I'm always interested in reading of an intelligent person's one-off mystical experience, where in using the best terms available to put such an essentially indescribable experience, the experiencer generally talks of a veil lifting and a whole new reality suddenly being made apparent, with a loving consciousness behind it, in which in the words of Julian of Norwich, all shall be well. These aren't continuing visions or near death experiences, but unexpected and unrepeated events that happen to a person of sound mind. It may be impossible to write a whole book about such an experience, but people such as the French journalist Andre Frossard and the American novelist and Duke University professor Reynolds Price have written well regarded books incorporating theirs.

So that's the hook that really got me interested in Mike McHargue, whose encounter occurred in a time of emotional inner religious turbulence (it doesn't always - Frossard was blithely blindsided by his). His book here briefly goes over it, but rather than the focus it's just a pebble on the path of the story - which, again, is about all you can expect it to be in a book. That story path goes over McHargue's evangelical youth, his loss of faith, and his gaining of a wiser, more universalist sort of belief, deeply informed by the Christian tradition but also significantly by his reading of the current science explaining the universe and the human mind.

It's a memoir, and also a solid rejoinder to the books of the New Atheists arguing that religion is harmful. It can be in a certain form, sure, but then so can weather, food, drink, cell division, etc. McHargue's aim is to share with the reader how he found his way back to religion, and the benefits that can be derived from having a religious practice. He's clearly an engaging, deeply caring individual, and I'm happy to have stumbled across him. ( )

About the first half of Finding God in the Waves is an autobiographical faith story - his testimony, more or less. The second half is an exploration of returning to God and the process he took, primarily of writing definitions (or axioms) for God, then prayer, then Jesus and sin, the church, and finally the Bible. These axioms are kind of like a trellis for rebuilding your faith or providing some intellectual structures you can stand on when everything feels like it's crumbling around you.

Also - if you were raised in a conservative church environment and haven’t been exposed to many of the critiques on faith/God/the Bible, this may be a particularly troubling read. Mike honestly goes through many of these critiques, detailing the struggle it caused him, so be ready.

Science Mike takes a systematic, rationale approach to faith that he self-identifies as founded on empiricism (ie. what we can gather scientifically/ through our senses). Science Mike will concede that his conclusions fall a good ways from orthodox belief, which many have found troubling, and it seems like the subtitle to the book is a little misleading. Rather than returning to faith (as defined by orthodoxy) Mike has built a sturdy platform to view Christian faith. We still must make the “leap of faith” as Kierkegaard famously described. Empiricism can only take us so far.

Further Science Mike did not address the idea (at least that I remember) that there's a "leap" regardless of our beliefs, where we believe things that cannot be proved whether they are religious or not - one example is human rights. Tim Keller’s Making Sense of God and Reason for God perhaps complete the argument for making such a leap.

Finally, without a doubt, Science Mike works from the desire or motivation of "I want to have faith" and felt a profound loss when he "lost God." So those who have no desire for faith, probably won't read the book, Ha!, and I wonder if they would relate to it very well. Anyone coming to the argument with the desire “I don’t want faith” will have no trouble coming up for reasons to continue down that road. Science attempts to approach life and observations without bias. Yet McHargue doesn't pretend such objectivity, which I appreciated.

Before reading this book, I was fully acquainted with Science Mike, having listened to dozens of his podcasts, notably the Lost and Found 2 part-er on the Liturgists. So, there was little I had not encountered before reading it. Nevertheless, I loved the book. Here are some of my favorite ideas:

