Published: January 13, 2009
Searching For A Better God Book Review
By Wheldon Curzon-Hobson
This book outlines the charge against Christianity in modern Western society: that God, if he exists, is not a good God, and his morality is inferior to that of a human.
This challenge is further compounded by the modern ambiguity of the term God. When surveys are conducted in the United States, the majority believe in some Supreme Being, but this may not resemble the traditional God of the Bible. An increasingly common definition is that God is all good, a goodness that is defined by modern society's relativist and inclusive morality.
Socrates famously challenged Euthyphro by asking if an act was pious because the gods love it, or do they love it because it was pious? Traditional Biblical Christianity argues that God only loves an act if it is good, and that the good act is to be loved because its goodness is derived from Himself. God only loves what is good, and only does what is good, as defined by himself because he is the origin and definition of good.
In modern society, however, many are arguing that this logic is flawed because the Creator as defined by the Bible is not good. It is further claimed that the God of the Bible, the Father of humanity, has a remarkable number of similarities to the classic symptoms of an abusive spouse. This charge is backed up by the various crimes of abuse committed by leaders of the church over the previous decades.
The argument concludes that if the Bible represents a God who is not good, then God needs to be redefined. The result is that the God of the Bible is discarded in favour of a more humane, increasingly inclusive, accepting and non-judgmental god.
Wade Bradshaw takes these statements in his stride. He argues that the church should not succumb to such arguments. Instead, it needs to make what he terms the Old Story more comprehensible and relevant to the modern world. In doing so, the God of the Bible is not weakened or changed, but presented in such a way that the modern mind can connect and understand Him.
Bradshaw repudiates many of the charges laid against God and puts forward a number of solutions. He does tend to talk around a subject rather than clearly outlining the issues and potential solutions. Nonetheless, he puts forth many excellent arguments to support God's goodness, despite the accusations of God's immorality, anger, distance and bullying.
Searching For A Better God will leave you with an understanding of the moral challenges facing the contemporary church, and provide you with a comforting sense that God is in fact good, and that there are excellent arguments to support this claim.
ISBN13: 978934068007
Publisher: Authentic Publishing, www.authenticbooks.com
Page count: 159
Price: US$14.99
Wheldon Curzon-Hobson is a New Zealand author and book reviewer. Contact him by writing to NewsBlaze or visit his blog at wheldonreviews.blogspot.com
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