Title: The Searchers
Author: Joseph
Loconte
Pages: 207
Year: 2012
Publisher: Thomas
Nelson
Note: I received a
complimentary copy for an honest review of this book. The opinions shared in this review are solely
my responsibility. Other reviews can be
read at http://seekingwithallyurheart.blogspot.com/
. Also follow me on Twitter
@lcjohnson1988
The Searchers is a
nonfiction book supposedly following the two men on the road to Emmaus after
the crucifixion of Christ. The author
has a background in journalism and history.
He seems to have a wide variety of knowledge in history and modern
entertainment that he puts to use in this book.
Each chapter begins with a portion
of the text of this event taken from the Bible in the book of Luke. This is followed by a scene from a movie or a
few short paragraphs of an event from history.
Then, the author begins the exploration of the portion of text from the
book of Luke. However, instead of
exploring Scripture, the reader is introduced to a host of other subjects
ranging from Elvis, Darwin, Isaac Newton, a freak car accident, John Lennon,
and a brief look at a time in history of the country of Turkey. This list is by no means inclusive. There are a lot of other tangents presented
by the author that do not seem to have a lot to do with the subject of the
book.
There is a brief “Preface” at the
beginning that sets the stage for what I thought the book was to be about very
nicely. The book also includes an
extensive “Note” section at the end, citing the sources of the content of the
many tangents. The chapters are long,
and I found them difficult to read and follow.
There seems to be so much jumping from one place to another it was hard
to find my way to what the chapter was supposed to be about.
The author did make some valid
statements about how, over time, God is being taken out of the scientific quest,
the poison of “religion”, and Christian hypocrisy. However, I did find a tendency to put all
Christians or Christian leaders in the same boat. While there are examples of Christian
hypocrites, there are also many Christians who are not hypocrites.
All-in-all, I found this book to
not be one of my favorites. Maybe the
author uses so many modern references to try and draw in non-believers or
younger readers. I do not know the
author’s intent. I was left searching
for a uniform, cohesive explanation as to why this event is Scripture is so
important.
My rating is 2 stars.
