Mitch Stokes, Ph.D.
Thomas Nelson, 2012, 272 pp., $16.99
Early in my youth work career, I tended to stay in my wheelhouse of game books and teen-related topics. Reading other books just got in the way of doing my job. If I did read a deeper book, it had bullet points and sometimes pretty pictures. That is why I liked Mitch Stokes’ A Shot of Faith to the Head because it had none of those. In fact, I struggled to read the book for a bit because the book does not give the easy answers right up front; you have to dig a bit. This is not one of those books that gives you 10 easy steps to squash atheists with your Bible. Stokes takes it to the next level and picks apart belief and faith itself and why we need to look deeper into why we believe.
Stokes takes faith and belief and stacks them against science, evolution and unbelief in a way that will challenge any believer to respond intelligently to questions about faith and produce answers beyond bumper sticker one-liners. The best line of the book, which eased some of my evangelical anxiety, was his simple insistence of not having always to be ready to prove there is a God, when he says, “the sooner we disavow ourselves of this impossible standard the better.” Stokes does not offer us proofs to show the word there is a God, but clues to share about a God who desperately loves our world—even the atheists.
