Book Review: The Christian Atheist

I just finished reading The Christian Atheist: Believing in God but Living as if He Doesn't Exist by Craig Groeschel, so I thought I would write up a little review to have something to post. The title is pretty self-explanatory. Groeschel is addressing what seems to be a growing problem in today's church: those who call themselves Christians but go on living their lives any sort of way. Each chapter is geared toward a specific way we may profess Christ, but live contrary to those beliefs. They range from the basics (chapter one being "When You Believe in God But Don't Really Know Him") to very specific topics (such as chapter eleven: "When You Believe in God But Don't Share Your Faith").

When I first stared reading The Christian Atheist, I thought I was going to have to force myself through the book. I don't know much about Groeschel himself, and I'm usually a little uneasy of a book when I'm not sure of the author's theology prior to reading it. The first few chapters covered general topics like not really knowing God or being ashamed of your past. The book really started catching my attention in Chapter 4 with "When You Believe in God but Not in Prayer". That's when it started truly getting challenging, and it seemed to just keep building from there. By the time I got to the last two chapters, the book was hard to read, not because it was boring and generic, but because it was so convicting. I found myself racing through the chapter about sharing your faith because evangelism is extremely hard for me (being an incredibly shy person). I had to force myself to slow down and really focus, because so much of what he was saying made me uncomfortable - because it made me realize I wasn't really living like a Christian after all!

Over all, I would definitely recommend The Christian Atheist. It's easy to read, with plenty of humorous anecdotes to keep your attention. But the focus of the book is the call to truly live your life out for Christ. Groeschel brings the reader's attention to the supremacy of Christ and how we are called to live differently from the rest of the world.