1. Understanding God cosmologically as the Singularity (or theologically as the Prime Mover) before the Big Bang, and from astrophysics, the energy that sustains the universe (the "ground of Being"). God is at least the set of forces that created and sustains the universe.
2. Alien hand syndrome, the severing of the corpus callosum, and split brain theory. Loved this part! The basic idea is that the two halves of our brain function with some degree of independence, which creates different and sometimes opposing ideas - which is how we might struggle to believe in God but still feel connected. We can be a logical atheist and experiential Christian at the same time. I think this also helps explain our co-occurring desires for adventure and stability, sadness and joy, or fear and excitement.
3. Learning from neuroscience about the literal power and benefits of prayer/meditation - it lowers blood pressure, helps reduce stress, makes you more focused, more compassionate, and less likely to be angry or frightened. Woohoo! What's not to like about those things?!
Four types of prayer suggested: basic prayer - talk to God; meditation - focus on compassion; centering prayer; and Lectio Divina. - All scientifically backed to be good for you.
4. Lastly, I thought his chapter on the Bible was beautiful - honest, poignant, insightful and so helpful. He compares the Bible to Vincent van Gogh, telling his tragic and beautiful story, and the creation of The Starry Night. "Is The Starry Night infallible?" "Is it true?" Those are the wrong questions to be asking of the Bible too, a grand example of missing the point.

I wanted:
- more on his chapter for Jesus. If you've studied the historical Jesus much, it's pretty introductory.
- a fuller explanation on his axiom for sin, specifically a description of the "lower and higher brain functions."

Toward the end of the book McHargue tells the story of "coming out of the closet" as an ex-atheist and being more honest with his home church on controversial topics. It was so sad. It doesn't sound like he had any option, and he made the best decision he could. And yet, my question is: how do we keep churches from morphing completely into spiritual/religious consumerism? Churches shouldn't be filled with simply others we agree with. We need diversity. And the ever-continuous fracturing in new denominations seems a clear contradiction of the unity Jesus assumed in John 17.

Nevertheless, there is plenty to discuss, such as how we reconcile the "Angry God" verses "Loving God" that we experience in scripture with the negative consequences of the angry god discovered through neuroscience.

Of note, Science Mike (along with so many others) preach the profound mysterious benefits of contemplation in faith, something Richard Rohr noted in his endorsement: "An essential, unprecedented read on the role contemplation plays in how we can know God, even in an age of skepticism."

This is a great book in particular for "recovering evangelicals," the science-inclined Christian, or really anyone who wants faith but lacks the "scaffolding" for where to begin. Highly recommended. ( )

I loved this book and it represents the culmination of all of the work that Mike McHargue has done that has been so instrumental to me. But it's hard to review a book like this because it's not one I would tell everyone to read. If you are a person who genuinely desires to know God but finds that the more you seek, the more distance you find between you and the church, this book may be for you.

Does it fit within traditional orthodoxy? Not completely. Will some people view it as heretical and threatening? Definitely. But does it provide a coherent voice for many who struggle to connect all the dots of modern evangelicalism? Does it help lay a foundation of thought that encourages continued searching and understanding of God rather than abandoning the faith altogether? It does, and it is why I find it so compelling and necessary.

If the thought of whether you are a Christian or whether you fit in at your church couldn't be farther from your mind, I wouldn't recommend this book. But if you're unsettled, if you are struggling to put into words a feeling of dissonance in your faith, this book may be helpful to you. ( )

On one hand, I'd like to say that I think it's great that he has come back (so to speak) from atheism, but after hearing what Mike has to say here, I'm not certain that what he espouses now is in fact Christianity. I know Mike is a pretty liberal guy, so going into this I knew that he was going to say some things that I disagree with. Somehow he still managed to amaze me with the level of heterodoxy espoused. Sadly, this book could have been subtitled "The Apostatizing of 'Science' Mike McHargue."

The first half of the book was semi-autobiographical, briefly describing the author's Southern Baptist upbringing, and the events that led to his rejection of Christianity & embracing of atheism, and then his subsequent return to the faith. The second half of the book breaks down in more detail just what it is that Mike believes today about God, Jesus, and the Bible. Everything starts to get wild in chapter 12, where he tells us

I believe again - but I also know that my beliefs about God, and yes, even my beliefs about Jesus are far outside what would normally be called Christian orthodoxy. I have faith in Jesus again, but it's nothing like the faith of my youth.

