Conversations with God: an
uncommon dialogue
by Neale Donald Walsch
January 2001
I didn't actually finish Conversations, but I would strongly recommend against wasting your time reading it.
Walsch's Conversations is an unusual work. He claims that it is the inspired word of God -- that God took control of his hand as he wrote. As Walsch asks questions, he claims that God answers. His answers are disturbing and unbelievable. I put the book down sometime after Walsch says that God wrote (through Walsch), "I do not love 'good' more than I love 'bad.' Hitler went to heaven. When you understand this, you will understand God" (p. 61, italics Walsch's). I am tempted to say that if this is true, I will not understand God, but in actual fact, while I'm sure that I do not understand God in all of his mercy and love, I am quite confident that Hitler is not in Heaven.
In a word, Walsch is a relativist, and this quotation is a perfect example of what relativism is to him. He has "God" go on to say, "Everything is 'acceptable' in the sight of God, for how can God not accept that which is?" (p. 61, italics Walsch's). I cannot imagine a world lived according to Walsch's God, with genocide and other lesser evils considered acceptable in God's eyes. After giving him another 60 pages to explain or contradict this idea, I put the book down.
Walsch does say some things which make sense and are spiritually interesting, I think, but it is difficult to draw any spiritual guidance from one so so interested in whitewashing our (his?) lives, lowering our standards of morality and weakening our spirituality.