Thinx 67: Carolyn's book review

And so another Christmas has come, bringing with it the countless images of people having fun, receiving gifts and eating too much. These images are countered by an almost equal number of images of homeless people, those alone or sick, with the inferred question of what Christmas will be like for them. Some of these people are in their desperate situations because of poor choices they made; others because life is just unfair, even cruel. 

Annually, at Christmas time, this raises the question in my mind of why God allows suffering and evil. This year I decided to read up on this a little more deeply. Being the holiday season I went looking for something short and to the point, easy to read, not a long, complicated theological discourse. That's when I came across the “Little Black Book” series by Matthias Media, and in particular “Suffering and Evil” by Scott Petty. Small, only 54 pages, touted as 'books that get to the point', I opened to the introduction. I immediately liked the everyday, casual style of the language, but what got me in was the aim to to deal with the topic “with precision and compassion” (p5), looking especially at what the Bible character Job teaches about God, faith, evil and suffering (p7).

So … a cup of coffee, a comfortable lounge … chapter 1 …

© Copyright Carolyn Axtens, 2011.