Long, Thomas G., What Shall We Say? Evil, Suffering, and The Crisis of Faith. Wm B.

Eerdmans Publishing Company; Grand Rapids. 2011. Interlude: Howl: Job and the Whirlwind Longs interlude brings readers face to face with the book of Job and its message. A message which Long is right to insist has been misunderstood or misread. He summarizes The book of Job is about who God is and what it means to be human at all when God is understood truly to be God. This great text stands over against the prevalent religious impulse to fabricate a wishful picture of the world, to imagine the sort of God who would rule benignly over such a world, and then to bow down to worship before this projection of our own sense of moral order (p. 96). So, Long continues, the best way to read Job is as a drama in which the players signify types. So, he suggests, Eliphaz is the embodiment of a mushy brand of self-serving piety (p. 102). He doesnt have faith, he has a religious machine (p. 103). Bildad is a religious authoritarian (p. 103). Zophar is a Bildad who has gone to Seminary (p. 104). And Job? Well Job is just a man who wants answers. But the answers God gives arent rational discourse. They are poetic, visionary address, and as such [they] gather up into an experiential encounter that resists all reduction, and explanation (p. 107). So far as Long is concerned, then, Job comes to us [warning] us away from the presumption that we will find some solution to the theodicy problem that will somehow make sense to us independent of our relationship with God (p. 111). Leading Long to conclude that awe in the presence of God is, indeed, the beginning of wisdom (p. 111). And now my own questions are beginning to haunt me because while I understand what Long is attempting (and am profoundly grateful for his

attempting it) I am bothered by the nagging sense that in Longs world prayer has become absolutely without purpose. The God Long is articulating is a God who doesnt need us to tell him anything as he already has it all settled and our part is simply to enjoy his presence and his goodness. Prayer, intercession, and even praise are all - it seems - slowly being emptied of their sense. Perhaps in what remains. Long will address this concern of mine. I look forward to finding out. And even if he doesnt, he shouldnt be judged too harshly since one cant do everything in one book. Especially when the subject is the one at hand. Jim West Quartz Hill School of Theology