Owensboro native publishes first Christian book

August 1, 2021 | 12:10 am

Updated July 31, 2021 | 10:37 pm

Owensboro native John Davis recently published his first book, “God-Centered Christianity: The Bible’s Antidote for Self-Centered Religion.”

Davis, who grew up in Owensboro and attended Daviess County High School, said the idea for his book began years ago as a much smaller thing. 

“As I read through the Bible I began to notice all the ways the prayers of people in scripture sounded so much different than our own,” he said. “It was striking how they would appeal to God’s character, or his promises to ground their prayer requests. Our prayers are often self-centered, whereas so many of the prayers in the Bible are God-centered. I began to make a note in my Bible every time I ran across another God-centered prayer, and the notes just kept racking up. Pretty soon I had enough to where I was able to step back and analyze them, and I began to write about what I saw.” 

Davis said the more he wrote, the more he felt God pointing him in other directions.

“Pretty soon I had the beginnings of chapters on preaching, Bible reading, churches, and the gospel,” he said. “From there it kind of ballooned into this book.” 

Even though he is now a published author, Davis had resisted writing a book for years.

“I had a seminary professor tell me once, ‘Don’t ever write a book just to write a book. Only write a book if you have something to say, and someone else hasn’t already said it better,'” he said. “But God seemed to use the COVID-shut down, at least in my life, to push me toward this and once it got going, it felt like it was something from the Lord, not just something I wanted to do for myself.”

Davis said the book is about the extreme individualism that culture has infected and infested the church, to the point where faith, at least in places like America, is starting to look very self-centered, and very unlike what is find in the Bible. 

“We live in the most self-centered, introspective culture in history, I believe, and Christianity has not been immune,” he said. “Churches are bending over backwards trying to appease the preferences of consumeristic church shoppers. Much of the popular preaching today is implicitly teaching people that God and the Bible exist to boost their self-esteem. Christians are dividing and even refusing to attend worship over personal preferences, some of which have been central to the problems in churches during and after the pandemic.”

Davis said it is heartbreaking to watch and he thinks the answer is for everyone to take their eyes off of themselves and behold the glory of God. 

The book is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle versions. It can also be purchased directly from the Christian Restoration Association, who published the book. Their online bookstore can be found at bookstore.thecra.org.

August 1, 2021 | 12:10 am

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