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Ron Hay, a retired Anglican minister, has written a book, Finding the Forgotten God, subtitled Credible faith for a secular age.
He said he was conscious that New Zealand is a very secular country and often a Christian voice doesn’t get much of a hearing in the media.
“People have a stereotypical picture that to have a Christian faith is to believe in something superstitious or irrational.”
“I wanted to make sense of Christianity for secular people. There are major problems, like the problem of suffering, which is a very genuine stumbling block to faith.”
Hay said he had some difficulty getting his book published.
He tried mainstream publishers, such as Penguin Random House, and “the general response was it’s well-written and interesting and not our thing”.
Eventually an Auckland-based Christian publisher, DayStar Books, published it.
Hay also experienced a lack of interest from mainstream booksellers.
“Whitcoulls’ national buyer turned me down sight unseen,” he said.
Since publication in November 2014, he has sold 1600 copies.
Finding the Forgotten God recently won the Ashton Wylie Charitable Trust Award for books on spiritual matters.
In his review of the book Bosco Peters says” Ron’s approach is clearly within the evangelical stable.”
“His chapter on the cross assumes that Christ dying “for us” and “for our sins” means penal substitutionary atonement.”
“But his God is a positive image; his Jesus, one whom people would want to know.”
Source
- stuff.co.nz
- Image: prweek.com
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