The Impatience of Job

For all its subtlety and transcendent mystery, the Christian gospel has a radically simple solution to personal and social fragmentation. It is the resurrection of Jesus. The Book of Job is a guide to resurrection belief. It functions as a sublime combination of confessional, cocktail party, and psychiatrist's couch, pondering the ageless questions: 'Why are there thorns on the rose? Why are there leaks in the roof? Why do the joints stiffen? Why do sensible plans go nonsensically off-course? If God is good, why is there junk?' These questions are answered in a surprising way, for 'the Book of Job is not a study of the problem of evil but the anatomy of a man's conversion.' Since the Book of Job is true, it gets at once to the heart of the problem by introducing Satan. The author's elegant treatment of the elegant Adversary is an incisive reply to modern cultists who believe in Satan too much and, worse, those who believe in him too little" --