One Lord, One Truth, One Faith: The Only Legacy Worth Leaving

by Maurie Daigneau

In the summer before his senior year as quarterback of Northwestern University's football team, Maurie Daigneau attended his first Fellowship of Christian Athletes conference. By mid-week, his life had been changed forever. He had become a born-again Christian.

For the next 16 years, his life had all the accepted appearances of true faith: great marriage, five wonderful children, vocational contentment, heavy church involvement, and a genuine...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 059530205X
• ISBN13: 9780595302055
• Release Date: February 2004
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.1" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

A Faith-Inspired Look at How to Be a Christian

Mr. Daigneau did something with this book that I admire very much. He has set out the basis of his Christian faith so that his family can understand that faith. We are fortunate that he has shared his thinking with us both so that we may know God better and also to be inspired to do the same for our own families. Studying the Gospel is at the heart of Protestant Christianity . . . but few of us spend much time in that practice. Of those who do, rarely does anyone look past the apparent meaning of the translated words to capture what the Greek words meant at the time those parts of the Bible were written. Mr. Daigneau is one of those rare individuals who has sought to capture those insights. Mr. Daigneau had lived his life as a God-fearing Christian and had been active in his church. But he knew that he wasn't close enough to God, so he changed his life so that he could make that connection in the right way. In the process, he has discovered that you must not only let God into your life through Jesus Christ so that the Holy Spirit will be with you at all time . . . but you must let the Holy Spirit guide you so that you seek to do His will. Mr. Daigneau makes an especially telling distinction between our ability to know all of the thoughts of God and our ability to know what God wants us to do. I think that distinction alone is worth reading this book. I hope that you will choose to read this brief book that is so well packed with meaningful Scripture and helpful analogies. Even more so, I hope that you will find it in your heart to follow what God says to you as you read the book. Further, I hope you will share your faith in a helpful way to your family. Until you do that, you have not fulfilled your responsibilities.

Dynamite!

Maurie Daigneau's book on his search for the truth regarding his faith is dynamite. One Lord, One Truth, One Faith is a deeply personal and insightful book that examines what the true knowledge of what faith is and what having the knowledge of that faith means. Daigneau's extensive and exhaustive research takes him all of the way to the Greek translations of words used in scripture to discover what the writers really meant regarding God's word. Daigneau does not rely soley on the interpretations of historical, modern, or even contemporary Biblical scholars to discover God's truth. He does his own excavating to get to the heart of Christian faith and what it means not only to have faith, but to live it! The gold mined from Daigneau's efforts is that it is not enough to have faith and to profess faith. Christians must be active in their faith. They must not only believe in the salvation of Christ through His death on the cross, they must live their faith by abiding in Him, knowing His will, studying His word, and bearing fruit. According to Daigneau, Christ's death on the cross not only sanctified us, it also was an act of pure grace that freed us from our sinful nature. When He died on the cross, we (our old sinful self)died with Him. So, because of His death (and ours) we are no longer in bondage or held hostage by sin. We are therefore free to live the life that He meant for us to live; a life that should be lived giving glory to Him in all that we do and say. The essential question then is this: How then must we live? Being a Christian does not give the faithful a free pass to live life here on earth as we choose. God expects Christian's to come to the full knowledge of the truth and to live according to their faith; that should be a life that honors, glorifies God, and seeks His will in all things. This is not the "Christianity Lite" that many churches seem to embrace today. Daigneau clearly and unabashedly challenges the contemporary Christian Church and its members re-examine their faith and their teachings and to look with closer scrutiny at God's word and what it says to us. One Lord, One Truth, One Faith is not light reading. Some may find the fruits of Daigneau's research to be disturbing. They should! That is precisely the point. Maurie Daigneau's book will most certainly make you think and should make you re-examine your own faith and walk with the Lord. This book is a magnificent journey and would make a wonderful Bible study. Maurie Daigneau has done all of the heavy lifting for you. Readers are encouraged to have an open mind, and open heart, and an open Bible when reading it...and stay away from lit matches while you are reading it, this book is pure dynamite for the soul!

