Engaging God's Problem -- About the Author.

Much of chapter 1 of God's Problem by Bart Ehrman is his personal story of how he moved from being a Christian theist to an agnostic. Who an author is and where he has come from are often factors in how they view things and so I am commenting on his background. What I am including here is what he says about himself so keep that in mind.

1. Bart was baptized in an Congregational church but raised Episcopalian. There is no story here of conversion in the classical sense -- he is born into the church and it is always a part of his life.

2. At a Youth for Christ rally he had what he calls a born again experience but in his description is not one of personal transformation but one of desire to escape hell. The experience 'ratcheted my faith up a notch" but there is no evidence from what he says that God became a personal God to him.

3. He had a desire to do ministry and went to Moody Bible Institute but had to finish at Wheaton because Moody was not accredited at the time. He then attended Princeton Theological Seminary eventually receiving his Ph.D in New Testament Studies.

4. His Ministry included work in a Evangelical Covenant Church and an American Baptist Church along with being a professor. He is well versed in classical Christianity and the Christian Faith.

5. He left his faith kicking and screaming and in the end became an agnostic because of the problem addressed in this book -- suffering.

6. He is currently the Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and has authored at least a couple books --this one in 2008 and Misquoting Jesus in 2007.

Evaluation:
I wish I could say I am surprised at his background, but Bart actually represents a larger group of people who cannot reconcile the world around them and their faith. Their faith however, in my humble opinion, is faith based on a faulty view of God and a particular interpretation of God's Word that comes from a Baptist /Calvinistic background. Coupled with a liberal education where the historicity of the Bible is undermined and questioned and you get an agnostic.

I have a few questions:
1. In his examination of the problem of suffering I wonder how much time was spent looking at other interpretations of Scripture other than the classical ones?
2. I wonder how much Higher Criticism affected his interpretations and affected his judgment on the issue?
3. I wonder how one would convince a person to return to Christianity after leaving if no answer will seem to do no matter how much it may make sense?

Still he is a person I would love to talk to because we both had the same problem at about the same time in our lives -- his was 15 years ago or so and mine more recent but in both cases it was the problem of suffering and evil that nearly broke me a couple years ago and it is the problem that broke him. The significance is three fold

1. One I was trained to believe, he to doubt
2. I understood that born again required transformation and was not ultimately about escaping hell but entering to dynamic relationship with God, he did not.
3. I was not afraid to look at the entire Bible differently if the theory I was trying to make work was just not working. I believe in possibilities of interpretation and was not afraid to take on the status quo of both higher criticism and classic theology.

This engagement will be interesting