Book Review: Something Other Than God

Jennifer Fulwiler grew up as a non-believer. When pressured at a church camp to accept Christ as her Savior and Lord, she didn't give in and go along with what everyone else was mindlessly doing. But once she encountered the reality of death, her heart and intellect struggled with the purpose and meaning of life. The struggle only intensified years later when she married her husband Joe and gave birth to a child of her own. Was her baby's life without meaning, as well? I loved her quote discussing her new discontent with atheism:

“Atheism could not account for the bond that Joe and I shared. It offered no lexicon for capturing what I saw in my child. An atheistic worldview could offer an accurate explanation of the way my brain chemistry had been altered to experience more of the sensation we label 'love', but I was certain now that that explanation would stop short of the full truth. It would be like confusing a picture of the Grand Canyon with the actual place; there’s nothing false about the picture, but it would be foolish to confuse the piece of paper with the real thing. There was more to human life than the atoms that made up our bodies – I was sure of it.”

Thus, feeling the God-shaped vacuum Blaise Pascal identified (full quote here), Fulwiler embarked on a search for meaning and happiness (her book is aptly titled, Something Other Than God: How I Passionately Sought Happiness and Accidentally Found It). She read the Bible in secret to make sense of all the fuss. Her book outlines the progression of her questions and dissatisfaction with the answers she had previously accepted. Hers was not a quick and easy conversion to Catholicism. As a pro-choice atheist, she deeply wrestled with the issues on the table. She read Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ and accepted Jesus was who he claimed to be. She also read apologist C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity.

At this point, I took issue with her process. Responding to a quote from Lewis about why some people accept God more easily than others, Fulwiler bought into the false notion we must somehow clean ourselves up before we can present ourselves to the Creator. I don't believe Lewis was arguing for a works-based salvation. He was correctly identifying the hindrance sin causes in blinding eyes to the truth of Christ's offer for salvation.

The important qualifier is that we cannot clean ourselves. We are helpless to remove the sin and doubt that shackles our lives to misperceptions of God and His ways. He must open our eyes to our sinfulness and the chasm separating us from Him before we can accept that our righteousness is as filthy rags. It is only through the atonement Christ offers through His death on the cross we can bridge the gap between a sinful man and a holy God to align our lives with His holiness and claim His salvation. We cannot clean the mirror to reflect His holiness.

I believe she missed the first sentences of Lewis' quote:

“When you come to know God, the initiative lies on His side. If He does not show Himself, nothing you can do will enable you to find Him… [God] shows much more of Himself to some people than to others – not because He has favourites, but because it is impossible for Him to show Himself to a man whose whole mind and character are in the wrong condition. Just as sunlight, though it has no favourites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.” 

We are not saved through our alignment with the church, through our repetitious affirmations of Mary's actions, through the prayers of others for us during our life or after. We are saved only through the blood of Christ in his sacrifice for our sins on the cross. To seek salvation by making ourselves presentable (doing the right things, taking communion, going to confession, etc.) misses the mark, since it is Christ's initiative on our behalf that does the work. ("For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast." Ephesians 2:8-9 KJV)

So, while Fulwiler does an excellent job of outlining her questions and her struggles on her way to belief in God, I still wonder if her belief system is adequate. One can believe there is a God without putting faith in God's ability to save. It brings to mind the famous illustration of the man who pushes a barrel over a chasm on a tightrope. He asks if people believe he can make it across. The crowd heartily clamors belief in his ability, but are they willing to put themselves in the barrel? It is as J. Warner Wallace articulates in his excellent book, Cold-Case Christianity, a person must move from "belief that" to "belief in". Is Fulwiler putting herself in the barrel or is she merely articulating a belief that it can be done? I don't know. I guess I just wonder if she's relying on something other than God.