A brief, upbeat endorsement of the Apostles’ faith in Christ that should please the firmly faithful.
Ligteringen’s debut theological work investigates the messages of the Apostles and the impact on modern Christians.
This slender book works to negate ignorance: “If we are ignorant about the gospel, we are prone to be misled and can easily be taken in by lies.” To do so, Ligteringen calls on such New Testament staples as the persecution of Paul, the letters of Peter (“celebrating the sacrifice of Jesus, which brings us to life and glory”), and the Gospel of John (“God’s love is complete in Jesus, so we must emulate him.” The book maintains a steady message of love for Christ and the avoidance of sin: “what is waiting for the person who does deliberately sin…will be a terrible judgment of fire.” Ligteringen directly addresses readers with some frequency, as in a chapter on the book of Revelation: “Our heroes have been hounded across generations, but let us stand boldly with them, upholding what is right and adding our voices to theirs—not to be intimidated by powerful and wicked types who would pervert the truth and who would suppress the truth—let us declare the truth.” His enthusiasm never wavers, which will likely strike a chord with a similarly devout crowd. Along with its heavy emphasis on Paul—to whom nearly half the book is devoted—the book seems to take his advice of avoiding deeper arguments: “Paul refers to foolish and stupid arguments, which produce quarrels. If we want to teach, we must not quarrel.” Not to be taken as a broad historical investigation, the book is instead a rallying call for the faithful, those who wouldn’t disagree that “We must repent, be baptized in faith and understand that we enter a new and eternal life with God, through Jesus.”
A brief, upbeat endorsement of the Apostles’ faith in Christ that should please the firmly faithful.Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-1490857176
Page Count: 202
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2015
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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