Natasha Crain

*full disclosure: I am on the prelaunch team, have skimmed the whole book, and am going back and reading it in-depth*
Update: listened to the entire Audible on launch day. I stand by my review.

My full review can be found at https://davidwolcottchristianapologist.blogspot.com/2021/12/review-of-faithfully...

Short review:

First: this book is specifically for Christians. So, if you aren't a Christian, be aware of that. Natasha didn’t write this book to evangelize; she wrote it to encourage and edify the Body of Christ.

Second: I love this book because she covers a variety of subjects, giving you enough to chew on and pointing you to other books that go deeper on each of the subjects.

Third: this is not an apologetics book in the traditional sense. Natasha uses her own method to tie in all the different things she teaches to why you need to understand it. She explains clearly how these issues affect your life by addressing which societal issues we deal with regularly and explaining how we should live differently due to these beliefs.

Fourth: Natasha has a great teaching voice. I mean that with her degrees and experience, she could easily write this in a high academic style, but instead, she writes this as one mother to another, as one Christian encouraging others. You don't need a deep background in theology or thirty years attending church to follow Natasha as she weaves this information together.

With all of that said: yes, you need this book in your life. Read it yourself. Join a group to read through it together after that. Share it with your small group at church, share it with your pastors at church. This invaluable book will be a staple of Christian theology and living, alongside Tactics and classics like How Now Shall We Live and Mere Christianity.… (mehr)

This is a hard book to review. It's premise is that you can give your children talking points that defend what they believe, but also very strongly implies that by the use of logic and reason (aka as apologetics) you can convince an atheist to embrace Christianity. This is no more true than the idea that you can change a republican into a democrat or a democrat into a republican by the the use of reasoned arguments. In fact, the Bible actually directly tells us that apologetics can not change someone's world view from atheist to believer in Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." One can only become a believer as a result of the working of the Holy Spirit which produces faith. It does not come from being convinced by argument.

In that this book helps to strengthen faith in a child who believes and also gives them reasons which can be used in response to doubts or questions, it has value. In places it does this well, hence my granting of 3 stars.… (mehr)

Every Christian parent knows the importance about teaching children about the Bible and about Jesus. The reason for this can be found several times in the Bible
DEUTERONOMY 11:19 {NKJV] tells us:
“You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.”
ISAIAH 54:13 [KJV] tells us:
“All your children shall be taught by the LORD, And great shall be the peace of your children.”
And in PROVERBS 22:6 [NKJV] we read:
“Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Christian parents these days with its ever-increasing secularism know that this will become a challenge for their children that they must overcome to have faith in the Lord. Knowing is not the problem for these parents, the problem comes when they need to talk their children successfully regarding this.

The author, Natasha Crain, has written this book, for parents to gain the important self-confidence they’ll need when they talk about the Lord to their children. Chapter by chapter, page by page, Ms. Crain lays out a concise pathway to follow to teach their children about Jesus's identity, teachings, death, and resurrection. The book is geared to give parents a definitive guide with which to have conversations with their children regardless of their age by giving them a curriculum-based approach designed to give these children a meaningful learning experience. This is why, as a devotee of nonfiction Christian books, I’ve given Ms. Crain the 5 STARS she’s earned.

While I’ve given this author 5 STARS for her endeavor here, I’ve got a puzzlement as to why so many authors in coming up with a title for their books and writing their books, have repeatedly short-changed the intended audience for their books. And Ms. Crain has been one of them. While her intended audience are parents desiring to talk to their children about Jesus, there are scores of individuals would love to share their love for the Lord with others who are new to the Christian faith. Newcomers to the Christian faith are essentially children possessing no knowledge of it or of the Lord, Jesus; and they need to be talked with like a child; which is why I feel this book is a useful tool in talking to anyone about the subject matter of this book.… (mehr)

In recent decades, the Western church has experienced a mass exodus of youth. Some estimate about 70 percent of children raised in church abandon the faith by the time they attend college. Many leave because their faith lacks deep roots, or they have encountered questions about their faith they can’t find satisfactory answers for.

Author Natasha Crain describes the problem this way: A lack of robust spiritual training has resulted in a featherweight faith for many of today’s young adults, and that faith is being blown away by attacks from our secular culture (p. 12, italics in the original).

To help parents prepare their children to thrive in a culture that is hostile towards Christianity, Natasha Crain wrote Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 conversations to help them build a lasting faith.
Although called a collection of conversations, this book doesn’t contain scripts. Each short chapter concisely answers one question that challenges Christianity. You, the parent, begin by reading the book yourself. Then you can use its information to explain issues to your children at a level they can understand.

In addition, this book also serves as a reference work. The chapters mostly stand on their own, and the author cross-references to other sections when topics overlap. So, when you or child run into a question about the faith, you can simply turn to the appropriate chapter for a quick answer.

The list of forty questions are grouped into five sections:

1. Conversations About God: This part covers issues such as the problem of evil and whether faith is the opposite to reason.
2. Conversations About Truth and Worldviews: This part includes questions such as “Do all religions point to the same truth?” and “Are Christians less intelligent than atheists?”
3. Conversations About Jesus: This section gives a defense of Jesus’ existence and explains why Jesus needed to die on the cross for our sins.
4. Conversations About the Bible: This section describes how the Bible came to be and corrects some false views our culture has about biblical teachings.
5. Conversations About Science: Part five summarizes the creation vs. evolution debate.

The last chapter provides a few tips on how to incorporate faith discussions into family life. Those of you who are new to the arguments used to defend the faith (which is called apologetics) and to teach it to your children may want more information than what is provided here. But Crain gives enough to get you started without making you feel overwhelmed.

Natasha Crain writes in the first person in a casual style and sometimes tells personal stories to illustrate an idea. Carefully leading the reader through her arguments, Crain has designed this book as an excellent introduction to apologetics for those who are beginners.

Because this book briefly surveys various topics, you might find yourself wanting more information on specific ideas. The endnotes reference some resources with which a reader can dig deeper into a given subject. Yet, this book could use a more complete resource list for further reading.

Overall, it’s an excellent book for someone to get their feet wet in apologetics and to help them to raise their children knowing why they believe what they believe.

©2019 Lorinda K. F. Newton. All rights reserved.… (mehr)