One man's challenging search for Biblical truth

One Lord, One Truth, One Faith is quite an unusual little book. Maurie Daigneau originally wrote the book for his sons and daughters, and he retained that frame of reference for publication to a wider audience. This works for and against the book to some degree, but the main thing it does is to reinforce the very personal nature of the truths Daigneau is attempting to express and the strength of his layman's commitment to an intense study of the Bible. I would argue that you do need to be a believer and have a decent understanding of Christianity before tackling this book. The author goes into great detail in places, dissecting a number of Biblical passages in an intense effort to get at the roots of their original meanings. While he does offer some effectively simple analogies to get his points across, those without grounding in the matters at hand may well find themselves quite lost.This book offers Christians an unusual means for challenging their faith. As a Christian myself, my own reaction to the book is a mixed one. I have no qualms about the suggestions the author lays out for leading a truly Christian life, and I in fact found several bits of insight in the body of his message. In my own case, however, I have to say that Daigneau goes against some important tenets of my own faith. Much of it comes down to the old faith vs. works argument, as Daigneau seems to say that faith alone is insufficient, that the salvation taught by the Christian church is not what it appears to be. The Holy Spirit enters your heart when you are saved, Daigneau says, but faith and belief alone won't get you into heaven. It is not enough to know God - you must live in Christ so that God will know you; otherwise, the "guarantee" of salvation is really only "hope." Thus, the author is saying that the Christian church is teaching a misleading if not outright false doctrine when it says faith alone is all that is required for complete salvation, and it is here that Daigneau goes across a line I for one will not cross. It does a Christian good to ponder the questions Daigneau poses, and to his credit he insists that the reader study the Word on his/her own rather than accept his or anyone else's word on the matter, but his obvious dissatisfaction with Christian churches may serve as an impediment to many. Daigneau makes extensive use of Scripture, quoting and analyzing one passage after another. The reader, of course, can (and probably should) do the same thing. The author's preferred translation, the New American Standard Bible, is far from my favorite choice, and I must say I interpret a number of the referenced passages differently than does the author. This may be one of the main benefits of the book - even if you disagree with some of the author's points, it leads you back into the pages of the Bible itself, and that is where salvation can truly be found. While I personally disagree rather strongly with some of Daigneau's main arguments, I have

A heartfelt, complex Christian commentary

Maurie Daigneau tells us at the beginning of "One Lord, One Truth, One Faith" that he wrote this short treatise on Christian faith for his children. When his eldest daughter went away to college, shortly followed by his other children, Daigneau felt that he should put down in words the spiritual tenets that served to guide him in his life, and that these words would hopefully continue to guide his children. Maurie Daigneau was a quarterback for Northwestern University when he attended a Christian Athletes conference. His experiences there led him to become a born again Christian. For the next sixteen years, he obediently followed the directives of his church while he raised a family and acquired the usual assortment of material goods all Americans feel they should never go without: a big house, cars, clothes, etcetera. Something happened one day, never elaborated upon in the book, which called into question everything he thought he knew about his relationship with God. His resulting quest to discover what the scriptures really mean led to a break with his church. It also led him to question the direction all Christian denominations seem to be taking in America.After reading the book, I began to believe all the stuff I heard about Northwestern focusing on academics over athletics. Daigneau is a smart guy if the complexity of his reflections on the Old and New Testaments are any indication. Rather than jot down a laundry list of beefs against mainstream Christianity, the author digs deep into the Bible to write what is essentially a biblical commentary about man's relationship with the Lord. You won't find any pithy, feel good aphorisms here. Nor will you find strident assaults against other religions, something too often prevalent in many books written from a Christian perspective. Daigneau warns the reader at the outset that multiple readings of his book may be necessary to understand everything he is trying to say, largely because modern Christianity tends to use the pulpit to spoon feed a specific set of simplistic, warm and fuzzy dogmas to the masses. And he's probably right; even the most ardent churchgoer will probably melt under the reams of biblical citations, quotations, and philosophical ponderings found on every page of the book. If your idea of religion is listening to someone tell you how to interpret the Bible without any questioning on your part, this book will present you with serious difficulties.Daigneau's pursuit of the true meaning of mankind's relationship with God leads him to question specific translations of certain words in the Bible. Knowledge, for example, and what it means in the context of God forms the beginning chapters of "One Lord, One Truth, One Faith." Obviously, one must know the Lord before one can partake of his divine wisdom and eternal truths, but how to do this? Daigneau pored over the Scriptures to discover that to really know God one must revere and become his eternal student. Clearing away the earthly ma