The Reason Driven Life: What Am I Here on Earth For?

Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life has sold more than 25 million copies and been translated into dozens of languages. Until now, its premises have gone largely unchallenged by mainstream Christians. Recovering fundamentalist, member of the Jesus Seminar and former Baptist pastor Robert Price offers the first parody and critique of Warren's bestseller.

The 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

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 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.

In his own inimitable style, Robert Price in this volume challenges Rick Warren’s bestselling book The 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

Following closely the structure of Warren's book, Price divides his book into 40 days. On each day, he criticizes Warren's message for the day — worship, salvation, eternal life, the Bible — and offers his own interpretation of the reasons we live our lives the ways we do. As his title indicates, Price argues that individuals need not be told by an outsider how to find purpose; rather, they can use their own reason to ferret out the meaning of life. Price argues that Warren's view of a personal God conflicts with our morally neutral universe, creating an unhealthy, superstitious approach to life. Warren's God, Price says, is a "Frankenstein Monster, a divine bully, and an obsessive stalker."

The Reason Driven Life is a no-holds-barred polemic against a piece of popular evangelical theology and will make any and all readers think. — Clark H Pinnock, Professor Emeritus of Theology

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