Book Review of “Another Gospel?” by Alisa Childers

Is the Gospel as taught by the apostles just as true today, or does Christianity need an update? This is the question addressed by a book released this month, titled Another Gospel?, written by Alisa Childers. The subtitle reads, “A lifelong Christian seeks truth in response to progressive Christianity.”

I first learned about Alisa Childers when I listened to her speak on The One Minute Apologist Podcast. I enjoyed listening to her and decided I would buy her book as soon as it became available.

Alisa Childers was raised by caring Christian parents, was a member of the CCM band ZOEgirl, and loved Christ and the Bible. After her singing career ended, she and her husband joined a church they both liked. Soon, the pastor invited Alisa and some other church members to a special class he said would give them the equivalent of a seminary degree.

For Childers, who was a new mother and didn’t have a college degree, the class seemed like a great chance to stretch her mind. But she was puzzled when the pastor identified himself as a “hopeful agnostic” at the first meeting. The class went downhill from there, as the pastor criticized beliefs Childers had held all her life— including the trustworthiness and authority of the Bible, the fallen state of man, and even the Atonement. Members of the class were encouraged when they scorned traditional Christian beliefs and were given only more questions, never answers.

Today there’s a word for the path Alisa’s pastor was on and where he was trying to take the class: deconstruction. This movement of theological liberalism is called Progressive Christianity. (On the podcast I listened to, Alisa says her litmus test for progressive Christians is the question “Are you a sinner?”)

Childers grew increasingly distressed by the class, but she didn’t know how to respond to the skeptic pastor or the doubts in her own mind. One day, she was listening to the radio in her car when she heard a speaker responding to skeptics’ questions about Christianity. This is Alisa’s description of what came next.

“Branded into my memory is the calm, kind, and intelligent voice of a man who was answering questions on a secular college campus. One after another, students hurled their best skeptical objections against Christianity— each one thinking they had finally come up with the question that would stump the speaker and bury religion in its grave for good. One by one with skillful precision, he wisely and logically answered them… Nearly every one of the clever arguments that the progressive pastor had wielded in class was answered…”

After hearing the Christian apologist on the radio, Alisa decided to dive into the study of apologetics herself, to see if the evidence for historic Christianity is really there. Another Gospel? details the answers she found. Each chapter tackles different views taken by progressive Christians, with quotes from well-known leaders in the movement, and the historic Christian response.

Childers’ book is part memoir, part apologetics 101. I’ve read some books on apologetics before, but I definitely learned some new things from this book (for example, I never knew that 1 Corinthians 15:3–5 is probably the oldest creed in the history of Christianity and even skeptical scholars say it began circulating as early as two to seven years after Jesus’ resurrection.)

I enjoyed reading an apologetics book written from a woman’s perspective. She uses the example of a peach cobbler recipe passed from generation to generation to explain textual criticism. (Side note: I learned from the podcast Childers is a Complementarian.)

Childers is honest with problems that exist in some churches (such as hypocrisy in leadership) but she wisely points we can’t target the wrong thing (the doctrines of historic Christianity) in our anger.

Another Gospel? also addresses topics like critical theory, violence in the Bible, and heaven and hell, but her focus is on the hope and salvation found alone in Jesus Christ, not a fluffy god built on the sinking sands of our present culture’s likes and dislikes. Her writing is clear, concise, and easy to read. I highly recommend this book!