age Spirituality. The answers supplied are only the feelings that one wants to generate, totally apart from any reasoning."
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David
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October 25, 2012
(A Review...or an apology for not liking the book that much to all my friends who are Ravi fans...)
I read this book as part of a Goodreads group I am a member of. Though I finished it over a week ago, I have not been able to write a review of it because I still cannot figure out what I think. I should like it. I work in campus ministry, my desire is for people to know Jesus, I enjoy apologetics and trying to answer questions people have. Others who do the same work as I do tend to be huge fans of Ravi’s work. Further, I am sure I agree with Ravi on the essentials of Christian faith. So again, I should like this book.
I did like parts of it. There were many gems here and there. Yet, the style of writing and argument ultimately left me unsatisfied. I think part of it was that as I was reading, more and more I wondered who this book was for. At one point he was talking about the temple in ancient Jerusalem and the corruption that took it over. Such stories make me think this book is not for people without prior knowledge of scripture. He wrote as if his readers knew the story, and while I did, I know many people, both Christian and non-Christian, would find the whole thing confusing. Solomon? So I don’t think this book is meant to be given to a spiritual seeker who is relatively unfamiliar with faith. But then, who is it for?
Overall, I found his writing style very random. Back when I first learned about Ravi, years ago when I was in college, a friend said he much more enjoyed Ravi as a speaker then as an author. I read one book by Ravi in college and though it was interesting, I did not keep coming back to it like I did books by other apologists. Perhaps it is his random writing style, which as I read this book I recalled from the previous one. He’ll randomly bring up some author (At one point he wrote, “Of course Neale Donald Wasch’s book…” – Who? He never mentioned this person before) or make some anecdote that has little to do with what he’s saying (such as bringing up the building of a mosque near ground zero in New York).
One of my Goodreads friends has said Ravi is subtle. Maybe that’s the case and maybe I just don’t get it. And maybe this review is sounding apologetic because I know when I post it on Goodreads I’ll get a hard time. But when I read an apologetic book one judgment I give is whether I would recommend this book to someone. I recommend Tim Keller and CS Lewis and Francis Schaeffer all the time. I can’t imagine a situation I’d recommend this book in. Or to return to the question above, I am not sure who this book is for.
I suppose if I met someone who really loved Deepak Chopra and Oprah Winfrey, then I’d offer this book. Maybe such a person is the targeted audience. But that reveals another reason I think I struggled with this book. I have never met anyone who reads Chopra, and I don’t think any of my students watch Oprah. I think Ravi’s point is more that these two represent a cultural move, their ideas have permeated culture, or they represent the sort of ideas that permeate culture. This is probably true, and elements of this “new spirituality” are dangerous. Yet after a while I felt like I was learning more about what is wrong with Chopra then I was with what is right about Jesus. If I was someone who had read Chopra, all the information on him may be helpful. To me, it became nearly petty.
Before I give some positives, I’ll also say I found Ravi’s lack of footnotes frustrating. For example, when he writes, “Hindu apologists say,” I want a reference because I’d love to read Hindu apologetics. I have never seen a Hindu apologetics book and I recall learning in religion classes that Hinduism does not really engage in rational apologetics like Christianity does. So I’d be interested in learning more. At another place, he mentions Richard Niebuhr’s famous quote that says liberal Christianity gives us “a God without wrath who took Man without sin into a kingdom without righteousness through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” But Ravi, sort of randomly, to use my word of the day, applies this to Chopra and religious ideas in general. Is Ravi saying liberal Christianity is connected to the “new spirituality”? Is he being this subtle and I just don’t get it?
Ravi’s goal is to respond to the “new spirituality” with the gospel of Jesus. Within this he does make some great statements, such as:
“God has put enough into this world to make faith in him a most reasonable thing; but he has left enough out to make it impossible to live by reason alone” (Zacharias, Ravi (2012-01-25). Why Jesus?: Rediscovering His Truth in an Age of Mass Marketed Spirituality (p. xvi). Hachette Book Group. Kindle Edition)
“Why Jesus? He is the Lord who makes reality beautiful and helps us to find him, even in the darkest corners of the world; not because of what we know or who we are or what we have accomplished, but because of who he is. He is truly the “Hound of Heaven” who says, “Thou dravest love from thee that dravest me” (Zacharias, Ravi (2012-01-25). Why Jesus?: Rediscovering His Truth in an Age of Mass Marketed Spirituality (p. 225). Hachette Book Group. Kindle Edition).
I also like how he makes the point that many are okay with the idea that Jesus went to the East to learn from gurus, but would be revolted by the idea that eastern deities (such as Krishna) came west. He makes a strong case that Eastern religion, which often appears so tolerant, is actually just as exclusive as the west. Along with that, he works hard to balance reason and rationality with experience and spirituality. It is not the “spirituality” that is the problem, is it the type of spirituality being promoted that places humanity at the center. Sometimes apologists over-emphasize the rational side of things, but Ravi manages to resist this. He even praises some in the Christian mysticism tradition, such as St. John of the Cross.
Finally, I am wondering what the place of a book like this, or any apologetic book, is. Ravi spends much of the beginning of the book critiquing television and films. He argues that the new spirituality has been promoted in this medium. If he is right, then he has little hope of changing much by writing a book. Or at least, writing a book is just the first step. Christian apologists can write all sorts of fantastic books, but until other Christians find a way to bring these ideas into the real world, in ways understandable to those who will never pick up such books, we’ll be fighting a losing battle. In other words, if Ravi, and those like him, do their job then it is up to others to translate these ideas in appealing ways via television and the internet.
Overall, for all I was frustrated with in this book, it is still a decent offering in the apologetic sphere. Those who have read or are fans of Chopra and Oprah could benefit from it. It is not ever going to be among my favorites, but I am sure I learned more than I may realize now. Let’s say two stars, since three is basically my default and this was a little lower then expectations, to me.
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