Set Adrift

Deconstructing What You Believe Without Sinking Your Faith

By: Sean McDowell, John Marriott

Narrated by: Mark Smeby, Steve Johnson

Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

How to analyze and reevaluate your Christian beliefs and experiences in the church while keeping the core of your faith intact.

The number of Christians leaving the church today is significant. Many feel there is no place for them within the faith—they no longer feel at home in their church community or tradition. For various reasons, they are unsettled by the version of Christianity they've inherited.

Stripping away the nonessential aspects of Christianity, Sean McDowell and John Marriott will help you navigate the jarring questions and cultural challenges that lead many to walk away from the faith. You'll come to recognize that there are other ways Christians throughout history have understood what faithfulness to Jesus looks like.

Each chapter provides practical advice on how to disassemble, rethink, and reassemble beliefs that are truly Christian and culturally and personally relevant. You'll learn how you can continue to seek an authentic faith by:

• Establishing Jesus and his teachings as the foundation.
• Utilizing the creeds as boundary markers of what is essential.
• Seeing the entire Bible as a truthful revelation from God.
• Seeing Christianity as a historic and global tradition that encompasses diverse communities and viewpoints.

The authors of this book can personally identify with the process of disillusionment that many young believers go through. They wrote Set Adrift as people who had to navigate their own way back through the fog of deconstruction. They wrote it to offer their own personal suggestions for what to do when you're not sure what to believe anymore.

Reflection questions and resources are included in the audiobook companion PDF download.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Sean McDowell and John Marriott (P)2023 Zondervan

Essential reading for the sure and unsure

Deconstruction has been turned into such an effective and frightening weapon against Christians with unexamined faiths. Unless you are a hermit, you will undoubtedly encounter deconstructionist assertions through even superficial engagement with the culture. This is getting worse, not better. This book provides valuable insight for the process of self examination that is practical and helpful. For seasoned believers, it is an incredible insight into the war being waged in the minds of believers confronting deconstruction. I did not find the book to be political or unfair the brief times it did bring up Donald Trump or progressivism. The care and concern shines through, highly recommended.

Interesting points

I enjoyed the conversational points of this book and definitely the definitions of certain terms being used today. They gave sone great examples and stay true to Gods word, but there are aspects of this book that are not necessarily needed. They add comments that just make others look silly or points on only Trump as a presidential candidate and how he’s a bad person. They explain reasoning into these comments but honestly I feel like they are not needed. Lastly, they say there should be fenced in place to allow minds to wonder, which I agree but they should have said the fences are Gods word not creeds. Overall good but I felt like it leaned a little to the left even though they extensively call out progressive Christianity.