Bart D. Ehrman's latest book is basically an account of two engaging parallel studies. One involves a methodical discussion of the various biblical solutions offered for the perennial question of how an all powerful God can allow evil and suffering to continue

Is it ever acceptable to say “I want to die?" How much loss to our physical capabilities could we absorb before the loss also absorbs our humanity? Can there be hope and purpose without a functioning body? These are questions haunting every frame of the current French film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

I have begun to catch on that when something bothers me—a speaker, a movie, or a book like A Severe Mercy—my irritation is probably a symptom of a disease that needs healing. Like the cough that I curse for its irritating persistence, the irksome message may be precisely what I need to purge me of things putrid and get me breathing right.

In Sheldon Vanauken’s spiritual autobiography of the love he shared—and lost—with his wife, Jean Davis (“Davy”), the mediocrity of my love for God is diagnosed and exposed. A severe blow, and mercifully so.

I’ve been feeling uncharacteristicly blue lately. Maybe it’s the news of religious extremists marching in the streets, damning a teacher for allowing her school kids to name a classroom teddy bear Muhammad, reminding me how religion can so easily be a tool of repression (this also goes for the Christian extremists holding signs up in the Castro District of San Francisco telling gays that God hates them). Maybe it’s the fear that our country is in another slow build-up to war yet again based on shaky intelligence and bluster.