If you are interested in thinking through the reasons for your faith, this book is tailor-made for you, like a companion to share the journey with. You might wish you were more confident and ready to stand up in a secular world for what you believe.

Or perhaps it might simply be that you learned to believe certain claims of Christianity, having been told them at a young age, but want to see how they stack up in intelligent analysis.

Pointing to Romans 1:20 Andrew comments, “We should not be surprised that a God who created the cosmos has provided rational reasons for his existence and adequate reasons for faith in him.”

Andrew’s interest in apologetics (which means a formal defence of one’s opinions) led him to have discussions with leading Christian thinkers of our day, interviewing them in person about various topics. Their comments are spread throughout the book which is organised into eight essays, covering such ground as the church, the origin of humanity, miracles, parenting, myths, metaphors and faith.

This is not an ivory-tower intellectual treatise — as well as a discussion of ideas it contains practical comments.

One of the professors interviewed says that when you look at the Gospel story of Jesus meeting people, these are personal encounters. "It’s not simply ideas, it’s about an encounter with a living person and the difference that makes." So the book doesn’t claim that a philosophical approach is the be-all and end-all for believers — but it does provide an introduction to how the Gospel makes sense in the world we live in.

— Editor, SIM New Zealand magazine.