Why Faith Matters - Hardcover

David J. Wolpe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061633348 ISBN 13: 9780061633348

Publisher: HarperOne, 2008

Synopsis

In Why Faith Matters, Rabbi David J. Wolpe blends the powerful personal story of his struggles with his own faith with a poignant response to the new atheists that reveals just how important faith in modern society. With a foreword by Rick Warren, New York Times bestselling author of The Purpose Driven Life, Why Faith Matters is an articulate and much-needed nondenominational defense of established religion in America by the man Newsweek magazine named the #1 Pulpit Rabbi in America.

About this title

About the Author

David J. Wolpe is the Max Webb Emeritus Rabbi of Sinai Temple. Wolpe has taught at Harvard, the Jewish Theological Seminary, the American Jewish University, Hunter College, and UCLA. Wolpe has published widely, including in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, and The Atlantic. Rabbi Wolpe is the author of eight books, including the national bestseller Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times. His previous book was David, the Divided Heart, a finalist for the National Jewish Book Awards.

From the Back Cover

Judging by today's bestseller lists, one would think that religion is either irrational or extreme. What's missing is a genuine debate between the atheists and fanatics; someone to point out that religion has value in the modern world. Why Faith Matters is an articulate defense of religion in America. It makes the case for faith and shows its relationship to history and science. Refuting the cold reason of the atheists and the hatred of the fanatics with a vision of religion informed by faith, love, and understanding, Rabbi David J. Wolpe follows in a literary tradition that stretches from Cardinal Newman to C. S. Lewis to Thomas Merton—all individuals of faith who brought religion and culture together in their own works. Drawing on the personal and powerful story of his battle with cancer, Wolpe offers a moving statement in support of religion today. In a poignant response to the new atheists, Wolpe takes readers through the origins and nature of faith, the role of the Bible in modern life, and the compatibility of God and science. He concludes with a powerful argument for the place of God, faith, and religion in today's world.

Reviews

Rabbi Wolpe (Making Loss Matter) joins the throngs of authors responding to the new atheists with defenses of faith. Yet rather than tense up about atheism, its defenders and their dismissive attitudes about people of faith, Wolpe answers these challenges with such kindness and thoughtfulness that even the heart of Christopher Hitchens might find itself warmed. Wolpe does not make his case for faith by hiding the darkest moments of Western traditions. Rather, he shines a light on religion's deepest scars—for instance spending a good deal of time discussing the relationship between religion and violence—while at the same time showing how religions have also (almost) always been a force of good in the world. (Take Christianity's extraordinary response to the tsunami in Indonesia, Wolpe explains.) With gentle, wonderfully engaging prose, Wolpe scrolls through history and shows how faith traditions don't offer easy, simplistic answers for the intellectually weak, as the New Atheists imply. More often than not, religion sparks believers to ask even more difficult questions, while at the same time building a platform on which to live under a canopy of hope. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0061633348
• ISBN 13: 9780061633348
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224