Here's Mike's list of claims that he says he can confidently make about Jesus:

1. Jesus was a real person, or maybe a few people in the first century.
2. His teachings moved people enough that he began to attract a significant following.
3. What Jesus taught put him at odds with political leaders to the point that he was probably crucified.
4. The teachings of Jesus inspired a persistent social religious movement after his death. Over time this movement became the largest religion in human history.

I'm glad to hear that he thinks Jesus was a real person, but "maybe a few people"??? And this is all he could come up with in the way of claims that he can confidently make about Jesus??? It seemed to me that Mike danced around the issue of Jesus's divine nature. Later he says

I don't know for sure whether Jesus rose from the dead. What I do know is that there are things that I've done that I have a hard time forgiving myself for, but I'm able to do so when I believe Jesus already forgave me.

What? So let me get this straight: Mike says he has faith in Jesus again, but he isn't sure if Jesus was a single person (as he might have been a few people), and he can't confidently say that he believes that Jesus rose from the dead, after his "probable" crucifixion. Having said this, if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, and if he therefore (by implication) isn't the God-man that the Bible describes, then what good is his forgiveness? Or should I ask, what good is "their" forgiveness, since he thinks Jesus was maybe a few people in the first century?

The author has a bad view of penal substitutionary atonement, placing a great emphasis on God's love, while being neglectful of God's holiness - common errors of theraputic moralistic deism masquerading as Christianity. God is a God of love, but He is also a Holy God, a righteous God, who does judge sin, and calls us to repentance (a word and concept that I don't think appeared anywhere in this book). Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mike is openly hostile to the doctrine of unconditional election as well.

Rather disturbingly, the Jesus that Mike follows sounds more like an empathetic guru than the Son of God. What is promoted here is a Christless Christianity with an impotent Jesus who seems to be little more than a good teacher that we should emulate.

Not stopping there, Mike craps all over Sola Scriptura, but somehow still claims to affirm divine inspiration, all while questioning the motivations behind the writing of the Gospel of Mark, questioning the authorship of the Gospel of John, and claiming that the Bible contains multiple contradictory statements - not to mention that there was apparently no literal Adam, Eve, and serpent in the Garden of Eden, no global flood, and the inerrancy of scripture is denied. He basically draws the conclusion that the Bible is unreliable, yet he still values reading it [why?] as art.

If the Bible is as the author explains it to be, then by what means are we to know God? Having such a view of Scripture as this enables one to pick and choose which parts they like and disregard the parts they find to be inconvenient. That leaves you with... what? Personal revelation which will only agree with the parts of the Bible that you like? If Scripture is not authoritative, then we can pretty much make God in our own image and believe what we want, living experientally.

In chapter 15 Mike says that an atheist friend of his told him that what he (Mike) believes now is still closer to humanism than Christianity, and that the god of his axioms is not the God of the Bible. I would have to agree with this analysis.

I cannot in good conscience recommend this book to anyone. I'm sorry if this sounds harsh. There's a lot that I felt needed to be said about the ideas Mike espouses here. If you're a Christian and you're reading this I ask you to pray for Mike.


( )

This isn't an apologetics book, though I took from it what I normally get from one (a rationale or some ground for continued belief). Mike McHargue, also known as Science Mike, doesn't set out to convince you of your spiritual path. Finding God in the Waves is a memoir of McHargue's own spiritual journey. I love memoirs, especially ones with a Hobbit-like shape ( There and Back Again). McHargue describes both losing his faith, and finding God again (SPOILER ALERT) in the waves. Along the way he shares the scientific and philosophical axioms which allow him to hold on to faith in the face of science, reason and doubt.

