I have read quite a few books that present themselves as life changing discussions about the afterlife, and generally I am disappointed with their contents. Andy Stanley's Since Nobody's Perfect, How Good is Good Enough? is a refreshing alternative to all the extended tract type books out there. Instead of opening with a "this is why you need to begin your walk with Jesus" mentality, Stanley invites the reader into a friendly 94 page dialogue about life and what may follow it.

The conversation centers around one important question: "Do good people go to heaven? If so, how good is good enough?". The first portion of the book is reveals that much of the world believes that living a good life is enough to get into heaven. Every religion seems to think that good deeds lead to a better afterlife (or next life). Is this a logical conclusion? If good is subjective, how can it be the standard for entrance to a pleasant afterlife? And, if a good lifestyle is the key to heaven, why hasn't God give us clear cut moral guidelines to get there? Stanley reveals that that Jesus offers a different perspective. Through the story of the thieves of the cross as recorded in Luke 23, the reader discovers that Jesus actually invites bad people to join Him in paradise (57).

The second half of the book further explores why Jesus' alternative makes more sense than trying to be good enough on our own. My favorite passage of the book is Stanley's attempt to address how it can be fair for a just and loving God to create a system where some good people may not get into heaven.

"Christianity is the fairest possible system in a world that is irreversibly unfair. As we will see, it is certainly more fair that a system predicated upon adhering to a list of rules that we can't find, created by a God who hasn't had the courtesy to explain the system. But before we broach the question of "Is Christianity fair?" we need to look at the assumption that fuels the fairness debate.... [if] you conclude that Jesus could not have been telling the truth because what he says is unfair, then you are using fairness as a test for truth.

For most people, choosing a religion is like choosing a flavor of ice cream- we pick what we like, what we are comfortable with, what suits our taste. That's understandable, but it's not very smart. The issue is not What do I like? or How was I raised? or What makes me comfortable? The issue is What is true?

I find that people don't like to be backed into a corner and forced to discuss religion in terms of true versus false. Again, understandable. But once you decide that people live forever somewhere, you are staking your eternity on what you choose to believe is true."(77-79)

Stanley is aware that the topic he is addressing is both uncomfortable and of eternal importance, and humbly invites us to consider it with him. For a short book, I think that he did an excellent job of challenging both non-Christians and Christians alike to consider what we think about heaven and how people get there.

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Because I love blogging and I love books, I am giving "blogging for books" a try.  I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.