cover image God is Relevant: Finding Strength and Peace in Today's World

God is Relevant: Finding Strength and Peace in Today's World

Luis Palau. Doubleday Books, $19.95 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-385-48678-1

The timing of this book's publication just three months after that of Billy Graham's autobiography (Just As I Am) may be significant. Palau has preached at more evangelistic meetings in more countries than anyone else but Graham, and if anyone is poised to pick up Graham's mantle, it is Palau. This book is the summary of his beliefs and their philosophical underpinnings. Firing off hundreds of quoted sound-bites from writers ancient and modern, Palau builds his case for what he calls ""classic Christianity,"" or, more accurately, ""conversion Christianity"": a personal, individualistic, Bible-based, life-changing faith in Jesus Christ. But Palau often sounds like he's fighting the last war. In combating a rationalistic atheism, he pays too little attention to contemporary spirituality movements. Perhaps this is because he expects that ""if the current interest in spirituality ends up becoming nothing more than a rather bizarre fad, atheism may roar back to life with even more devastating results sometime within the next generation and a half."" Crossings Book Club selection (July)