Robert M. Price

Foreword by Julia SweeneyIn his own inimitable style, Robert Price in this volume challenges Rick Warren's bestselling book: A Purpose Driven Life. With the rapier's sword of Price's insight wrapped in a devastating sense of humor, he leaves not just Warren but all similar fundamentalistic religious leaders bleeding and exposed for what they are: anxiety-driven, survival-seeking, power-hungry people masquerading under the banner of piety or hiding behind the sounds of the sacred.-John Shelby Spong, Author of A New Christianity for a New WorldThe wittiest, most thorough, and most devastating critique of the religion of the Evangelicals that I have ever read. It left me wondering how the religion of great Protestant heroes of faith like Luther and Bunyan can have turned into the inane religion of Ned Flanders, Homer Simpson's neighbor.-Don Cupitt, Anglican priest, Fellow of Emmanuel College in Cambridge University, religious philosopher, and the author of forty booksPastor Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Life has been both a commercially successful best seller and a widely influential book in the Christian community. As a rejoinder to the fundamentalist assumptions of Warren's book, Robert M. Price, a biblical scholar, a member of the Jesus Seminar, and a former liberal Baptist pastor, offers this witty, thoughtful, and detailed critique. Following the concise forty-chapter structure of Warren's book, Price's point-counterpoint approach emphasizes the importance of reason in understanding life's realities as opposed to Warren's devotional perspective.Price, who was once a born-again Christian in his youth, is in a unique position to offer an appreciation of the wisdom that Warren shares while at the same time challenging many of his main points. In particular, Price takes issue with Warren's use of numerous scriptural quotations, demonstrating how many of them have little to do with the points Warren is trying to make. An important section of the book shows that the popular evangelical notion of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is utterly without any scriptural basis.Besides criticism, Price also provides many persuasive arguments for the use of reason as a tool for developing moral maturity and an intelligent, realistic perspective on life's highs and lows. Ultimately, the reason-driven life offers a healthier, alternative approach to wisdom and motivation, says Price, than the simplistic answers and feel-good emotionalism at the heart of Warren's prescription for life.Robert M. Price, Ph.D. (Selma, NC), professor of scriptural studies at the Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary, is the editor (with Jeffery Jay Lowder) of The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave and the Journal of Higher Criticism. He is also the author of Top Secret: The Truth Behind Today's Pop Mysticisms; The Paperback Apocalypse: How the Christian Church Was Left Behind; The Reason-Driven Life: What Am I Here on Earth For?; The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man; and Deconstructing Jesus; among other works.

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