An effective explanation of an often-misunderstood faith that informs readers in a way that is persuasive without being...
A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints explains the fundamentals of his faith to non-Mormons.
Basic guides to Mormon beliefs and practices are in demand this year, and Brian Grant Kent’s contribution to the field is a good primer. In brief chapters filled with citations from both the Mormon and Protestant Bibles, Kent conveys a sympathetic and comprehensive picture of the philosophy of the Mormon faith. The book hews closely to its topic; it does not get into the church’s history or its role in American culture. Instead, the book starts with one of the foundational differences between Mormons and other branches of Christianity: While Protestant denominations are the product of reformations of the church structure, Mormonism stems from a reformation of the biblical text and its interpretation by Joseph Smith, as well as its continuing revelation to the prophets who followed Smith, up to and including the church’s current leadership. From there, the book moves through key aspects of Mormon belief, including the roles of baptism, grace and good works; the Mormon understanding of Jesus; the relationship between church leaders and the lay community; and the question of seeing versus believing that is common to most people of faith. The book concludes with a summation of a talk that the church president gave at the most recent general conference. Each chapter begins with a short anecdote from Kent’s personal or professional life. Some anecdotes fit better into the doctrinal discussions that follow than others, but together they serve to provide readers with an image of the author: an outdoorsman, a truck driver and a man confident in his understanding of his faith.
An effective explanation of an often-misunderstood faith that informs readers in a way that is persuasive without being proselytizing.Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2012
ISBN: 978-1478138891
Page Count: 148
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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