A profound, moving take on faith in an age that often vehemently challenges it.
A deeply meditative gathering of essays that reflects on one man’s lifelong wrangling with his spirituality.
Writing as a minister rather than an academic theologian, debut author Howard recounts his quest for a more inclusive and less doctrinally rigid religious tradition. He grew up in a Presbyterian church but eventually left to experiment with the Baptist tradition, which he initially believed emphasized the personal elements of faith over the unwavering adherence to a catechism. He eventually became disillusioned with the Baptist faith and its own set of restrictions on his freedom, and he reformulated his own “personal theology” that focused less on belief and more on faith and spiritual experience. This exploration eventually led to his ordination as a minister in the Unitarian Universalist Church. Both a memoir and a philosophical investigation, the book centers around his understanding of faith: “Belief is one thing. Faith, on the other hand, is something much deeper and more elemental to who we are. Faith is the [sic] our orientation to life and our way of engaging in the world. It encompasses hopes, and it manifests ultimate concerns. Under this understanding, faith is universal to the human experience. It doesn’t have to be overtly religious.” Howard’s cogitations push him to consider a wide swath of topics and authors, including more intellectual sources, such as Martin Buber and George Santayana, and elements of popular culture, including John Lennon and Yann Martel’s Life of Pi (2001). The author thoughtfully considers the scholarly rigor of agnostic philosopher Betrand Russell as well as the limitations of the intellect as articulated by Gandhi. A highlight of the work is a discussion of St. Paul, one of the principal architects of Christian theology and, by extension, Western civilization. The author explains his view of the failings of Christianity as traditionally conceived and also the reasons he never quite fully departs from that tradition. Each essay stands alone, but as a whole, they comprise a searching consideration of human spirituality.
A profound, moving take on faith in an age that often vehemently challenges it.Pub Date: Nov. 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-1502521804
Page Count: 242
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 29, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
