Brian Roberg's Blog

Book Review: Telling a Better Story

I wrote this review some time ago. I didn't post it because I was intending to write more, but looking it over now I think it's complete enough to share.

The ostensible purpose of a book about apologetics is to help Christians persuade non-Christians of the truth of the gospel. But the nature of the subject makes it very challenging for a writer to achieve this goal. I've read apologetics books that feel like they were written in an ivory tower (i.e. they're too abstract). I've also read books that feel like they were written in a fortress (i.e. they're too adversarial). I've even read some that feel like they were written in a fortified ivory tower! Joshua D. Chatraw's 2020 book Telling a Better Story is a refreshing counterexample.

My strongest praise for this book is that it feels like it was written in the same coffee shop where you might sit down for a conversation with a living, breathing, non-Christian neighbor. Chatraw accomplished this by consistently urging readers to pay attention to the person we're conversing with. "Listening well" was not one chapter of the book, but a constant refrain that appeared within every chapter. He conveyed this message in a tone of earnest pastoral counsel, with gentle yet insistent reminders throughout the book.

This pastoral tone dovetailed well with what you might call the structural approach of the book, which Chatraw calls "inside-out apologetics." In order to share the gospel in a way that people will actually hear, you need to first understand what the other person believes and values. Chatraw advocates thinking about these commitments in terms of stories—the narratives people use to make sense of the world and of their lives. Once you get inside someone's story, then you have a chance to tell the story of the gospel in a way that connects with what's actually important to that person.

The key to this step (and the origin of the book's title) is recognizing that the gospel does a better job of addressing the needs and desires everyone feels. Much of the substance of the book traces this out along various dimensions with different issues. Take for example the issue of expressive individualism. Many books do a great job analyzing the effects of expressive individualism in our culture, and indeed this book gives a good introductory picture of the problem. But it also points out that just about everyone, though they might live out the tenets of expressive individualism in most aspects of their life, would vehemently defend the idea that certain relationships call for self-sacrifice for the sake of the other person. Expressive individualism can't account for self-sacrifice. The gospel can.