Don’t Check Your Brains At The Door

Don’t Check Your Brains at the Door
Written by Josh McDowell and Bob Hostetler
Published at Thomas Nelson

About the book

“Seven in 10 Protestants ages 18 to 30—both evangelical and mainline—who went to church regularly in high school said they quit attending by age 23, according to the survey by LifeWay Research.” (USA Today)

Don’t Check Your Brains at the Door gives teens answers that make sense, even for the toughest of questions. Internationally known defender of the faith Josh McDowell and co-author Bob Hostetler offer clarity laced with humor to expose common myths about God, the Bible, religion, and life to show how Christianity stands up to the test of fact and reason. Teens will be better equipped to stick with their faith as they begin to understand why they believe and why it’s important to make a lifetime commitment to Christ and the church.

My Thoughts

When I was young I was raised in the Catholic faith.  But we were occasional Catholic.  Somehow, I sensed that there was something more than just Christmas, Easter and going to church while visiting my maternal grand-mother who was a devout Catholic.   I wish I had a book like this one when I was growing up.  It would have given me basics tool to come to Christ at an earlier age. 

I find this book very useful for me as a parent who wants to make sure that my kids will be able to stay strong in their faith as they grow up.   So often, the youth leave the faith when they hit high school and college/university.   I want to make sure that my kids have all the tools/books at hand to help them deal with doubt and questions when the need arise.

The book covers various myths believed by many youth these days.

• Myths about God: The Cosmic Cop, The Luke Skywalker God, the Vending Machine God
• Myths about Jesus: Prophet Jesus, Superstar Myth, Wimpy Jesus, Plastic Jesus, Lily-White Jesus
• Myths about the Bible: Just-Another-Great Book Myth, Bible and Swiss Cheese, Telephone Game, Changing Fact to Fiction, Archaeological Myth, Coincidence Myth
• Myths about the Resurrection: Swoon Myth, Wrong Tomb Myth, Stolen Body Myth
• Myths about Religion and Christianity: Relativity Myth, The God-Will-Grade-on-a-Curve Myth, Universalist Myth, Ideology Myth, unintellectual Myth, Blind Faith Myth, Unscientific Myth, Brainwash Myth, Thomas Myth, Subjective Faith Myth, Elmer Gantry Myth, New Age Myth, Rose Garden Myth
• Myths about Life and Happiness: Consumer Myth, Nice Guy Myth, Pharisees’ Myth, Manhood Myth, Egoist Myth, Cover Girl Myth, Conformist Myth, Puritan Myth, Anachist Myth, Love-at-First-Sight Myth, Humanist Myth, Heaven-is-a-Place-on-Earth Myth.

Each chapter ends with with a Brain food section where the youth can dig in his/her Bible and find answers to questions asked.    The chapters are easy to read within 5 pages each and will definitively highlight the obscure questions that any young person might have about God, Jesus, the Bible, the Resurrection, Christianity, life and more.  

My son, who is 10 years old, wants to have this book on his iPod.   I am planning to go through this book with him during our upcoming school year.   Having the opportunity of homeschooling my kids I enjoy including this kind of book into our daily routine.   This book is perfect as each chapter are quite reasonable and there is a section at the end to encourage discussion.   

I highly recommend Don’t Check Your Brains at the Door for anyone who have a young person wanting to deepen their understand of what it means to be a Christian.

Don’t Check Your Brains at The Door is available at your favourite bookstore, even amazon.ca.

Disclaimer: I received the product for review purposes. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.