If Yes is the Answer, What is the Question? Eight Existential Issues of Faith

"Beach draws us into a deeper level of understanding liberal religious commitment by organizing eight chapters around stories and questions. . . . He does not require the reader to respond in the same way that he does. But his point of view is always there, helping sharpen your own."

-John Buehrens, former President, The Unitarian Universalist Association

"A great achievement. There is a vast need for just this kind of material."

-John B. Cob, Jr., Claremont Graduate School

"Beach demonstrates how religion illuminates the real issues of our age. He shows how important critical faith can be in a confused and disoriented time."

-Harvey Cox, Harvard Divinity School, author of Fire from Heaven

The mind-bending question, If yes is the answer, what is the question? asks us: What are the central questions of our lives-the issues that challenge and move us to our deepest affirmations of heart and mind? It points the way, then, to the discovery-or perhaps the recovery-of a contemporary, liberating faith. It does so not by providing pre-packaged answers but by asking us to discern and decide what we are committed to and will live for-the issues of human existence that call forth our affirmation. Eight existential issues form the backbone of the book: - Are we incurably religious? - Does the question of God presuppose God? - Can we acknowledge evil and tragedy and not lose heart? - Do we have a human vocation? - Are ethical values rooted in reality? - Is help available when I need it? - Is religious community a religious necessity? - Does faith make sense?

George Kimmich Beach holds degrees from Oberlin College, Harvard Divinity School, and Wesley Theological Seminary. He served as minister of Unitarian Universalist churches in Marblehead, Massachusetts, Austin, Texas, and Arlington, Virginia, and an urban ministry in Cleveland, Ohio. His books include The Seminal Gospel: Forty Days with Mark, and Transforming Liberalism: The Theology of James Luther Adams. He has edited three collections of essays by Adams, his teacher and mentor, and is president of the James Luther Adams Foundation. He lives in Madison County, Virginia.