"It matters a great deal who is going to win, but not at all who won"
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Russell Dickson, Calwell ACT Australia, Inspiring Publishers, 2014.ISBN 9781925011876
There is a dearth of good evangelistic sports material and Russell Dickson's short book (68 pages) is therefore very welcome. The author states his aim: "My aim in writing this book can best be summed up by one word. Contemplate..Contemplate the possibility that God is actually real”.
The book's subtitle is "A book for elite sportspeople. A message for every sports fan".
The first 32 pages tell the story of a fictitious Australia sprinter, Hepz, who is denied Olympic gold by 0.008 seconds. When the winner attributes his success to God, Hepz is cynical. In the coming months he becomes increasingly aware of "God stuff" in sport and begins to wonder if there is anything in it. He raises all the traditional objections to Christianity - and a few new ones.
The second half of the book contains the author's reflections on some of the issues raised by Hepz and his own experience of coming to faith.
The language of statements like "Once I accepted that real faith in God came from within my inner spirit" and "You need to make a faith decision" or "my decision to accept faith" (page 69) seem to fall far short of a Christian gospel where we accept God's forgiveness for our sins through believing in a Jesus who died on the cross for us.
The author's response to my review: "I deliberately intended to leave Jesus out in this book, after much consideration, as I chose to flush it out strongly in the second book.
"My experience is that my target audience first needs to reflect that 'God' be put back on the table for personal consideration before even channelling their thoughts in a certain direction".