Ed Gungor

Like many others who received this as part of the Early Reviewers, I thought I was going to receive a book with an honest, open discussion of the serious issues surrounding Christianity. Faith, the problem of evil and suffering, incompatibility with science: these are all areas the author tackles.

However, what I got was an apologetic for the Purpose Driven Life era. Another shallow repetition of nonsensical rationalization which isn't even interesting to a non-believer. Not only is there no serious exploration of any of these 'bothers', the author repeatedly sums up each item with (paraphrasing) 'well, I don't know why, I just know God is good/exists/knows/etc'.

Throw in an unscientific and very shallow discussion of evolution and sprinkle in a few references to those mean, angry atheists, and you've got yourself a pointless waste of a couple of hours.… (mere)

Attempts to adopt the new age concept of the so-called Law of Attraction promoted in the book and DVD, "The Secret" and "baptize" it with Christian theology. The Law of Attraction states that, by thinking positively about anything you want, it will be attracted to you and you're guaranteed to get it. There are some good points made in the book but they would be good advice without the "law". The author resorts to biblical proof texting, application of pop-psychology, and a host of qualifications that make the Law of Attraction pretty pointless.… (mere)

I received this book about a year after I was supposed to, so I felt no particular rush in actually getting a review of it finished. Finally I started to feel a little guilty, and decided to dig in before it was far too late, instead of merely too late.

But it turned out to not be an issues, as I blazed through this book at a very high clip. That might seem like a recommendation, but it isn't; let me explain: when reading a good book, I'll have to pause periodically, maybe every few pages, to reflect upon what I've read, and let it sink in. This goes double or triple for a particularly dense of philosophical book, which I suppose is what I was expecting out of this. On the other hand, this book is so devoid of content that the pages simply flew by, making little to no impression on me. The only times I had to take a break were the times when my patience with the author completely ran out.

He seems to want very badly to think of himself as open-minded. It's right there in the title! And yet the answers to all of his hard questions comes down, more or less, to "but nevermind that, because we know [our particular brand of] Christianity is right." To be honest, I don't think anything actually bothers him about Christianity. At least not seriously. He isn't grappling with these issues. He merely seems to be acknowledging that some people find them to be issues, and then dismissing them because of FAITH. As if it were a good thing.

I don't even think this is a matter of my not being the target audience for the book, because the book is so pitifully insubstantial that I'm not even sure it has an audience. Maybe other Christians who want to fancy themselves open-minded? They certainly ought to enjoy the book's reading level. It seems to be right about at their intellectual level. Oh, damn, I almost made it the entire review without a snarky comment.… (mere)