Book Review: Tactics

Seeing that this month’s FX was focussed on evangelism, I decided to review the book, “Tactics: A game plan for discussing your Christian convictions”, written by Gregory Koukl. I didn’t really know what to expect when I first read it a few weeks ago, but since picking it up I’ve found out that it’s one of those “must have” books for any Christian who wants to be serious about being able to engage in productive dialogue with non-Christians.

Why? Lee Strobel, who wrote the foreword to this book, explains it well: “There are plenty of resources that help Christians understand what they believe and why they believe it – and certainly those are vitally important. But it’s equally crucial to know how to engage in a meaningful dialogue with a sceptic or a person from another religious viewpoint…”

Simply put, often when we get taught about evangelism, we get taught a lot about why evangelism is important and what to say, but we don’t get taught how to say it. It is one thing to know the Kalam Cosmological argument off by heart, but quite another to know just how to graciously respond to a friend who says, “well there’s no evidence that God exists.”

Through this book, Greg teaches us how to be better Ambassadors for Christ, how to shrewdly, yet graciously, maximise on opportunities to promote the cause of Christ in our conversations. Greg gives us incredibly simple but extremely powerful techniques to help us engage better with non-believers, whether they are earnest seekers wanting to know more or combative aggressors who are only interested in skewering a Christian with their words.

And these techniques aren’t mere gimmicks or tricks of manipulation! These are effective tools that help open eyes and clear minds if used honestly and appropriately. It’s not about just “dressing up the facts” or “talking it up”, but about taking away the trash and clearing the mist from people’s eyes.

Despite its aggressive-sounding title, Greg consistently focusses us on the gracious use of these techniques. Because these techniques are so powerful, they can be easily abused and misused to push people into a defensive corner. In picking up this book, be very careful about how you use what you learn from it: We are here to be Ambassadors of Christ, to win people to Christ, not to merely win arguments.

Although the points made in this book are incredibly powerful and useful, the book itself is surprisingly easy to read. It took me 2-3 weeks to read, in a time when I was quite busy with other things in my life, which is amazing for me since I haven’t finished a non-fiction Christian book for maybe the last 2 years! It is very compelling to read and if you sit down to read it you may be tempted to devour it in one sitting. Greg skilfully distils complicated philosophical concepts into simple, easy-to-understand bites, so that a reader with high-school level English will be able to easily read and learn from his book.

Another thing I found amazing about this book was how practically instructive it was. It felt like I was doing mental martial arts practice with Greg while I was reading this book! After going through the theory of a concept, Greg would bring out real and practical examples from his life about how these concepts could be applied, and gives you a ste-by-step, move-by-move, guide on how to address people’s questions and challenges appropriately. Each chapter has a very useful “What we learned” summary at the end to make sure you know what you have gone through in the chapter you have just read.

So have I enticed you enough to read this book yet?

Well, because I know most of you won’t be picking up this book, I will share with you a few of the key points that I have learnt from this book:

• If in doubt, ask. Too often, non-Christians go on the offensive and make aggressive claims against Christianity and demand that we answer for our belief. But what we often forget is that it’s not only we who have to answer for our beliefs; THEY have to too! Christians are often much more well-versed in the reasons for their faith than non-Christians simply because non-Christians aren’t often asked to figure out why they believe what they believe! And when these non-Christians are asked, they find that they actually haven’t fully thought through the implications and reasons for their belief! It is amazing how far the simple questions of, “What do you mean by that” and “How did you arrive at that conclusion?” can get you.
• Practice makes perfect. As with any human task, the more practice we have at being Ambassadors, the better we get at it. We can’t expect to be experts without having ever answered a question under pressure!
• Irrationality abounds! It is amazing how incoherent and illogical some common ideological slogans/catch-phrases are! If we take a moment to think, you realise that some popular ideas are actually rubbish! For example, think about the phrases “Don’t judge”, or “There is no truth”.
• Pick up the bat. One of my favourite quotes from Greg is this one: “You don’t need to hit home runs. You don’t even need to get on base. Just getting up to bat – engaging others in friendly conversation – will do.” And my question from this quote for you is this: Will you get up to bat?

To finish off, I want to leave you with more words from Lee Strobel, again, from the foreword of this book: “We live in a day when militant atheism is on the march. Christianity is coming under attack, not just from best-selling books, sceptical college professors, and television documentaries, but increasingly from neighbours and co-workers… Each day the chances are increasing that you will find yourself in a conversation with someone who dismisses Christianity as a mythology-ridden anachronism. What will you do when they paint you into a rhetorical corner and belittle your beliefs? How will you persuasively present “the reason for the hope that you have”? How will you seize opportunities to get into potentially life-changing spiritual discussions with people you meet?”

I hope you will read this book.