Disappointment with God

Rating:
Summary: You don't have to be disappointed with God to love this book
Review: I loved this book so much I bought ten copies and handed them out to my friends. I wanted everyone to know that disappointment is the norm for human beings, and that God isn't hating us when he allows us disappointments and sufferings. Yet, even in our disappointments, we can have an increased trust in Him.

This books doesn't offer pat answers to these three faith-shaking questions. It offers truth and hope.

Rating:
Summary: Best of Yancey's
Review: I've read through almost all of Yancey's stuff in the past month, and this book is it--Disappointment with God is his theological tour de force that put it in no fuzzy terms that:
1. God isn't obligated to reincarnate Himself and perform tricks just so that we will respond in faith;
2. Even if He did, it is unlikely that most people would respond in faith, as was evident in the lives of miracle workers like Moses, Elijah, and Jesus Himself;
3. God wants us to respond to Him in faith, faithfulness, and love--even if it means 400 years of silence from Him, as in the Intertestamental Period.
Although not everything in this volume is welcome (e.g. Yancey's apparently uncritical acceptance of Roman Catholicism), the author succeeds in demolishing the foundation of many a Word-faith health-and-wealth theology and putting our centre of focus squarely back where it belongs--the Supreme God.

Rating:
Summary: Forget It Unless You Take The Old Testament Literally
Review: Yancey is a very good writer; however, his valiant attempts to explain the "unfairness," "silence" and "hidden" nature of God are not convincing, and, in fact, raised more questions than they answered. Would have to agree with the reviewer who suggested that one look to the East for answers to these questions. The Bhagavad Gita provides more logical answers with less contortions in logic and reasoning.

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Summary: Life Changing
Review: I read Yancey's Disappointment with God during a time of crisis involving one of my children. It pointed me to a realistic faith in God that taught me that it really does "rain on the just and the unjust", and that no one - not even Christ himself -is beyond that. I appreciate Yancey's willingness to get "down and dirty" with honesty, hurt, frustration, and work until he fights his way to faith, a realistic faith. By the way we had another crisis later, which was actually worse than the first one. Thanks to a strong faith in God and Mr. Yancey's book, we were able to get through that one, with our faith stronger than it had ever been before. God bless Philip Yancey!

dl

Rating:
Summary: A book for believing orthodox Christians only
Review: I will admit that I did not have great expectations when I picked up Yancey's book. I expected the usual platitudes one is generally offered by today's Christians when big questions like "why do we suffer" are asked. As a young boy my minister reassured me that the Lord's ways are mysterious, that everything is ultimately for the best, and one day we will understand. So in this respect "Disappointment With God" did not disappoint, because that is basically Yancey's message. He does make a valiant attempt to prop up these arguments with his own interesting hypotheses, but ultimately he offers little insight beyond what my minister told me many years ago. We suffer because "life is unfair", but don't worry, it is not God's fault. He of course is not unfair. Nor is he impotent, for that matter. He just chooses to let suffering happen as a part of some inscrutable cosmic plan that will eventually end in happiness for us all. One day the Lord's kingdom will be restored on earth and all our tears will be wiped away, all our grief will end, and we will comprehend the divine scheme of things. At the end of the day, Yancey is asking us to have blind faith in a God who, by his own admission, and according to his own admittedly limited understanding, seems to act less compassionately than even an ordinary man.
In fairness, I did like Yancey's conclusion that above all else God wants our love, and I also thought he made some interesting points about the difference between "physical" or external success and happiness, and inner spiritual progress. The two are surely not always synonymous. But he only touches on this and does not fit it into any consistent or systematic theology.
Of course, he rests on the usual Christian orthodox assumptions about the veracity of the Bible, the divinity of Christ, and the Trinity; as well as a belief that we have just this one life on earth, and that our very existence began at birth. It is surely difficult to construct on these premises a coherent theology that answers the big questions we face. I don't personally believe that Christ himself held all of these assumptions, and it often seems to me that the Bible could be better interpreted and understood when compared with the axioms offered in other theistic creeds, especially those from the East. Sadly although perhaps not surprisingly, Yancey does not do this, other than one brief and inaccurate reference to Hinduism, which for my money deals much more substantially with the questions he tries to address.
Yancey makes no suggestion that any of our suffering may be caused by anything we have done ourselves; there is no mention of taking responsibility, of looking at our behaviour. I guess that's not surprising either, as he is struggling to understand why "Mafia dons and spoiled entertainers profit obscenely" and "faithful pastors are imprisoned". Again, his basic assumption that this is our only life leaves him completely in the dark, unable to make any sense of it all. His suggestion? "We need a new heaven and a new earth, and until we have those unfairness will not disappear." God, please take note.
In some ways I admire Yancey's faith, based as it is on little reason, but I feel that better answers can be found than those he offers, if one is prepared and able to question some of his fundamental assumptions (in particular the assumption that if he cannot understand why there is apparent evil in the world, then it cannot be understood by anyone, nor is it ever meant to be understood by us with our tiny brains).
I for one don't believe God has made it that difficult at all. Try looking at the Bhagavad-gita.

