The God Question: An Invitation to a Life of Meaning by JP Moreland

The God Question has something for everyone. It is well-written, warm, clearly argued without being overly technical, and engaging. Even if you are a skeptic and disagree with his conclusions at the end of the day, I think you will concede that Moreland has been fair, honest, thoughtful, and authentic about life's biggest question...God.

Dr. Moreland is a prolific author who has written on a wide variety of topics like: happiness, the existence of God, the nature of the soul, spiritual formation, and doubt, just to name a few.

In this book, you get a little bit of all of that (and more) sprinkled in and shaped into a compelling narrative journey of faith. Moreland does not shy away from hard topics like Hell and how can Jesus be the only way. He also spends time exploring who Jesus was and how we can know about Him in history. Moreover, he talks about the powerful evidence for God from the origin and design of the universe in an accessible manner. But this is not merely a book defending the faith (i.e., apologetics).

Moreland places these fascinating and important discussions within the narrative of the Biblical story and his own faith journey in walking with Jesus for 40 years. For example he lets the reader into his own relationship-struggles and joys-with Jesus. And then he places this discussion within a wonderful explanation of the central message of Jesus: proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God.

Moreland paints a compelling (and jargon free) picture of what eternal life with God could and should be like according to the New Testament while also spending subsequent chapters talking about how to get good at life according to Jesus. Finally, he wraps up with an enlightening chapter on the afterlife.

Today, there is a lot of confusion about religion in general and Christianity in particular. If you are looking for a thoughtful book, written from the perspective of a follower of Jesus, and that gets past the heat and stereotypes, then The God Question is for you.