On April 16, 2007, the campus of Virginia Tech experienced a collective nightmare when thirty-three students were killed in the worst massacre in modern U.S. history. Following that horrendous event, Virginia Tech campus pastor Matt Rogers found himself asking and being asked, 'Where is God in all of this?' The cliche-ridden, pat answers rang hollow. In this book, Matt approaches the pain of the world with personal perspective---dealing with his hurting community as well as standing over the hospital bed of his own father---and goes beyond answers, beyond theodicy, beyond the mere intellectual. When Answers Aren't Enough drives deeper, to the heart of our longing, in search of a God we can experience as good when life isn't.
When Answers Aren't Enough
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Rogers, a pastor at New Life Christian Fellowship at Virginia Tech, reflects on the tragedy that shook the campus (and the nation) in April 2007 when Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 fellow students and professors. However, this isn't primarily a message of pastoral comfort, or even a journalistic account about how students of faith have walked through their grief. (Rogers is more than 50 pages into the book before he mentions that one of the students who died attended his church.) Instead, it centers around Rogers's own heartache and struggle to understand how God can give so many good gifts and yet allow such horror. While there are poetic moments, and readers will be comforted by his thoughts on the way the world was meant to be and the world that is to come, there's little new, and all the brooding introspection can become wearying. With a release timed around the anniversary of the shootings, there promises to be a lot of interest and plenty of media opportunities. Unfortunately, the book could have been much better if Rogers had gotten out of his own pain and focused on the students he works with. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
Rogers, a pastor at New Life Christian Fellowship at Virginia Tech, reflects on the tragedy that shook the campus (and the nation) in April 2007 when Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 fellow students and professors. However, this isn't primarily a message of pastoral comfort, or even a journalistic account about how students of faith have walked through their grief. (Rogers is more than 50 pages into the book before he mentions that one of the students who died attended his church.) Instead, it centers around Rogers's own heartache and struggle to understand how God can give so many good gifts and yet allow such horror. While there are poetic moments, and readers will be comforted by his thoughts on the way the world was meant to be and the world that is to come, there's little new, and all the brooding introspection can become wearying. With a release timed around the anniversary of the shootings, there promises to be a lot of interest and plenty of media opportunities. Unfortunately, the book could have been much better if Rogers had gotten out of his own pain and focused on the students he works with. (Apr.) -- Publisher's Weekly
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More About the Author
Matt Rogers is copastor of New Life Christian Fellowship at Virginia Tech. Eight hundred students call it home.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Trying to Understand Tragedy,
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This review is from: When Answers Aren't Enough: Experiencing God as Good When Life Isn't (Paperback)
Matt Rogers lived through the horror of the April massacre at Virginia Tech. As a Pastor and Hokie he experienced the horror and felt the grief and inner struggle of wonder how God could let this happen. In this book he give a wonderful and heartfelt look at life and our faith when things go wrong and there is tragedy in our lives. This is a great book for anybody who ministers to those who are suffering or those who are suffering and trying to achieve some sort of reason in a world that appears to be falling apart. It is an honest and heartfelt book written by one who has obviously struggled himself to make sense of horror and grief
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Matt Rogers Is A Voice to Pay Attention To,
By
This review is from: When Answers Aren't Enough: Experiencing God as Good When Life Isn't (Paperback)
Matt Rogers searches for God's presence in the beautiful South Carolina woods, along the Atlantic Ocean, and walking among the Colorado Rockies (which provide some of his best written scenes). He looks for God's goodness standing beside gravesites, among the poor and needy, and in the church community. He works through the process of grief and calls us to imagine what the world will be in the future. Continually reminding us of Christ's long-awaited renewal of the world. Written in a meditative style that echoes Philip Yancey, Brennan Manning, and Henri Nouwen, Rogers is a voice that will offer comfort and hope.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Powerfully Honest,
This review is from: When Answers Aren't Enough: Experiencing God as Good When Life Isn't (Paperback)
"When Answer's Aren't Enough" is a powerfully honest journey into those questions we all ask, but often don't verbalize. And Matt Rogers takes us even deeper than that - digging into and embracing those difficult thoughts and emotions we can't always verbalize. He takes on questions of why some people die early or tragically, when others do not; questions that follow massive natural disasters and questions about the "right way" to respond to suffering and loss. While the tragedy at Virginia Tech provides the framework of this journey, this book takes the reader up front, close and personal, as it considers other real experiences of suffering and loss, including our own inevitable death. Only from the perspective of just how powerfully hard things in life can be, do we begin to comprehend just how powerfully good and beautiful God is, in the midst of this hurting world. And it is from here that we can begin to imagine just how good things will be one day when Christ returns and sets everything aright.
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