Fresh thoughts about a question the world never tires of asking.
Yes, Jesus had to die, but not for the reason Christians have traditionally been led to believe, according to this insightful theology book.
Geologist Conrad leads an expedition through key events in the Old Testament to show that God pointed to his plan for the world’s salvation from the beginning of time. Often, Christians are taught that Jesus died to pay the penalty for human sin that began in the Garden of Eden, but the author says it’s misguided to focus on the disobedience that resulted in sin. “[S]in isn’t just an action; it begins in the mind with a corrupt concept of what God is like,” he writes. Adam and Eve breached God’s trust, and it was this lack of trust in a good God, not the disobedience itself, that was the problem, Conrad believes. It’s not mere theological hairsplitting, and he makes the case that God wants to preserve rather than limit our freedom. Conrad credits Dr. Graham Maxwell as the source of many of the ideas contained in the book and calls his view of why Jesus died the Great Controversy-Demonstration Model, which he uses to present Jesus’ death as the greatest example of the lengths to which God will go to demonstrate how much he loves the world and desires a relationship with everyone in it. Conrad says it’s important to understand that God isn’t “an executioner.” The Romans, he believes, were kinder and more compassionate than the Jews, who followed God. “Is it any wonder that today the secular and nonchurched can be nicer people than those who go to church and have a harsh picture of God?” he asks. It’s a great question. Despite occasional typos, the writing is intelligent and accessible, and some complex theology is explained well. Several examples of the Great Controversy-Demonstration Model are dry reading, but the book would still be ideal for discussion in a Sunday school class or Bible study.
Fresh thoughts about a question the world never tires of asking.Pub Date: June 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-1483409405
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
© Copyright 2026 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.
