The Unknown God: Searching for Spiritual Fulfilment

"So what is it that really satisfies us?" On the first page of The Unknown God, author Alister McGrath walks us into this central question of our lives and proceeds to answer it by taking the reader through a kind of primer to the Christian faith. The chapters are quite brief, and while containing references to philosophers and theologians ranging from Plato and Augustine to Kierkegaard and Karl Barth, its style is quite simple and direct. A member of the Oxford University faculty of theology and the author of numerous works, McGrath clearly knows his material; but what's most striking about this book is not so much the answer to its primary question as the presentation. The book's short chapters are punctuated by beautiful color illustrations (paintings by Raphael, Rubens, and many other artists, as well as photographs) and highlighted quotations from Christian writers. These features make the pages extremely "user-friendly," much like what you might expect to find on a multimedia CD-ROM display. Checking in at under 125 pages, the combination of brevity and this design makes this a fine gift book for someone with little knowledge of Christianity. All that's required is the spiritual hunger. --Doug Thorpe