NOVEMBER 2024

Can you remember where you were when you read a book that changed your life? Think of your special corner of the library. Or your favorite chair at home. Or your bed late into the evening when you should have been sleeping but you just couldn’t put down the book.

I’d give just about anything to experience, again, the feeling of reading certain books for the first time. Thankfully I get a little of that pleasure when I teach these books for cultural apologetics. And I got some of that experience when recording the most recent episode of my podcast Gospelbound.

Novels are sometimes overlooked as a resource for connecting with our neighbors about their highest hopes and deepest fears. Some Christians think fiction is a waste of time. I disagree! As Tim Keller used to say, some fiction is truer than reality. Fiction can help us perceive what we don’t sense, to imagine a universe enchanted by its Creator. And fiction can show us in stories what we might resist learning more directly. Just imagine the millions who might have been saved in the 20th century if world leaders had been paying closer attention to Dostoevsky and Tolstoy in the 19th century.

If you’re looking for a book that will change your life, I’m glad to recommend a few that changed mine. (And I bet you’ll find a few gift ideas, too.)

COLLIN HANSEN

Vice President for Content and Editor in Chief

FEATURED CONTENT

Window to the Soul: Fiction Books with Collin Hansen

Collin Hansen explores the power of fiction to reveal human complexity, interpret culture, and deepen empathy.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Should Christians Reject Slavery and Affirm Same-Sex Marriage?

Rebecca McLaughlin, a fellow for The Keller Center, addresses one of the most common arguments for abandoning the biblical teaching on sexuality. She explains that just because some Christians read the Bible wrong on slavery doesn’t mean we should do so on sexuality as well.

Expand Your Gospel Vocabulary

The Keller Center fellow Sam Chan wants us to be more biblical when we talk about sin. So he offers four images of sin and salvation that may resonate in a post-Christendom world.

Trump Has Put an End to an Era. The Future Is Up for Grabs.

Ross Douthat met with our fellows during the annual Keller Center retreat last spring in New York City. In this new column for The New York Times he outlines several cultural themes we’re researching and teaching through the center.

The Everyday Evangelism online learning cohort offers a broad and practical overview of how Christians can find and create opportunities for gospel proclamation. Seasoned evangelist, prolific YouTuber, and pastor Glen Scrivener will equip you to communicate a Christ-centered view of God (and his three-ness), the world (and its two-ness), and you (and your one-ness). This simple method (“3-2-1”) will help you learn a gospel presentation for use in personal witness. But it will also thoroughly ground your personal evangelism theologically, and help your church develop a culture of evangelism.

If you want to be encouraged and grow in your understanding of how to share the gospel in everyday life, this interactive cohort will equip you to faithfully witness to others and teach others to do the same. If you have questions, financial need, or seek significant church group discounts we want you to email us at kellercohort@tgc.org.

In the 21st-century West, the Christian sexual ethic looks like a major obstacle to faith in Jesus. As a result, the Christian claim that sex only belongs in male-female marriage is seen not just as foolish but also as dangerous and hateful—similar to the evil of racism.

At the same time, many churches are reeling from the progress of the trans movement in recent years. They don’t know how to offer a truly biblical understanding of what it means for human beings to be made male and female in the image of God, while also caring for church members who were born with disorders of sexual development and for those who struggle with gender dysphoria.

This cohort—led by Sam Allberry, Rebecca McLaughlin, and Rachel Gilson—situates the Bible’s “no” to same-sex sexual relationships in the context of the Bible’s “yes” to love between believers, with the Bible’s greatest love-story of Jesus and his people at the heart of the message. It will help church leaders recover the biblical vision for marriage and singleness and move toward a church culture that enfolds all believers in a family of love. It will also help church leaders think biblically and pastorally about the challenges and opportunities presented by the trans movement.

If you have any questions pertaining to signing up for your cohort, group rates, elder/preaching team rates, or church rates email kellercohort@tgc.org.