Review: Cold-Case Christianity for Kids

Jim Warner Wallace.  Cold-Case Christianity for Kids.  Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, October 1st 2016. 127 pp.

4 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

This is an apologetics’ book geared towards kids.  The publisher labeled the book as Juvenile Nonfiction.  Technically it’s actually a book that lets the readers enter a fictional story of being a cadet in a “Cadet Academy” analogous to the Police Explore program (where kids have the opportunity to understand how the police work) but with a twist: the detective teaching the class also present reasons why Christianity is a faith that is true.  The author is Jim Warner Wallace who in real life has worked for decades as a police officer and cold-case detective.  As a detective he became a Christian when he started to look into Christianity.  With his background he applied his detective skills in evaluating and later defending the Christian worldview.  There’s definitely a lot of good illustrations, examples and analogy that detective Wallace draws upon to make his point throughout the book.  I read this aloud to my daughters and they enjoyed this book more than I expected (my oldest is eight and youngest is four).

The book is narrated in a way that involves the reader’s participation as a kid in the Cadet Academy.  When some kids discovered a mysterious skateboard in the school shed the detective who teaches the class used the situation to teach about police investigative methods and also how it relates to the truthfulness of Christianity.

The book consists of eight chapters.  Chapter one begins with a warning of not being presumptuous which here is termed as being a “Know-it-all.”  The first chapter and various other chapters teaches readers how to think and I appreciate that rather than it just telling readers what’s the evidences for Christianity is without an awareness and consciousness that methodology matters.  Also as I mentioned earlier I enjoyed the author’s ability to draw examples from the world of investigation to apply it to apologetics especially in the area of historical apologetics.  These two reasons makes Jim Wallace one of my favorite evidential apologist.

Readers will enjoy the author’s own illustrations, something the author often do in his own work as a detective to show visually what’s the evidence and case for something.  There’s also helpful sidebars throughout each chapter such as “CSI Assignment” that encourages readers to look at biblical passages and fill in the blank as an assignment.  Also there is the “Detective definitions” sidebar that my daughters find helpful since sometimes they wanted to know or need a further discussion and time to understand a term being used.  This is very helpful.  I also like how the chapters also deal with objections of the skeptical kind and how the fictional detective in the book refutes it by pointing out we are inconsistent not to argue in that same skeptical way in real life and in other investigative situation.  The book also encourages readers to use further resources from the book’s website and also ends with “A Challenge from J. Warner Wallace” that encourages kids to be a witness to others. There is also some sample Fill-in Sheets after that and a certificate of promotion in the very end.

Overall I found it interesting and creative.  I do wish there were more worldview level discussions since I think one’s worldview shapes how we interpret evidences.  Yet Wallace’s book for kids shows more consciousness of how we know what we know than even some basic apologetics books written for adults.  From my own family experience having read this aloud to my kids I enjoyed further discussions the chapters provoke about Christianity, the Bible, history, worldview, epistemology and yes also police and detective work.  There are things one can learn from this book and not just only for kids but parents as well.