“Most professing Christians don’t know what they believe, and so can neither understand nore defend the Christian faith – much less live it,” according to Charles Colson and Harold Fickett in their book The Faith Given Once for All: What Christians believe, why they believe it, and why it matters. Furthermore, most non-believers draw their impressions of the Christian faith from the stereotypes and caricatures that popular culture produces.
The book is written to address these problems and provide a basic overview of the belief that the authors assert have been shared by all true Christians throughout history. The doctrines in question are identified in the Appendix as: God is; He has spoken; the Fall/Original Sin; the Incarnation; the Cross and atoning death of Christ; the bodily resurrection; the nature of God/His sovereignty; the Trinity; justification by faith/conversion; forgiveness and reconciliation; the Church; sanctification/holiness; the dignity of human life; and the return of Jesus and the end of history.
The idea behind the book is timely, and the book is written in an engaging anecdotal manner. However, in my opinion the anecdotal style reduces the book’s impact as a systematic exposition of Christian doctrines. The book seeks to elevate “sanctity of life” to the level of a fundamental Christian doctrine, when it is really a secondarily derived doctrine not directly appearing in the Bible. On the whole it is an interesting book to read, but I think a basic text on Christian beliefs is more satisfactory if it is sourced directly from the Bible, rather than being based on an externally-acquired set of doctrines.