Turning to Jesus

Although everyone comes to Christian faith in different ways, says religion professor Scot McKnight in Turning to Jesus: The Sociology of Conversion in the Gospels, conversion stories don't typically reflect that diversity. In fact, each Christian group ""shuffles all oddities to the side and sanctifies only a certain ordered experience."" Drawing on the personal stories of 19 men and women who embraced the Christian faith across a wide variety of traditions (mainline Protestant, Catholic and evangelical), McKnight pleads for ""each of us to pause long enough to hear the stories of all Christians and not just those who frame their stories as do we."" This is a well-reasoned, persuasive call to recognize ""diversity"" in a rather unexpected way. (Feb.)