Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion
Overview
2016 Christianity Today Book of the Year in Apologetics/Evangelism
One of Desiring God’s Top 15 Books of 2015
Hearts Minds Bookstore’s Best Books of 2015, Social Criticism and Cultural Engagement
Hearts Minds Bookstore's Best Books of 2015, Social Criticism and Cultural Engagement
In our post-Christian context, public life has become markedly more secular and private life infinitely more diverse. Yet many Christians still rely on cookie-cutter approaches to evangelism and apologetics. Most of these methods assume that people are open, interested and needy for spiritual insight when increasingly most people are not. Our urgent need, then, is the capacity to persuade—to make a convincing case for the gospel to people who are not interested in it.
In his magnum opus, Os Guinness offers a comprehensive presentation of the art and power of creative persuasion. Christians have often relied on proclaiming and preaching, protesting and picketing. But we are strikingly weak in persuasion—the ability to talk to people who are closed to what we are saying. Actual persuasion requires more than a one-size-fits-all approach. Guinness notes, “Jesus never spoke to two people the same way, and neither should we.”
Following the tradition of Erasmus, Pascal, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Malcolm Muggeridge and Peter Berger, Guinness demonstrates how apologetic persuasion requires both the rational and the imaginative. Persuasion is subversive, turning the tables on listeners’ assumptions to surprise them with signals of transcendence and the credibility of the gospel.
This book is the fruit of forty years of thinking, honed in countless talks and discussions at many of the leading universities and intellectual centers of the world. Discover afresh the persuasive power of Christian witness from one of the leading apologists and thinkers of our era.
Key Features
- Analyzes recent trends in evangelism
- Offers a comprehensive presentation of the art and power of creative persuasion
- Demonstrates how apologetic persuasion requires both the rational and the imaginative
Contents
- Creative Persuasion
- Technique: The Devil’s Bait
- The Defense Never Rests
- The Way of the Third Fool
- Anatomy of Unbelief
- Turning the Tables
- Triggering the Signals
- Spring-loaded Dynamics
- The Art of Always Being Right?
- Beware the Boomerang
- Kissing Judases
- Charting the Journey
Top Highlights
“There are all too many people who do not want to believe what we share or even to hear what we have to say, and our challenge is to help them to see it despite themselves.” (Page 26)
“Creative persuasion is a matter of being biblical, not of being either modern or postmodern.” (Pages 33–34)
“But faith in God is true because it is true—not because we, or David, Elijah and Luther defend it successfully. If the Christian faith is true, it is true even if no one believes it, and if it is not true, it is false even if everyone believes it. The truth of the faith does not stand and fall with our defense of it.” (Page 58)
“All good thinking is a matter of asking and answering three elementary questions. What is being said? Is it true? What of it?” (Page 31)
“Almost all our witnessing and Christian communication assumes that people are open to what we have to say, or at least are interested, if not in need of what we are saying. Yet most people quite simply are not open, not interested and not needy, and in much of the advanced modern world fewer people are open today than even a generation ago. Indeed, many are more hostile, and their hostility is greater than the Western church has faced for centuries.” (Page 22)
Praise for the Print Edition
Os Guinness’s books have been invaluable for the Christian church for decades. A great deal of what I know about communicating the faith in modern times I learned from him. This book does not disappoint. Unlike most books on apologetics, it addresses the actual dynamics of conversation and persuasion—as well as providing an unusually comprehensive range of accessible and useful arguments and appeals for the truth of Christianity. I highly recommend it.
—Tim Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City
I appreciate Os Guinness’ concern that he not become a professional apologist and along the way neglect the actual work of apologetics. But after many years of doing such work, he has written a good book, Fool’s Talk, that introduces readers not to technique, but to the art of Christian persuasion—the kind of persuasion we see modeled in Jesus, in Paul, and in the Old Testament prophets before them. Eminently quotable and packed full of helpful insights, Fool’s Talk is a well-written, well-structured, and well-argued book that I enthusiastically recommend.
—Tim Challies, World Magazine, October 31, 2015
In a battle of ideas, unlike a battle between nations, the goal is not to vanquish the opponents but to win them. Making that challenge even more difficult is that oftentimes, what we win them with is what we win them to. The art and science of dialoguing and debate must bring together the message and the method in concert. No one does this better than my colleague Os Guinness. For years I have benefited from his incisive thinking and carefully studied presentations. Here, he wisely observes that ‘Our urgent need today is to reunite evangelism and apologetics, and make sure that our best arguments are directed toward winning people and not just winning arguments.’ I am thrilled to see his unique thinking on these crucial subjects, co-extensive with a lifetime of doing apologetics. It is a must-read for anyone interested in engaging the skeptic or seeker. Few thinkers today rise to the level that Os does, even as he plumbs the depth of vital issues in defense of the historic Christian faith.
—Ravi Zacharias, author and speaker
Product Details
- Title: Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion
- Author: Os Guinness
- Publisher: IVP
- Publication Date: 2015
- Pages: 270
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Topic: Apologetics
Sample Pages from the Print Edition
Reviews
2 ratings
Matt DeVore
7/14/2023
Patrick
1/19/2022
I've heard Guinness speak. I've heard him debate. I've read some articles he's published. I know that he is an intelligent man, a skilled debater, and scholar. This was my first book by him and this was to be his magnum opus. And I'm greatly underwhelmed. I read this with another person who is far smarter and better trained in philosophy than I am and met to discuss each chapter. He too did not enjoy this book. This was not really a book on the framework of Christian persuasion because he doesn't really provide much of a laid out philosophy. He seems to attempt to but he tends to write on a wandering path a lot. Nor is this a practical application such as Nancy Pearcey's amazing book "Finding Truth". Both Guinness and Pearcey are students of Francis Schaffer which make my dislike of the book so odd. Guinness' opening stories are well placed and entertaining but once you get into the meat of the chapter it's very confusing as to where he's going or why he's taking the path he is. I gave him three chapters to get going. By chapter four, my notes tended to be more harsh and found myself writing "needs better clarification". That is not to say that there aren't some good points in this book. There are some good practical philosophical and application points. It is just that the book promises to make the case for Christian Persuasion - and it seems to forget to do so; or at least keep a consistent theme of that point. I'm really disheartened to have to review this so low. I was hoping for something like Pearcey's book or a more philosophical version of that book. Instead, I got the lackadaisical stroll of a British philosopher who stops to smell the roses every 100 feet and forgets what he was saying. Final Grade - D-
