Remedial Christianity: What Every Believer Should Know About the Faith, but Probably Doesn't

Remedial Christianity: What Every Believer Should Know About the Faith, but Probably Doesn't

Remedial Christianity places Christianity among the world's major religions and contrasts and compares its doctrine and practice with those of other great religions. It further examines not only the distinctively Christian beliefs, but the breadth of Christianities within Christianity. Written clearly and with humor, Remedial Christianity provides a valuable tool for everyone seeking to understand the Christian tradition. "For years I have wished to find a book that is sufficiently lucid and cogent to be understood by non-specialists." -- Rick Hubbard, The American Alliance for Religious Literacy "This book is a wonderful introductory text . . . a clear and readable overview of Christianity that mixes humor with education." -- Rev. Dr. Mary Tumpkin, President, Universal Foundation for Better Living Paul Alan Laughlin is Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Otterbein College, Westerville, Ohio, where he teaches Comparative Religions and American Religious History. An ordained minister, he is a frequent leader of workshops and seminars on the relationship between Christianity and Eastern religions. "Not only have my incoming students exhibited little sense of what it means to assert that Christians are historically monotheists (as opposed, say, to deists, pantheists, or monists), but their initial comments about God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit (much less the Trinity) have been so vague and superficial (and often purely sentimental) as to reflect little real understanding. Even such distinctive and indeed axial Christian doctrines as Sin, Grace, Incarnation, and Atonement are at worst barely recognized and at best completely unexamined, dimly grasped, and unrelated to one another in any consistent way. Consequently, any profession of faith that my students might make or notion of salvation that they might harbor is groundless, free-floating, and without context -- theological, existential, psychological, or sociological. "If my thousands of students over the years are at all representative of the larger population, and I believe that they are, I must conclude that the vast majority of Christians today simply don't know nearly as much about their professed religion as they should; or, to put it more strongly, they are pervasively and persistently ignorant about the very faith they claim to embrace. Indeed, it is not uncommon for students in one of my college courses, after weeks of exposure to information about the scripture, theology, and historical development of Christianity, to wonder silently and sometimes inquire aloud why no one has ever told them this important 'stuff' before." Used Book in Good Condition