★★★
This
started out as a five star review! I love Ravi's writing! He's
opinionated, intelligent and interesting. He seeds his discussion with
fascinating, relevant stories.
Ravi
challenges the truthfulness of contemporary religion—mostly, what he
calls "New Spirituality"—in the early pages of his book, and promises to
steer us away from mass marketed shallowness toward the Truth. Capital
T. It's a noble quest.
Says
Ravi, "I have followed through on my promise to pursue truth and have
devoted my life to the study and understanding of all the major
religions and systems of belief in the world." He poses a question: "If
the truth is so important [in the courtroom], how much more important is
it in the search for the spiritual answers to our deepest hungers?" He
quotes Winston Churchill: "The most valuable thing in the world is the
truth." He concludes, "Nothing is so destructive as running from the
truth."
With
this intoxicating buildup, he raises our expectations for great
revelation. Yes, Ravi! Bring us the TRUTH! Can I hear an amen?
Instead,
Ravi embarks on a 272-page quest to discredit the competition (Ravi has
a serious thing about Chopra and Oprah, and their feel-good religions;
at least a quarter of the book is dedicated to the "deplorable and
manipulative" Deepak Chopra). I kept waiting to learn about Jesus. Why
Jesus? The best answer I could find is that Ravi likes Jesus-the-person,
the man who befriended sinners and played with children on his lap.
Jesus "makes reality beautiful." Well, heck, I think Jesus is cool, too.
Five
stars if you love passionate ridicule and prefer attack to defense. One
star if you're hoping to uncover a reason to turn to Jesus. Ravi keeps
promising, but never delivers ... he actually never even tries, beyond a
few of his own feel-good descriptions in the final few pages.
Tell
you what—my next review will be another book with an identical title: "Why
Jesus?" We'll see if a second attempt makes more progress.
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