InterVarsity Press, 2006, 164 pp., $13.00,
www.ivpress.com
Is Belief in God Good, Bad or Irrelevant? provides a unique format that immerses readers in an unlikely e-mail correspondence between Preston Jones, a history professor at John Brown University, and Greg Graffin, singer/songwriter for Bad Religion who has a Ph.D. in zoology.
While they often don’t agree in their exchanges on topics ranging from inquisitions to free will, Jones and Graffin are willing to dialogue with and learn from each other. To invite the reader to wrestle with the themes addressed in the e-mail messages, Jones provides study guides that include additional insights and resources, as well as research and discussion questions to consider.
This book is appropriate for post-high school Christian and non-Christian readers and offers a constructive model of how to dialogue with someone of a different worldview. As Jones and Graffin explain, “We think it is worthwhile for people to see what an uncanned, unorchestrated conversation between people of very different beliefs can look like.”
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Joe Cilek, program manager, Fuller Theological Seminary in Colorado.
