Natasha Crain

Natasha Crain opens her 2022 book, Faithfully Different: Regaining Biblical Clarity in a Secular Culture, with a chapter title that resonated with me: “Welcome to Your Place in a Worldview Minority! It’s no longer ‘normal’ to be a Christian in our culture” (17). Even though I’ve been aware that I hold a minority worldview for much of my life, I found reading the statement in print refreshing.

While that book focuses on helping a biblical Christian navigate the secular cultural show more landscape of America, in her newest book, When the Culture Hates You, Crain offers reasons for and methods on how to advocate for righteousness in a hostile culture.

In Part 1, “Understanding the Hate,” the author reminds us that Jesus said the world would hate us. However, that fact shouldn’t stop us from seeking the common good, as defined by God, for our society, even if it means becoming politically active. Crain explains that not only should we share the gospel and serve others privately, but we must also care about society as a whole. “Caring about the way in which society functions is just one part of following Jesus’ second greatest commandment, ‘to love your neighbor as yourself’ ” (28).

In Part 2, “Responding to and Persevering Through Today’s Most Prominent Charges,” Crain examines five epithets aimed at conservative Christians: Christian Nationalists (from the media), Oppressors (from social justice activists), Misogynists (from pro-abortionists), Rights-Deniers (from transgender activists), and Bigots (from sexual revolutionaries).

Each chapter closes with “Quick Responses to 5 Popular Challenges,” starting with follow-up discussion questions modeled after Greg Koukl’s Tactics. Following these responses, Crain lists seven action items a reader can do to promote righteousness in our culture.

In an easy-to-read, well-organized style, Crain provides a guide for Christians who may be new to engaging in the “culture war.” I appreciate that she defines many of her terms because the dominant culture has redefined so many words they use. In Chapter 7, the author does an excellent job writing a brief overview of cultural Marxism, which confuses those new to the topic.

She also supports her arguments with numerous endnotes. For those who want to dig deeper into a topic, she provides a recommended reading list.

I did struggle with Crain’s extensive use of the term “common good.” I recognize it has been used by philosophers throughout the ages and that she does define it from God’s perspective, but this term has been hijacked by the Marxists, and their use has tainted the term for me. Perhaps I, too, need to reframe my thinking and restore this term’s original meaning in my mind.

Overall, I highly recommend this book for Christians who need an entry-level book to understand our culture and how to be the salt and light in the marketplace of ideas. It would be an excellent selection for a church or community book club. show less

This is a hard book to review. It's premise is that you can give your children talking points that defend what they believe, but also very strongly implies that by the use of logic and reason (aka as apologetics) you can convince an atheist to embrace Christianity. This is no more true than the idea that you can change a republican into a democrat or a democrat into a republican by the the use of reasoned arguments. In fact, the Bible actually directly tells us that apologetics can not show more change someone's world view from atheist to believer in Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." One can only become a believer as a result of the working of the Holy Spirit which produces faith. It does not come from being convinced by argument.

In that this book helps to strengthen faith in a child who believes and also gives them reasons which can be used in response to doubts or questions, it has value. In places it does this well, hence my granting of 3 stars. show less

In recent decades, the Western church has experienced a mass exodus of youth. Some estimate about 70 percent of children raised in church abandon the faith by the time they attend college. Many leave because their faith lacks deep roots, or they have encountered questions about their faith they can’t find satisfactory answers for.

Author Natasha Crain describes the problem this way: A lack of robust spiritual training has resulted in a featherweight faith for many of today’s young show more adults, and that faith is being blown away by attacks from our secular culture (p. 12, italics in the original).

To help parents prepare their children to thrive in a culture that is hostile towards Christianity, Natasha Crain wrote Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 conversations to help them build a lasting faith.
Although called a collection of conversations, this book doesn’t contain scripts. Each short chapter concisely answers one question that challenges Christianity. You, the parent, begin by reading the book yourself. Then you can use its information to explain issues to your children at a level they can understand.

In addition, this book also serves as a reference work. The chapters mostly stand on their own, and the author cross-references to other sections when topics overlap. So, when you or child run into a question about the faith, you can simply turn to the appropriate chapter for a quick answer.

The list of forty questions are grouped into five sections:

1. Conversations About God: This part covers issues such as the problem of evil and whether faith is the opposite to reason.
2. Conversations About Truth and Worldviews: This part includes questions such as “Do all religions point to the same truth?” and “Are Christians less intelligent than atheists?”
3. Conversations About Jesus: This section gives a defense of Jesus’ existence and explains why Jesus needed to die on the cross for our sins.
4. Conversations About the Bible: This section describes how the Bible came to be and corrects some false views our culture has about biblical teachings.
5. Conversations About Science: Part five summarizes the creation vs. evolution debate.

The last chapter provides a few tips on how to incorporate faith discussions into family life. Those of you who are new to the arguments used to defend the faith (which is called apologetics) and to teach it to your children may want more information than what is provided here. But Crain gives enough to get you started without making you feel overwhelmed.

Natasha Crain writes in the first person in a casual style and sometimes tells personal stories to illustrate an idea. Carefully leading the reader through her arguments, Crain has designed this book as an excellent introduction to apologetics for those who are beginners.

Because this book briefly surveys various topics, you might find yourself wanting more information on specific ideas. The endnotes reference some resources with which a reader can dig deeper into a given subject. Yet, this book could use a more complete resource list for further reading.

Overall, it’s an excellent book for someone to get their feet wet in apologetics and to help them to raise their children knowing why they believe what they believe.

©2019 Lorinda K. F. Newton. All rights reserved. show less

*full disclosure: I am on the prelaunch team, have skimmed the whole book, and am going back and reading it in-depth*
Update: listened to the entire Audible on launch day. I stand by my review.

My full review can be found at https://davidwolcottchristianapologist.blogspot.com/2021/12/review-of-faithfully...

Short review:

First: this book is specifically for Christians. So, if you aren't a Christian, be aware of that. Natasha didn’t write this book to evangelize; she wrote it to encourage and show more edify the Body of Christ.

Second: I love this book because she covers a variety of subjects, giving you enough to chew on and pointing you to other books that go deeper on each of the subjects.

Third: this is not an apologetics book in the traditional sense. Natasha uses her own method to tie in all the different things she teaches to why you need to understand it. She explains clearly how these issues affect your life by addressing which societal issues we deal with regularly and explaining how we should live differently due to these beliefs.

Fourth: Natasha has a great teaching voice. I mean that with her degrees and experience, she could easily write this in a high academic style, but instead, she writes this as one mother to another, as one Christian encouraging others. You don't need a deep background in theology or thirty years attending church to follow Natasha as she weaves this information together.

With all of that said: yes, you need this book in your life. Read it yourself. Join a group to read through it together after that. Share it with your small group at church, share it with your pastors at church. This invaluable book will be a staple of Christian theology and living, alongside Tactics and classics like How Now Shall We Live and Mere Christianity. show less