Not all preaching to the choir, though—comparative-religion types at least should take a look.
Tremble, ye doubters: God isn’t dead. He’s back—and He’s brought friends.
At turns revisiting his apologia for proselytizing Protestantism, Evangelicalism and the Future of Christianity (1995), erstwhile atheist turned Oxford theology professor McGrath (In the Beginning, 2001, etc.) proposes that belief in the nonexistence of God is passé. Such belief, he suggests, is a mere blip of history, just one more avatar of modernism, to be consigned to the ashbin of history, along with such modernist avatars as communism and fascism and the thought of atheism’s big three thinkers: Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud, “who between them turned a daring revolutionary hypothesis into the established certainty of an age, placing Christianity constantly on the defensive.” McGrath is incontestably correct on a couple of points: modernism certainly did not kill off religion, much as some of modernism’s exponents—Darwin, Freud, Stalin—wished otherwise. Instead, religious fundamentalism is on the rise in every corner of the planet, with all the peace and understanding that rise portends: Hinduism here, Wahabbism there, Pentecostalism everywhere. (“Only a form of Protestantism which is obsessed by theological correctness . . . is vulnerable,” he writes by way of endorsing this experiential approach to Christianity.) McGrath is shakier on other points. For one thing, he appears to extrapolate organized atheism’s future from the fortunes of American Atheists, the aberrant group founded and then run into the ground by the sinister Madalyn Murray O’Hair. Indeed, he fails to consider the possibility that atheists might not be joiners of groups at all, that unbelievers simply don’t go to church, even if it’s a church of infidels. And never mind the possibility that secular intellectuals and scientists may not push atheism these days not because atheism is out, but because the whole question of God’s existence is simply no longer of interest.
Not all preaching to the choir, though—comparative-religion types at least should take a look.Pub Date: June 15, 2004
ISBN: 0-385-50061-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2004
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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