Book Review: Where is God in All the Suffering? By Amy Orr-Ewing

For more than 20 years, Amy Orr-Ewing has spoken on the Christian faith and sought to give answers to life’s deepest questions. She is a regular speaker on university campuses, on TV and radio, and has spoken extensively in the UK and USA. She has her undergraduate and doctoral degrees from Oxford University and has authored several books.

One of the most oft-heard objections to God and Christianity is the reality of suffering. Amy seeks to take this difficult topic head-on from a Christian perspective. As she does so, she begins by expressing the fact that if Christianity is true, then it needs to provide an answer to our deepest issues as a human race and one of those deep issues is suffering and pain (p. 8). The book begins by asking why suffering happens. She considers alternatives such as Karma, fate, and meaninglessness as insufficient explanations for the real pain of the world (chapter 1). She then goes on to consider what the Bible has to say about intrinsic human value and humanity being created in God’s image (pgs. 22-23).

In the book, she considers anger, grief, sickness, mental illness, violence and natural disasters. She also spends time considering systemic suffering in the world. But the book concludes with a consideration of the God of Christianity who chose to become the suffering servant (Isaiah 53). To this point she has been building for the whole book. She clearly presents how God shows His great love for humanity by suffering on their behalf in order to take away the cause of their suffering, with a promise that one day the suffering itself will be taken away as well.

This book is certainly a helpful primer on the experiences of suffering that many face in this life. Amy seeks to show from the Bible both where it came from and what God’s remedy is. She shares many personal examples and illustrations throughout. Although this is not a thorough treatment of all the Bible says on the subject, it is a helpful starting place that gives hope for those who are hurting. She also provides a credible starting defense concerning the presence of suffering and how it does not logically require God’s nonexistence or the Bible’s untrustworthiness. Rather, she gives a compelling argument for that only through the God of the Bible can suffering be understood properly and responded to appropriately. This is a helpful book for those considering this difficult subject.

Amy Orr-Ewing, Where is God in all the Suffering? London: The Good Book Company, 202. 134pp.