What is the Open Forum?

The forum will take place on the 3rd Sunday of the month from 4-6 at 49 West, located at (yes) 49 West Street in Annapolis (about a block west of Church circle). Your first beverage is complementary. The forum is being sponsored by an informal group of friends who love Annapolis and seek to stimulate respectful conversation about faith and life. Belew is a book review of Timothy Keller's new book "The Reason for God." The book review gets to the heart of the kind of questions we're planning on focusing on at the Open Forums.

Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Dr. Timothy Keller

The issues in the public discourse around Christianity have become much more complex than they were in the mid and late 20th century. The questions are now not just philosophical (e.g. Is there evidence for God's existence?) They are also now cultural (Doesn't strong faith make a multicultural society impossible?), political (Doesn't orthodox religion undermine freedom?) and personal. Also fifty years ago, when C.S. Lewis was writing, there was general agreement that rational argument and empirical method were the best ways to discover truth. That consensus has vanished. Today there are deep disagreements over how we know things and how certain we can be about anything. Most of the older books presenting Christianity now are only persuasive and even comprehensible to a very narrow range of people.

All this means that there is a great need for new literature that speaks to our time and says, 'Christianity makes sense.' I know I'm only one of many who are trying to do this over the next few years. My contribution is slated to be released February 14, 2008, by Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Books. Its title is The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. You can find a little more information about it on Amazon.com.

Even though the book is not addressing believers, I still hope it will be a help to the members and friends of Redeemer. It may make it easier to represent your heartfelt beliefs to people you love. That's my prayer. - Dr. Timothy Keller

Downtown Open Forum

This is just a start