The biggest strength of this book is that the author asks the kind of questions the rest of us would rather not answer. He forces us to consider evidence that we would rather not know about. So even if we don’t want a book like this, I believe we need a book like this. Believing Christians need a book like this because we have tended to isolate ourselves from the world in order to avoid corruption. But that very isolation has meant that our messages resonate less and less with the mainstream of society. Christian bookstores everywhere are struggling because fewer and fewer people expect to find anything there that will be relevant to the lives they live every day. Many Christians have shut the world out and as a result, the world has shut us out. This book offers a painful but powerful diagnosis.
    If there is one thesis in the book that stands above all the others, it is the idea that in today’s world people of faith need to “find God in the other.” I detect two fundamental reasons for the author’s taking that position. First, we live in a world where people of radically different faiths can no longer hold each other at arm’s length. We have all been tossed together into a mixing bowl. The diversity that has long characterized cities like New York is now found almost anywhere. Children named Harry and Sally are now growing up and going to school with children named Mohammed, Keisha, Sanjay and Hiroshi. Before you know it Harry meets Keisha and Sally meets Mohammed and two worlds are blended into one. So we can no longer ignore the “other” as if the other were somewhere else. Second, there is a biblical reason to find God in the other. All human beings are made in the image of God. To some degree each of our life stories reveals something important about God. In that case listening to others will confront us with evidence about God we would have missed in isolation.
    The author, therefore, argues that in today’s world Christians can no longer “preside” in discussions about religion, as was the case in the colonial era. He calls on Christians to enter into dialogue with others and not expect to “call the shots.” There is Another who presides over every religious conversation, God Himself. And we all have to submit our certainties and our prejudices to the One that we all know only in part. For those who live by the evangelistic imperative, this is foul-tasting medicine. Yet it must be admitted, true evangelism has always been a two-way street. Every evangelist has to accommodate the message to new audiences and new situations. This is exactly what God did in Scripture. So as troubling as Samir’s book may be to some, there are profound truths here that have often been ignored. That’s what makes this book such a treasure.
    I think my favorite part of this book is the author’s picture of God. He remembers an early experience with footwashing, a ritual his new religion drew from John 13 (pages 162-164). A local church leader tenderly washed his feet and said, “This is how God does things in the world.” This perspective is confirmed by the biblical text. John 13:31-32 declares that in the footwashing, Jesus demonstrated the “glory” of God. God’s greatness is not found in power, wisdom or universal presence. It is found in humility. This kind of God is the opposite of religion, which boasts about how great it is and wants to conquer all other religions.
    Dr. Selmanovic drives home how easily religions become “God management systems.” While religions arise in response to God they too often end up helping people avoid God. God can be “tamed” by the words of our theology and the rituals actions of our liturgy. We extol God’s work in the past in order to avoid His work in the present. According to Samir, the unwritten code of most religions is, “We are in charge of God. If you want to find God you have to come through us. If we haven’t thought about God in a certain way, you have no right to think that way.” But God can never be made captive to our religions. He cannot be managed by us.
    Related to this is the author’s expansion of the concept of idolatry. Pagans worship physical idols. Non-religious people worship nongods such as work, possessions, lovers, children, causes and sports teams. But if idolatry is the worship of anything that is not God, then religious people often worship churches, doctrines, festivals, rituals and laws. The purpose of idolatry is to shrink God to a size we can manage. The fascinating thing is that we can always recognize other people’s idols. They are obvious and strike us as ridiculous, which they are. But our own idols make perfect sense to us. In other words, nongods create delusional fields around us. Judaism is not God. Christianity is not God. Islam is not God. And anything that is not God can become an idol. Since we are blind to our own idols, people of other faiths are needed to challenge the idols we have created out of our own faith. True conversion is not so much generating faith in God as transferring our faith from nongods to the true God.
    This brings me to the author’s most radical insight. Samir considers at least some forms of atheism a “blessing.” Atheism at its best challenges the religious certainty that leads to delusion, division and violence. Atheism at its best serves the world by challenging the “God” offered in the markets of religion. Atheism at its best helps challenge the idols we love to put in the place of God. So even atheists can bear witness to the image of God. Samir reminds us that in ancient Rome Jews and Christians were considered atheists, because they refused to acquiesce to the prevailing pictures of God. Early Muslims were considered atheists by their pagan contemporaries. In today’s world, when traditional views of God seem inadequate, believers with a fresh view of God may again be rejected as atheists. So atheists today can have a “prophetic” role in challenging the false gods of our time. Doubt can feed genuine faith as well as destroy it.
    Dr. Selmanovic’s view of God leads him to a fresh answer to an age-old question. If God is both infinitely good and infinitely powerful, why is there evil in the world? The book’s answer is: God is not like us. If I were infinitely powerful and good, I would certainly clean up the mess in the universe and do it yesterday. I would make a frontal assault on evil and put an immediate end to evil-doers. But God is not like me. My thoughts are not His thoughts. My ways are not His ways (Isa 55:8-9). The footwashing of John 13 shows that real and permanent change comes through the power of humility and weakness. Hatred does not disarm the enemy, love does. God subverts evil with good. He subverts power with humility and weakness.
    To most human beings this sounds crazy. Humility doesn’t work. Showing weakness seems naive. But that’s the whole point of John 13. God is not like us. And that is why religions tend to become “God management systems,” as Samir puts it. If we can make God over into our image, we can control God. We can have a diminished certainty. And we are satisfied. But what we end up with is not God.
    Let me close this blog with one more positive about the book. I think the author offers a profound insight into the reading of the Bible. All the major religious texts include statements that explicitly exclude others. The rabbis said the world is like a thorny bush with one rose and Israel is that rose. The Bible says that no one comes to God except through Jesus. The Qur’an tells us that there are times when unbelievers need to be destroyed. Samir makes a powerful suggestion. “The meaning of these texts will change if they are read in the presence of the other” (260). The golden rule is at the core of the three monotheistic faiths. Texts like these need to be read in the light of the golden rule. When the “thorns,” “infidels,” and those outside of Christ are present, we will read these texts differently and we will weigh the impact of our words on others like ourselves. We will feel the pain of rejection and begin to see them, not as partisans to be excluded or destroyed, but children of God who need to be loved and nurtured. “In the presence of the other, everything changes” (261).
    In the third and final blog I will address some concerns about the book.