Knowing Christ

By Alister E. McGrath

Book Overview

Alister McGrath, a widely acknowledged master of contemporary spirituality, has written a profound meditation on one of the most deceptively simple-sounding tenets of the Christian faith, the centrality of Christ in the life of his followers, in Knowing Christ. Written in an accessible style that will appeal to Christians of all denominations, Knowing Christ aims to stimulate a more direct and intimate relationship between Christ and the reader by engaging not just the intellect but, more important, the heart and imagination. It is a work of spirituality saturated with biblical texts and themes, but it also draws on the rich tradition in art and literature of Christian reflection on the centrality of Christ throughout the ages. The result is a lively, engaging, and always inspiring book of twenty-first century spirituality from one of the world's most popular and respected Christian writers, a book that will strengthen the faith of all who read it.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385503164
• ISBN13: 9780385503167
• Release Date: June 2002
• Publisher: WaterBrook
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.2" x 0.7" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

A needed return to the foundation of Christianity: Christ

This book is timely. As one who accepted Christ in college, right around the same time as McGrath, and settled into American evangelicalism's brand of Christianity, I've witnessed my generation of evangelicals essentially waste their opportunity in history by pursuing a watered-down "seeker-friendly" Churchianity, and trying to impact the world through political action. A few have opted to focus on Christ, but they've been a minority for most of the past 30 years. Alister McGrath's book comes along at a time when many are realizing that the church needs to offer more than what church consultants in the '80s and '90s advised as the lowest common denominator of mass appeal; at a time when the mega-church experiment has proven only to raise up a generation of shallow believers wracked with the same problems as the non-Christian society around them; and when conservative Christian political activism is losing steam. McGrath points to the only thing that makes sense and brings vitality to the Christian religion: knowing Christ -- knowing who he is in us, knowing who he is to us, understanding the nature of the union believers have with the indwelling Christ, recognizing that Bible knowledge does not necessarily equate with knowledge of Christ, and that while the mind is not shut off when one comes to faith in Christ, recognizing that a true knowledge of Christ and his love are deeper than the mind can comprehend, as Paul points out in Ephesians 3. There are some who say that the conservative church, at least the conservative church in America, is entering a period characterized as "post-evangelical." Wouldn't it be great if this new "post-evangelical" era was founded and focused on Jesus Christ and knowing him, having that knowledge expressed in the lives of individual believers and the church? Should that be the case and direction of Christianity in the early 21st Century, McGrath's book may well be credited with helping to steer Christians in that direction.

Moving Christ from Head to Heart

In this book, evangelical theologian Alister McGrath appears to be making a case to Christians for moving the location of one's knowledge of God from one's head to one's heart. He does this partly by recounting his own personal spiritual journey and partly by writing a gentle apologetic for why simply having "sound teaching" or "correct doctrine" isn't all there is to being a Christian. Using the classic evangelical cry of "relationship with Christ", McGrath explains why this relationship rests in our hearts and in our every-day experience rather than in our heads. Then he goes further to help his readers by providing examples of different ways that Christians encounter Christ in both our lives and in our theology. Although McGrath is a respected academic theologian, this book is not for academics but for the "person in the pew". I found the chapters on the different ways of encountering Christ to be inspirational and worthy of meditation. One caveat: people averse to evangelical terminology might find this book slightly off-putting; most evangelicals should love it.