Is God to blame?

This is often the question that comes to mind when we confront real suffering in our own lives or in the lives of those we love. Pastor Gregory A. Boyd helps us deal with this question honestly and biblically, while avoiding glib answers.

Writing for ordinary Christians, Boyd wrestles with a variety of answers that have been offered by theologians and pastors in the past. He finds that a fully Christian approach must keep the person and work of Jesus Christ at the very center of what we say about human suffering and God's place in it. Yet this is often just what is missing and what makes so much talk about the subject seem inadequate and at times even misleading.

What comes through in Is God to Blame? is a hopeful picture of a sovereign God who is relentlessly opposed to evil, who knows our sufferings and who can be trusted to bring us through them to renewed life.

Read an excerpt

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Why Did God Do This?
1. The Lie and the Truth
2. Evil and the Blueprint
3. Freedom and Risk
4. Complexity and War
5. Omnipotence and Two Variables
6. Prayer and Ambiguity
7. Life and Hope
8. Mercy and Hardening
9. Providence and Control
Epilogue
Notes
Scripture Index

"Greg Boyd addresses what may be the single most asked question among skeptics and seekers. Many without Christ are still waiting for us to respond with an intelligent answer. Greg provides an apologetic that actually makes sense about an issue that really matters!"

—Erwin Raphael McManus, Lead Pastor, Mosaic, Los Angeles
"Boyd argues forcefully that, for Christians, the deepest revelation of God's character has to be the cross of Christ, where God's glory is revealed not as compelling power but as sacrificial love. . . . For Boyd, the mystery of suffering resides not in God's inscrutable will or a possible 'dark streak' in God's character, but in the complexity of a universe where freedom and risk are realities that even God must experience. Always compassionate, sometimes cantankerous, and capturing biblical concepts with memorable clarity, this challenging book should be a valued resource for pastors, counselors, support groups, and individual study."

—Publishers Weekly (starred review) August 25, 2003

Intervarsity Press, 211 pages, paperback,