Way persuasively argues that a physical resurrection is impossible and unproven. He asks a series of challenging questions, including why Jesus was able to feed 5,000 people from “someone’s snack” a single time but not repeat the process to feed all the hungry people he encountered on a daily basis: “The argument that ‘God can do anything,’ ‘It was only for Jesus,’ or ‘It was for that one special occasion’ is totally illogical, insufficient, and dodges the basic issue,” he writes. He asserts that natural laws come directly from an unchanging God, so tales of miracles that contradict physics must only be stories. He also proposes that “Jesus made deliberate efforts to restore Jewish worship to its Hebrew core, not replace it” and didn’t intend to start a new religion.

Many devout Christians will condemn the work as heretical, but open-minded readers may find Way’s well-reasoned, passionate arguments compelling, and his refrain that God is love and there is no hell will ease the minds of those brought up on hellfire-and-brimstone Christianity. This unusual view of Christianity raises far more questions than it answers and is likely to provoke deep thought and lively conversation.

Takeaway: Open-minded Christians will be drawn in by Way’s passionate arguments for a profoundly loving God and a pragmatic, fully human Jesus.

Great for fans of C.S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed, Scott Shay’s In Good Faith.

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