True Story: A Christianity Worth Believing In

Caleb is asking questions about his Christian faith, and it's making a lot of people nervous - his friends, his pastor, even himself. Unsure of how a Christian faith can be dynamic in a damaged world, he seeks a better way of dealing with its seeming inconsistencies. What he finds is a faith that can be summed up with stick figures on a napkin. In plain, modern, and sometimes earthy language, James Choung relates a story that many Christians find themselves in and offers a visual model of the Gospel that is easily learned and reproduced. While the story and model are tailored to a social gospel approach, Choung also allows for other interpretations and applications of the model.

James Choung (D.Min., Fuller Theological Seminary) is divisional director and interim area director of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's San Diego Division.

"Christianity seems like just another screwed-up religion!" Anna said. "Seriously, what has Christianity done for us—or for the world, for that matter? They're just a bunch of hypocrites, that's what I think! Are they good for anything?"

"I don't know, Anna," Caleb said. "I just don't know."

Caleb has been a Christian for a long time. But he realizes that he can't bring himself to share his faith with anyone because it doesn't sound like good news anymore. Christianity's truth claims come across as hollow, arrogant and intolerant. Christians have a bad track record of hating and condemning those they disagree with. Worst of all, it feels like Christianity is just about "saving souls," giving people an escape ticket to heaven while the world falls apart. Is it only about Jesus forgiving our sins? There must be more to it than that...

In this engaging narrative, James Choung weaves the tale of a search for a Christianity worth believing in. Disillusioned believer Caleb and hostile skeptic Anna wrestle with the plausibility of the Christian story in a world of pain and suffering. They ask each other tough questions about what Jesus really came to do and what Christianity is supposed to be about. Along the way, they discover that real Christianity is far bigger than anything they ever heard about in church. And the conversion that comes is not one that either of them expects.

Join Caleb and Anna on their spiritual journeys as they probe Christianity from inside and out. Get past the old clichés and simplistic formulas. And discover a new way of understanding and presenting the Christian faith that really matters in a broken world.

Brian McLaren started a genre of fiction in which a disenchanted evangelical meets a wizened ethnic teacher of a new sort of Christianity, prompting a second conversion to a faith that is more world savvy, compassionate and appealing. In Choung's version, a college student in Seattle named Caleb struggles to share the gospel (and a bit more) with his friend Anna. While the narrative runs the risk of falling into stereotype (and often does resort to evangelical catchphrases), Choung manages to make readers care about his characters' religious and romantic fates. Its best moments are Caleb's wrestling with the relationship between his Korean ethnic identity and his faith. Choung concludes the book in his own voice, with a diagram designed to help an individual share the gospel with another on the surface of a napkin. While the faith presented is indeed more passionate about the environment and “social justice” than many evangelicals are wont to be, the goal of a more effective one-on-one evangelism is hardly revolutionary. The book will appeal to readers of McLaren and others for whom “vampire Christianity,” a phrase Choung's real-life mentor Dallas Willard uses to describe a faith reduced to a bit of blood shed on one's behalf, has become untenable. (Apr.) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

Average Rating:

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Reviewed by Ephrem Hagos (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia), April 09, 2009

The "Gospel of Jesus Christ" does not need any reinventing. It is simply what is indicated inside the quotation marks --JESUS CHRIST! There is a way Jesus taught and laid down by which all posterity can know him in a life-transforming experience, i.e., firsthand and personally, as he reveals himself on the cross! I don't see any trace of this on your product.

Reviewed by Khen Anwari (South East Asia), February 26, 2009

I first learned of James Choung’s bookTrue Story when it was featured in Christianity Today magazine a few months ago. Choung masterfully uses a mini-novel format to unfold superbly the whys & wherefores of a new presentation of the Good News. The main character is, like the author, Korean American, and his mentor is a female Afro-American professor. I highly recommend it. I get the feeling this approach will better resonate with students, who, feeling the invulnerability of youth, are not as obsessed with their eternal destiny as are folks of my vintage. Besides that, I truly believe this presentation is a more complete picture of who we are to become as followers of the Messiah in the world today. A very useful summary (minus the novel) is available online in a PDF format (explanation-of-the-big-story-32.pdf). Please note the double barrier to prevent one jumping past the 3rd circle and on to the 4th. This is certainly not an unregenerate “social gospel” approach. But it does address quite forcefully how those who have been regenerated/ born anew/ transformed in Christ are to relate to and within society. This is so urgently needed within the Christian community thoughout the world. Thank you, James Choung!

Reviewed by Steven Jewett (East Middlebury, Vermont), June 16, 2008

James Choungs's True Story is a very readable book that presents a well rounded approach to presenting the gospel. By using a provocative narrative featuring Caleb and his friend Anna, we read a realistic account of what people are thinking on the college campus and beyond. A helpful insight comes to the fore when Choung has Caleb discuss the faith with a Christian professor. She points out that the gospel presented by Jesus in Mark and elsewhere is, "The time has come. The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news (gospel)." From this Choung presents an interpretation of Christ's message that is more comprehensive, relevant, and honest than many I've encountered. I'm buying multiple copies to share with my church family and highly recommend this book!

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