Beyond Born Again: Toward Evangelical Maturity

By: Robert M. Price

Narrated by: Robert M. Price

Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's Summary

In this critique of modern evangelicals, theologian and writer Robert M. Price outlines several of the difficulties to be found in traditional evangelical apologetics, such as the evangelical defense of the historical reliability of the gospels, the resurrection of Jesus, and the claims of Jesus to be divine. He concludes by outlining some possible directions for the future of evangelistic thought.

©1993 Robert M. Price (P)2018 Pitchstone Publishing

The most influential book in my deconversion

Reading this book as a missionary in Africa in the year 2000 destabilized my already faltering evangelical faith and led to my return from the mission field and eventual deconversion. Price's style is engaging, witty, and authoritative. I was delighted to discover the audio version of the book recently and imbibe it again for the first time in nearly 20 years. Much more enjoyable than the print version! Though I've read and learned much since the first go-around, I am reminded of why this book had such an impact on me when I first read it.

Evangelical Maturity

Being an Evangelical of the past cannot exist in the present. Basically this book encourages flexibility and adaptability to any believer

A Thought Provoking Work

If evangelism has left you feeling slightly off due to some holes in the thinking, Robert Price is here to explain why that is. I read this book year s ago and found it to be eye and faith opening. Hardly a call to atheism, the book is a call for mature thinking and critical, logical assessments of long held evangelical arguments.

Price sets forth evangelical arguments with care and fullness, arguing the pros and cons of the lines of thinking put forward. What one finds from his work is that many of the evangelical points of view do not always hold with other evangelical arguments and sometimes one argument cannot hold under its own weight.

The listener will find, though, that not having the text in front of them will be a bit problematic: Price has copious amounts of quotations and references. The listener will need to be focused on the narrative. Even then the amount of information can be overwhelming.

It is a little dated, especially when references to evangelical writers are from the 70s and earlier. However, their arguments have not changed so substantially as to find the critique has lost any cogency.

Price has gone on to write bigger and sharper works, himself leaving evangelism and Christianity behind. However, this book still has much to offer those for whom Christianity still remains a part of their lives. It challenges the reader - believer or not - to be cautious in their arguments and sometimes even to be more cautious in their criticisms.

Perhaps a better read than a listen, but an eye opener either way.

Perfect for the scholar

Whether one is a Christian or not, this book explains why fundamentalist (evangelical) Christians would do well to rethink how and why they interpret the Scriptures as they do. He’s not advocating people drop their faith, but just move away from silly notions.

Dr Price reads his work very well and it’s very understandable IF you have a working knowledge of scripture. This is a text book and really needs to be listened to as such, but it is clear and he gets his point across well.

If you’re a fan on The Bible Geek or the Human Bible (podcasts) you will NOT be disappointed.