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A Newsweek squib on The Reason for God lamented that the book was bereft of Keller's personal "charisma and conviction." I was a member of Redeemer Presbyterian Church for eight years, and I would not describe Keller's style as charismatic. If there is an oratorical equivalent to digital plain text, that's Keller's style—but with a range of ideas and references that thicken his delivery to a level of sophistication capable of holding the attention of an educated audience. You never walk away from a Keller sermon feeling you have been rhetorically manipulated (think Spurgeon at his bombastic worse rather than his winsome, evangelical best). I would say the same for Keller's prose. He does not beguile the reader with many well–turned phrases or startling metaphors. But there is craft here—and conviction, even if expressed without adornment. Keller's is a cumulative and convincing disclosure of the Cross of Jesus Christ as the only viable option for putting what is wrong in a broken world right. And his gift does not lie so much in stunningly original answers to perennial questions about religious truth as in his ability to pinpoint his interlocutors' unexamined presuppositions—about morality, social justice, and even the justice of ultimate judgment (otherwise known as hell).
In a chapter titled "Intermission," Keller addresses concretely the stark differences between Christian denominations, admitting that someone who was not a Presbyterian minister would write a book with similar apologetic intentions in a different way. While he is attempting to defend "Apostles' Creed" Christianity, he nevertheless rejects the idea of a mere Christianity: "All Christians believe all this," Keller states, "but no Christian believes believe just this. As soon as you ask 'how does the church act as vehicle for Jesus' work in the world?' and 'how does Jesus' death accomplish our salvation?' and 'how are we received by grace?' Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians will give you different answers. Despite the claims of many to be such, there are no truly 'generic' non–denominational Christians. Everyone has to answer these 'how' questions in order to live a Christian life and those answers immediately put you into one traditional and denomination or another."
He is also emphatic that once someone has come to faith in Christ, joining a church is not optional: "The church of Jesus Christ is therefore like the ocean. It is enormous and diverse. Like the ocean there are warm and clear spots and deadly cold spots, places you can enter easily without danger and places where it will immediately whisk you away and kill you. I realize how risky it is to tell my readers that they should seek out a church. I don't do it lightly, and I urge them to do so with utmost care. But there is no alternative."
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