The (Ongoing) Current Read

This is a book I have had to put down several times. The author writes well, despite his own complaints regarding his talent, but he makes my head spin! I have emailed a couple of excerpts to a friend of mine in hopes he will locate a copy and read it. My own copy is borrowed, long overdue to be returned to its owner. At any rate, I felt this worth a post.

I should add that this dissatisfaction with the conservative Protestant Jesus intensified just last Christmas when one of my children was home for the holidays from college. I asked him how he was doing spiritually.

"I'm struggling, Dad." he said.

"Tell me about that," I said.

He replied,"Well, Dad, if Christianity is true, then nearly everyone I love is going to be tortured in the fires of hell forever. And if it's not true, then life has no meaning." He was silent for a moment and then added, "I just wish there were a better option."

My heart was broken. I asked, "Is that the understanding of Christianity you got from me?"

He replied, "No, but that's the way most Christians think. They just kind of bottom-line everything to heaven or hell, and that makes life feel kind of cheap."

My son's insight doesn't apply to the best expressions of conservative Protestants, but it does, I fear, apply to often to the most popular ones. He put into blunt and powerful terms exactly what I felt vaguely and inarticulately when I was his age.

There are a couple of reasons why I need to stop putting this book down and read it from cover to cover.

1. This book is a loaner. I really need to return it to its rightful owner
2. I fear the impact of this book will be lessened if I read it in a piece-meal way.