Life in the wild : fighting for faith in a fallen world by Dan DeWitt
The Goodbook Company, 2018 127 pages £8 ISBN 978 1 784 981 693
also available in Braille and Large Print
Dan DeWitt starts this book with an introduction entitled ‘The Human Tragedy’ and ends it with an afterword ‘Death’s Obituary’. Over the intervening 120 pages (8 short chapters), we are taken on a tour which begins in Genesis 3 with a declaration of death and ends with the promise of life or, in other words, the obituary of death.
In Christian terms Life in the Wild is a story of how Christians struggle for faith in a world which believes the present state of affairs is normal. It isn’t; it’s abnormal.
Taking as his starting point Genesis 3, the author outlines seven effects of the Fall with the intention of helping Christians, especially those struggling with faith or the lack of it, to think through pain, suffering and evil in the world.
One reviewer opines that DeWitt is ‘a shrewd observer of life, a riveting Bible teacher and a really good writer… both funny and creative’. As one would expect of someone who is Director of the Center for Biblical Apologetics and Public Christianity, the purpose of the book is to aid Christians to live in a broken world, facing all the challenges consequent upon the historic Fall reported in Genesis 3. The author seeks to make sense of why the world is the way it is and the good sense of travelling life’s often arduous path with eyes wide open and brain in gear. After all, the Christian worldview matches reality. It has a satisfactory and credible explanation for the way things are and the way they will be.
Not the least attractiveness of this small volume is the plethora of references to culture, contemporary and historic. This man really knows how to communicate with impact. Just to give a taster – he begins with the separation of his parents. His mother’s comment – ‘Life sucks,’ she said.
Highly recommended.
Raymond Wilson