Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels (audio)
Overview
Written by an L. A. County homicide detective and former atheist, Cold-Case Christianity examines the claims of the New Testament using the skills and strategies of a hard-to-convince criminal investigator. Christianity could be defined as a “cold case”: it makes a claim about an event from the distant past for which there is little forensic evidence. In Cold-Case Christianity, J. Warner Wallace uses his nationally recognized skills as a homicide detective to look at the evidence and eyewitnesses behind Christian beliefs. Including gripping stories from his career and the visual techniques he developed in the courtroom, Wallace uses illustration to examine the powerful evidence that validates the claims of Christianity. A unique apologetic that speaks to readers’ intense interest in detective stories, Cold-Case Christianity inspires readers to have confidence in Christ as it prepares them to articulate the case for Christianity. J. Warner Wallace is a cold case homicide detective, a missions leader, and a church planter. As a result of his work with cold cases, Wallace has been featured on numerous television programs including Dateline, FOX News and Court TV. Wallace’s visual presentations in the courtroom have revolutionized how capital offense trials are presented in Los Angeles County and across the country. A vocal atheist for many years, Wallace is now an apologist for Christianity and the founder of the PleaseConvinceMe.com blog and podcast with a master’s degree in theology. He and his wife have four children and live in southern California. You can learn more at coldcasechristianity.com. You Can Believe Because of the Evidence, Not in Spite of It. For the first thirty-five years of his life, J. Warner Wallace was a devout atheist. After all, how can you believe a claim made about an event in the distant past for which there is little forensic evidence? Then Wallace realized something. Christianity was a lot like the cold cases he solved as a homicide detective—cold cases that turned out to have enough evidence, eyewitnesses, and records to solve. When Wallace applied his skills as an expert detective to the assertions of the New Testament, he came to a startling realization: the case for Christianity was as convincing as any case he’d ever worked as a detective.
Reviews
2 ratings
Joshua Bridges
4/8/2024
Is there a way that we can here a small 3 sentence statement by the person reading the book to see if we would rather buy the book or listen?
Joseph E
7/8/2023
Patrick
1/19/2022
Wallace is part of the next wave of evidentialists that stem from the people like Norman Geisler and Gary Habermas. Wallace can be compared to someone like Lee Strobel in that Strobel was a reporter who used his occupation to investigate Christianity and Wallace is a cold case detective. Wallace can also be compared to Frank Turek in that his critique (or at least initial critique) of skeptics is a questioning of the basic worldview presuppositions of the person. With Turek, I call it the Stealing From God/Stealing From Presuppositionalism direction. Wallace has an interesting approach and background. He grounds the historicity and truth of the Bible in an approach that he takes on solving crimes. It's a bit niche and brings elements of the scientific approach with the positives of circumstantial evidences. His history is fairly good and explanations of the transmission of the New Testament do a good job of showing the ahistorical views of skeptics like Bart Ehrman. However, the biggest flaw is in the approach itself. With the reliance on evidentialism, the arguments one can make only boils down to probabilities. While this isn't a defeater of the claims or history or teaching of the Bible, what it does cause is the putting of God in the dock and allows man to judge God. Whereas his first chapter takes an approach that is similar to C.S. Lewis' "Miracles" book (who was also an evidentialist). The change in approach, one from presuppositions to that of evidence, may cause more issues than is necessary. However, that is more of a critique against the approach taken and not of the book itself. Even presuppositionalists see the value of evidence and never claim that no one can be brought to faith in Christ by an evidentialist approach. While the book is good there are a few area where I think Wallace's background shtick (not to taken as a put down) gets in the way of the facts. For example, stating that there are only three reasons people commit murder (money, sex, power) and how the disciples fail those classifications so they should be trusted tends to miss out on some other reasons and it's not clear how murder motives can be transferred over to the possibility of establishing a religion from lies. Overall, I would recommend this book for those who are looking for an interesting light read in apologetics. This isn't a book that should scare people thinking it may be too technical. Good history and good logic. What it does well is make the case that people used flawed arguments against truth claims of the New Testament. The Bible can and should be trusted. Final Grade - B