Podcast listeners will be familiar with Mike McHargue from his Ask Science Mike podcast or from The Liturgists podcast which he does with Michael Gungor. The name Science Mike, a vague discipline combined with his personal name, doesn't really communicate anything substantial about McHargue's credentials. It is kind of like calling yourself Humanities Jane, Literature Harry, or Theology Bob. Rob Bell christened him as Science Mike, so what are you going to do? McHargue's bio doesn't tell you what kind of scientist he is (or if he is), you just have his assertion that his years as an atheist, when he could examine evidence without religious ideological lenses, made him a better scientist. Perhaps, but this book is more science-y than anything approaching hard sciences.

McHargue grew up in a devout Southern Baptist family. He said the sinner's prayer at the age of seven, grew up as an evangelical praying to Jesus and believing. Hormones and playing in a band transformed him from an nerdy fat kid into someone more likeable and cool. For a season he broke from the church (which frowned on premarital sex), until he fell victim to the flirt and convert. Jennifer Carol Frye, a girl he was smitten with, demanded that if he was serious about her, they attend church together. So he did, trading bar gigs for church camp and a worship band. By the time he was twenty-five, he and Jenny were married and McHargue was serious about his faith.

Then his faith fell apart. The cracks came when his dad left his mom for another woman, after almost thirty years of marriage. McHargue saw no biblical ground for divorce and wanted God to fix his parents' marriage. He began reading the bible through at a voracious pace and praying fervently. He noted contradictions in the Bible which he didn't know were there before (i.e. the differences between the Genesis 1 and 2 creation accounts) and doubts began to form. Reading Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis helped him move past the need to fix his parents marriage and showed him that you could be honest about your doubts in the life of faith.

His Christianity weathered his parents divorce but not its next challenger: Richard Dawkins. An atheist friend got him to read The God Delusion. McHargue read it, along with dozens of other works from skeptics. His faith fell apart, particularly as Dawkins parsed the evidence against answered prayer. He became an atheist albeit a secret one. He had no desire to undermine the faith of his wife or others. He continued to teach Sunday school and be a deacon at his church. Eventually his wife (and mother) uncover his collapsed faith, but he remained a secret atheist to everyone else until he was roped into attending a religious conference put on by Rob Bell.

Remember I mentioned the Hobbit shape of this memoir? McHargue does make it back to the shire of belief, but just as with Bilbo, the landscape changed for him because of the journey. Rob Bell, a beach house and the waves, shake him out of atheism into an Eucharistic encounter with the divine, but he doesn't return to the fundamentalist, evangelicalism of days of yore. He finds a progressive church that he feels comfortable worshiping in and writes axioms which allow him as believing skeptic to give a rational account of subjective religious experience and its benefit (i.e. the physiological benefits of meditation and contemplative prayer).

I really liked this book and found McHargue's story a compelling one. I found I could relate to parts of his journey. Like him, my evangelical parents' marriage dissolved after almost thirty years and I was left there to pick up the pieces and try to make sense of it all. Like him, my reading of books by skeptics and believers alike stretched my understanding of God, the Bible and the life of faith. I haven't ever walked away from the faith but I know the experience of dissonance between outward expression of faith and doubts swirling around my insides.

McHargue doesn't provide trite answers to tough question or cherry-picked evidence that demands a verdict. However, his axioms are a starting point for others on their way back to belief. These axioms make smaller and more general claims than the orthodox Christian tradition about God, prayer, the afterlife, salvation, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the church or the Bible. I am unhappy with McHargue's axioms as guiding principles for life and faith but I appreciate the way he frames what he says. Each axiom begins by explaining what each element (i.e. God, sin, salvation, etc.) are "at least." He gives skeptics a provisional place to begin their explore God. Just enough.

I give this five stars and highly recommend it. Those who have wrestled with religious doubt will appreciate the honest way that McHargue explores his own doubts. Not every skeptic will be helped by his answers and many believers will wish he voiced things with a little more theological precision and substance; Yet if you have walked this road, you will appreciate the way McHargue names the in-between-places. ★★★★★

Note: I received this book from Blogging For Books in exchange for my honest review. ( )