Born in China to missionary parents, he is the great-great-great-grandson of Arthur Guinness, the Dublin brewer. After witnessing the climax of the Chinese revolution in 1949, he was expelled with many other foreigners in 1951 and returned to England where he was educated and served as a freelance reporter with the BBC. Since coming to the U.S. in 1984, he has been a guest scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution. He was the lead drafter of the Williamsburg Charter, celebrating the First Amendment, and has also been senior fellow at the EastWest Institute in New York, where he drafted the Charter for Religious Freedom. He also co-authored the public school curriculum Living With Our Deepest Differences. Guinness has had a lifelong passion to make sense of our extraordinary modern world and to stand between the worlds of scholarship and ordinary life, helping each to understand the other--particularly when advanced modern life touches on the profound issues of faith. He lives with his wife Jenny in McLean, Virginia, near Washington, D.C.
"A remarkable book. Written with the benefit of decades of
experience and reflection--this is one book on apologetics you will
not want to miss. I wholeheartedly recommend it."--Michael Ramsden,
joint director, Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics,
international director, RZIM for Europe, the Middle East and
Africa
"If Twain and Chesterton were writers who marshaled wit and paradox
in commending wisdom, Guinness richly mines many a classic vein of
wisdom, and wit, to help Christians in our time discern what it
means to be winsome, and compelling, in commending faith. . . . How
can we speak for our Lord in a manner that does justice to the
wonder of who God is, to the profundity of the good news He has
entrusted to us, to the wily stubbornness of the human heart and
mind, as well as to the wide-ranging challenges of today's world
and the mind-boggling prospects of tomorrow's? In short, how can we
as followers of Jesus be as truly persuasive as we desire to be?
These are questions worth asking--and seeking answers, readers can
do no better than turn the pages of this book. For over forty
years, Dr. Guinness has crafted learned, witty, and compelling
books. This book may be his finest--one rich in simile, parable,
and insight."--Kevin Belmonte, Huffington Post, June 24, 2015
"Os Guinness's books have been invaluable for the Christian church
for decades. A great deal of what I know about communicating the
faith in modern times I learned from him. This book does not
disappoint. Unlike most books on apologetics, it addresses the
actual dynamics of conversation and persuasion--as well as
providing an unusually comprehensive range of accessible and useful
arguments and appeals for the truth of Christianity. I highly
recommend it."--Tim Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York
City
"This is a timely book. It provides a much-needed and magisterial
reaffirmation of that most biblical of New Testament models of
evangelism--persuasive evangelism--bringing together evangelism and
apologetics, heart and mind, objective and subjective, reason and
faith. In short, it articulates and defends the most common form of
evangelism in the New Testament. One of the most urgent needs of
the global church is to recapture the biblical emphasis on
persuasive evangelism. If the church (and most public evangelists)
are able to heed Os Guinness's urgent call, it will lead to more
faithful (and I suspect, more fruitful) evangelism, as well as the
unexpected byproduct of greater confidence amongst believers in the
truth claims of the gospel."--Lindsay Brown, international
director, the Lausanne Movement, director, the Fellowship of
Evangelists in the Universities of Europe
"Guinness is a master wordsmith, using biblical theology, logic,
history, philosophy and a keen understanding of worldviews to
express his insights. This book about apologetics and evangelism
avoids the overused cookie-cutter approach to sharing the gospel. .
. . Readers interested in apologetics and evangelism will need time
and focus to absorb this profound work."--John Bernstein, CBA
Retailers + Resources, July 2015
"Guinness offers helpful discourse on the anatomy of disbelief, how
to respond to it, and how to avoid compromise while charting a
journey toward faith."--Publishers Weekly, May 11, 2015
"Here Os Guinness is ringing the bell that must be heard. Christian
abandonment of evangelism, apologetics and discipleship, in a
cynical age, is deeply serious. Social justice isn't enough. We
simply must quickly recover the art of persuasion that loves and
awakens souls. The world, deaf as it may at times seem, is dying
for good news. Dr. Guinness shows us the brilliant 'advocacy of the
heart' that wins not just arguments but, far more importantly,
people. The gospel, Os reminds us, is the highest form of love. The
best news. And the only hope for a world awaiting its
redemption."--Kelly Monroe Kullberg, editor, Finding God at
Harvard, founder, The Veritas Forum
"I have been waiting a long time for this book and I am not
disappointed. Os Guinness brings together the rare combination of a
firm grasp on a biblical view of unbelief with an acute
understanding of people within the dynamics of modern culture. In
relating apologetics to evangelism as he does, he engages us in the
complexity of the interpersonal relationships that are so
overwhelmingly relevant to communicating the gospel today. His
discussions of diversion and hypocrisy are especially fresh and
helpful."--Dick Keyes, L'Abri Fellowship, Southborough,
Massachusetts
"In a battle of ideas, unlike a battle between nations, the goal is
not to vanquish the opponents but to win them. Making that
challenge even more difficult is that oftentimes, what we win them
with is what we win them to. The art and science of dialoguing and
debate must bring together the message and the method in concert.
No one does this better than my colleague Os Guinness. For years I
have benefited from his incisive thinking and carefully studied
presentations. Here, he wisely observes that 'Our urgent need today
is to reunite evangelism and apologetics, and make sure that our
best arguments are directed toward winning people and not just
winning arguments.' I am thrilled to see his unique thinking on
these crucial subjects, co-extensive with a lifetime of doing
apologetics. It is a must-read for anyone interested in engaging
the skeptic or seeker. Few thinkers today rise to the level that Os
does, even as he plumbs the depth of vital issues in defense of the
historic Christian faith."--Ravi Zacharias, author and speaker
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