A brief, disjointed but passionate book about prayer.
Evangelical preacher Kabasele (Christian Philosophy: Understanding Racial Oppression, 2012) offers a brief overview of Christian prayer.
The author gives readers a glimpse into the Bible and his opinions on prayer, drawing on his experiences as a preacher and ministry student. His book is more of an exploration of prayer than a how-to guide, often switching between various topics instead of laying out a process. Topics include an overview of different types of prayers; how to know if God answers prayers; the differences between praise, worship and prayer; how to pray on someone else’s behalf; and how to develop an understanding of God’s power and presence. Each chapter is full of biblical quotes, lessons from Scripture and stories from Kabasele’s own life. Although he seems well versed in the Bible and biblical languages, the verses don’t always thoroughly illuminate his points, and his personal stories, while interesting, tend to end too quickly for readers to draw helpful conclusions from them. He also repeatedly mentions important concepts explained in his other books, but he fails to reintroduce them to new readers, which may make some of his points feel incomplete. However, despite occasionally choppy prose, the author’s tone is emotional and welcoming, heartfelt and sincere. The book’s target audience appears to be readers who come from an evangelical culture, and those already familiar with strongly evangelistic, international faiths will find much to mull over in this book; others may have some difficulty accessing his theological worldview, but may still gain some insights.
A brief, disjointed but passionate book about prayer.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2012
ISBN: 978-1477243602
Page Count: 114
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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