“My biggest hope for this book is not that you walk away believing and supporting every conclusion I’ve drawn but that it spurs you to figure out what you think for yourself and why.” – Knox McCoy, All Things Reconsidered

I jumped at the chance to read this book! Popular podcaster Knox McCoy is hilarious and I love the way he seamlessly blends pop culture references with biblical wisdom on his show. This book is supposed to push you to ask yourself tough questions and be willing to reconsider your beliefs. Not just what you believe but WHY you believe it.

Synopsis

Knox McCoy looks back at his own life & fundamental convictions—both secular and spiritual. Along with the the humorous and the mundane comes deeply vulnerable revelations from Knox’s heart as he interrogates his own foundational beliefs. His stories will encourage readers to think about their own convictions and how reconsidering them leads to a deeper understanding of what they believe and why.

“It is no longer enough to react to an issue. It is our obligation to dig a little deeper to more completely understand it.”

Review

That might have been his goal with the book, but he took the long way around to get there. The parts that were good were REALLY good! I just wanted MORE of them. Maybe it’s because we’re in the middle of a pandemic. Maybe it’s all the marches and protests for the BLM movement that are pushing me to do more. But I was hoping for a real break down and questioning of why for SO many more things. Instead 2/3 of the book is about nothing. It often felt like a Seinfeld episode – mildly entertaining but at the end it wasn’t really about anything. He talked about Big Bird and Michael Jordan and weird kid names, none of which amounts to much other than entertainment. And he’s funny!! And the book is entertaining! But it doesn’t get to the good stuff that’s claimed in the synopsis until the end.

“When you are confronted with someone’s humanity, it forces you to put away generalizations of how they should be and reconcile with how they actually are.”

My favorite part of the book is the last third. That’s where the rubber meets the road and he finally talks about things from evolution and salvation to LGBTQ rights and prayer. These parts are AMAZING. Only Knox could get away with comparing God to Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible and have it make total sense. In this part of the book, he asks real questions and pushes back on mainstream modern church ideas. I wish this had been the entire book! When he’s deep, he has a lot of meaningful things to say. Maybe the first part of the book was just a warm up. But it felt like two different books.

“Faith demands the reconsiderations of doubt. It is our obligation to not be so lazy in our faith that we forget to doubt. But also not be so lazy in our doubt that we forget to build an actual and realized faith.”

Thank you to Thomas Nelson, TLC Book Tours, and Knox McCoy for my #gifted copy. To check out more reviews see my blog and follow me on Instagram!