Why should anyone believe in God in a world with so much pain?

How can I be part of the church when it’s so full of hypocrisy?

Isn’t “spiritual but not religious” enough?

What makes Jesus more important than Muhammad, Buddha, or other religious leaders?

Why should I trust Christianity when it’s hurt so many people? What if it hurt me?

Most Christians have found themselves in conversations with nonbelieving friends and family where these kinds of questions have come up. In fact, most Christians have probably found themselves asking these questions too. But everyone who has ever wondered about such complicated things knows that this is dangerous territory—after all, what if there’s no easy answer?

This book welcomes and encourages these questions that Christians “aren’t supposed to ask.” In each chapter, James Brownson introduces a particular question and then reframes it with a relevant passage from the Bible, bringing to bear his expertise as a biblical scholar. Rather than providing dogmatic (and ultimately unsatisfying) “Sunday school answers,” he explores the questions in provocative ways that often challenge the status quo of American Christianity. Fittingly, each chapter closes with discussion questions and suggestions for further reading, so that the conversations begun here can continue among the book’s readers in fruitful ways.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Hypocrisy

2. Hope

3. Pain

4. Politics

5. Sexuality

6. Other Religions

7. Failures

8. Spirituality

9. Fruitfulness

10. Hurt

11. Abuse

12. Church

13. Women

14. Doubt

15. Hell

16. Relevance

17. Slavery

Conclusion