Maybe Christianity is actually true. Maybe it is what believers say it is. But at least two problems make the thoughtful person hesitate. First, there are so many other options. How could one possibly make one's way through them to anything like a rational and confident conclusion? Second, why do so many people choose to be Christian in the face of so many reasons not to be Christian? Yes, many people grow up in Christian homes and in societies, but many more do not. Yet Christianity has become the most popular religion in the world. Why? This book begins by taking on the initial challenge as it outlines a process: how to think about religion in a responsible way, rather than settling for such soft vagaries as faith and feeling. It then clears away a number of misunderstandings from the basic story of the Christian religion, misunderstandings that combine to domesticate this startling narrative and thus to repel reasonable people who might otherwise be intrigued. The second half of the book then looks at Christian commitment positively and negatively. Why do two billion find this religion to be persuasive, thus making it the most popular explanation of everything in human history? At the same time, how does Christianity respond to the fact that so many people find it utterly implausible, especially because so many Christians insist that theirs is the only way to God and because of the problem of evil that seems to undercut everything Christianity asserts? Grounded in scholarship but never ponderous, Can I Believe? refuses to dodge the hard questions as it welcomes the intelligent inquirer to give Christianity at least one good look.
Author
Until 2015, John Stackhouse held the Sangwoo Youtong Chee Chair of Theology and Culture at Regent College, an international graduate school of Christian studies affiliated with the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. In September of that year, he took the Samuel J. Mikolaski Chair of Religious Studies at Crandall University in Moncton, New Brunswick, where he also serves as Dean of Faculty Development. A graduate of Queen's University (BA, first class), Wheaton College Graduate School (MA, summa cum laude), and The University of Chicago (PhD), he taught European history at Northwestern College (Iowa) before returning to Canada in 1990. For eight years he taught in the department of religion of the University of Manitoba, departing there for Regent in 1998 as a tenured (full) professor. He is the author of ten books, editor of four more, and co-author or co-editor of another half dozen. He has published over 700 articles, book chapters, and reviews, and his work has been featured on most major North American TV networks, in most major radio markets, and in periodicals as diverse as The New York Times, The Atlantic, Christianity Today, The Christian Century, The Times Literary Supplement, Time, and The Globe and Mail. Dr. Stackhouse has lectured at Harvard's Kennedy School, Yale's Divinity School, Stanford's Law School, Hong Kong University, Edinburgh University, Fudan University, Otago University, and many other universities in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. He divides his time now between Moncton and North Vancouver, BC.
