You must be joking: Popular excuses for avoiding Jesus Christ

by Michael Green

Popular Excuses for Avoiding Jesus Christ.

159 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Edward Michael Bankes Green, known as Michael Green, was a British theologian, Anglican priest, Christian apologist and author of more than fifty Christian books. He served as the Canon Missioner of Holy Trinity Church in Raleigh, North Carolina through 2007.

*******

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Aurélien Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Michael Green, Anglican priest and theologian, lists here the 10 most common excuses to refuse being a Christian, and purports to debunk them all as being nothing but fallacies. Here's an apology for religion, then, but humoristic and targeted to a wide and popular audience. Well...

First, let's salute the successful attempt to have gathered in 10 short chapters the 10 main arguments in favour of believing in God, and rallying to Christianity especially. It's short, but straightforward; and the writing style, engaging, make it all pleasant to read. The thing is, it's pleasant to read but nothing more. In fact, it's not very challenging, and if you were expecting an argument of some intellectual substance then you'll be seriously disappointed -here's a cocktail mixing among all the most silly clichés on the topic!

First: ignorance -plain and simple. He equates evolution with chance, affirms there is nothing with it which could bother Christians, and even goes as far as to quote Paley! It starts very poorly... It goes on by peddling absurd assertions on moral, being here both revolting and laughable. Revolting when he defends the works of Christian missionaries across the world (the Aucas in South America are labelled 'savage people from the stone age', that only a conversion to Christianity has civilised...). It's laughable when he claims only Jesus can save you from smoking, and, even, homosexuality (yes, it wouldn't be complete without a good dose of homophobia...). Advancing such arguments, no one will be surprised to see him then peddling circular arguments to defend the superiority of Christianity over other religions: the Bible is true, because the Bible says that what the Bible says is true (ta dah! Here's reincarnation being proven too, as far as he is concerned).

It surely is funny to read, but when it comes to being clever it's an epic fail. In the end, you can't but feel like throwing the question back at him: Michael Green, you must be joking, right!??

[Samuel Monney]

l have been looking for this book for a very long time more than 10 years

[Arvid Birgersson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jag ger boken 4/5 för den är upplagd på ett väldigt pedagogiskt bra sätt. Den ger också svar på dessa populära ursäkter som kan komma upp när man försöker att tala om sin kristna tro, på ett bra sätt. Den har ett lite gammalt språk men det är inte ett så stort hinder. Boken passar den som kommit en liten bit inom apologetiken men den går även bra för mer erfarna och nybörjare.

[Katherine Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book brings up a lot of important ideas to address. While Michael has some great points throughout I think a lot of the answers lack thoughtfulness for non-believing readers. Some answers just don’t quite address what is needed to be said.