Charles Colson has a new book out. With Harold Fickett, he’s written The Faith: What Christians Believe, Why They Believe it, and Why it Matters. On the upside, any book that accurately outlines the Christian faith is worth reading. A steady diet of such books is healthy for the believer, and The Faith fits the bill. On the downside, this book doesn’t stand out as a particularly remarkable “meal” in that steady diet.
I think the problem lies in the subtitle. Whoever came up with the subtitle had an instinct for what the reading public wants and needs in a book on this subject, but the actual content fails to deliver. While the book fulfills its promise to explain “what Christians believe,” it’s rather thin on explaining “why they believe it” and “why it matters.” When I was doing the research for my explanation of the faith for seekers, The Anchor Course, I searched for books that could serve as models for me--books that were designed not only to outline the faith but also to explain “why it matters.” Unfortunately, most of the books I ran across were written for a market of believers instead of seekers. Colson’s book falls into this same stack in my collection. It’s not written to commend the faith to a seeker, but it’s a good, if unremarkable, review of the faith for those who already believe.
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