Rating:
Summary: Philip Yancey: The "C.S. Lewis" of Our Generation
Review: In *Disappointment With God*, Philip Yancey picks up at the point at which C.S. Lewis stops. In *The Problem of Pain,* Lewis addresses the intellectual question of the Modernist thinker, "How can a loving God allow evil and suffering in the universe?" Although Lewis is timeless in scope, Yancey goes one step further, unpacking not only the intellectual difficulties of pain, but also its many emotional complexities. After all, our Postmodern generation is, primarily, experiential. Yancey writes as one who knows-- as one who has experienced disappointment with God first hand and has found his faith not destroyed, but deepened.

As an aspiring Ph.D. student, part- time literature professor, and full time university administrator, I can not count the number of students and colleagues who have come to me for counsel in the midst of a crisis of faith. I have not yet met one postmodern intellectual who has walked out of my office with *Disappointment With God*. . . disappointed. This book will change your life.

Rating:
Summary: Honest Questions With No Easy Answers
Review: Yancey is up front about the problem of pain and suffering. This book was very influencial in making me think seriously about theodicy and our many questions about why we suffer. The most profound lesson I took from this book is an understanding about our responsibility to show God to others. Yancey's answer to the question, "Where is God when bad things happen?" is poignant and true. He is only as present as we, his followers, make him to be through our life and deeds. God is present through us as his children. Persceptions about God's absence are due to our lack of showing people him through our life.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointment with God
Review: By far the best book next to the word of God I have ever read. It shows things from GOD'S perspective and helps us ask the questoin: why is there any way to heaven at all? I love Yancey's style, too. Very practical. He always asks the questions I want to!

Rating:
Summary: Ad-infinitum, but never ad-nauseum!
Review: I will never finish this book (in the sense of setting it aside and forgetting about it). I will never quit reading it, ad-infinitum, but never ad-nauseum. I pick it up again and again, especially in those times when the circumstances of life seem to have let me down. Yancey has such an unforgettable, gentle and profound way of revealing the staggering puny-ness of the fist that would shake itself toward God... and all the while he reminds us of the importance of that fist to God. Where is God when we are experiencing our most profound disappointments? Is He blind? Or maybe deaf? Too busy? These are the kind of legitimate questions that this book is addressing. Specifically, the three questions no one asks aloud, and these are: Is God unfair? Is God silent? Is God hidden?

I've been reading theological books for over 17 years and I have yet to come across one that addresses these type of questions in a more sensible and Biblically sound way. The modest author would probably be the last person to guarantee some sort of miraculous breakthrough to any reader of his books... so I must do it for him. One thing is for certain... reading Disappointment With God will cause you to consider at least one other angle to questions that were previously seen as one-dimensional and unanswerable. And sometimes it's that one angle or fresh insight that can give us the strength to put our foot down on something that was all the while, (though we knew it not) solid enough to hold us.

Rating:
Summary: Where is God & how can we prove his presence?
Review: This book answers it! i bought this book 3 years ago. I lost the 1st copy to a friend who manipulated me into borrowing it to him, so i had to buy me another copy. It amazes me that i still keep reading it until now! So, beautifully express, nicely edited and excellently presented. Of all Philip Yancey's book and (forgive my choice of words) of all the Christian book i've come accross or read, this is my favorite and by far the most influential.

Yup, i got an entire collection of Yancey's book. Ain't my fault though. This book inspired me to read more of his works. Anyway, im a voracious reader of christian books and thought of giving one of his book 'The Jesus I never knew' a chance. Then the ball starts rollin. Oh how truly blessed we are because of guys like him, inspiring us and challenging us.

Going back to my title above, a lot of our brothers & sisters in Christ(misguided or otherwise) do ask for signs or miracles, Sometimes in Prophecy to prove God's presence or his existence. (though there's no harm to this). Seeking signs & wonders? let me quote from Yancey's book (my favorite expression): "God did so many times in the old testament, and with finality in the person of Jesus Christ. What further incarnation do we require of him?"

Yes indeed. We can only prove God's existence in the dimension of the spirit. In the eyes of faith. God gave us the answers in Lk 18:8 and Jn 20:29.

Now if you'll excuse me, i gotta see what my dear friend is up to again.