God's Problem by Bart D. Ehrman
Reviewed by Anne Southwood, co-chair of Voice of Renewal/Lay Education Working Group
Bart Ehrman is author of New York Times bestseller Misquoting Jesus. This new book – God’s Problem – is also written simply and directly for a broad audience. It is not too heavy to take to the beach and easily understandable to anyone with basic scriptural knowledge. It would also be helpful to anyone wanting to improve understanding of the flow of scripture amid different approaches to understanding relationship to God.
The relational simplicity of God's Problem is only available to someone who has devoted his life to religious studies and to religious expression. As a young baseball player taken out of the game for a summer with a debilitating virus, Ehrman used the natural agility and courage of a second baseman to survive. He discovered another natural ability and love - research. A child of religious parents, his skills and environment brought him to a Protestant seminary. He is also a seeker with broad experience. He has moved through different religious experiences from Episcopalianism to Evangelical to Baptist. He has also taught at UNC, Rutgers and Princeton.
Here comes that curve ball. This one is different. In this book our expert notes the reality of the absence rather than the presence of the God he has framed his entire life around. He has become an agnostic. What is God's problem?
If the bible is the inspired word of God, why can't our expert author rely on it anymore to help him understand the suffering of his friends, victims of the Khmer Rouge, or deal with his sense of insult that he lives a prime life amid the evil of children dying of starvation. He has suffered a great loss and is in the same desert as Mother Teresa. A poignant paragraph about his inability to relate to the joy of his wife at a Christmas Eve liturgy says it all.
Ehrman is relevant, however. The recent Pew Research Study indicates surging changes in religious expression in America and also defection from religious expression, especially among the young. The young appreciate truth. This author offers his skills and a sense that you are not alone as he continues to try to relate to students and seekers. This is far from an answer book, but Ehrman walks with the seeker offering an objective guidebook through biblical literature on suffering. Interestingly, his personal choice of a fallback position in this agnostic period is also biblical - Ecclesiastes and his continuing sense of pastoral responsibility, love life, do good - back to his roots directives will carry him through.
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