A biographer and religious theorist analyzes the great divide between healthy sexual expression and spirituality in modern Christianity.
“Perhaps it is a relief to check our bodies at the door when we go to church,” writes Frykholm, but the candid plights described by the nine individuals he profiles were not resolved that effortlessly. The author focused on interviews with Protestant Christians because she believes the disharmony in connecting “one’s whole self to something spiritual” has significant Protestant roots. Each of her subjects shares “the pain of a toxic culture of religion and sexuality,” and their tales are rife with fear, shame and isolation. Frykholm begins with recollections of her adolescence, when her limits were tested by an increasingly frisky boyfriend while her sensibilities continued to be shaped by her Baptist roots. In the first section, both “Sarah,” the daughter of a Korean Presbyterian minister, and “Mark,” the son of a suburban Ohio Methodist minister, found themselves estranged from Christianity once they were faced with the “crisis” of sexuality. Other frank memories of sex addiction, abuse and street prostitution are equally powerful. Frykholm acknowledges that the homosexual population wrestles frequently with this conundrum, and that demographic is featured prominently. Paul emerged as a successful gay pastor in his community despite coming out publicly to his congregation, while Megan embraced a lesbian relationship, but only after years of self-doubt and hesitancy. Using keen insight and a host of memorable voices, Frykholm successfully relates her desire to utilize “our stories, our bodies, our sexualities, our minds, and our souls to love one another better.” A culturally significant collection that explores the challenges of reconciling pleasure with piety.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8070-0466-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
A proper guide and devotional for the Stations of the Cross.
A concise volume of illuminating selections from the Bible.
This precise and thoughtful prayer book offers itself as an unassuming guidebook to the Stations of the Cross. An introductory contention that the theology and rituals of the Stations have continued to be undervalued and underobserved by many of the faithful gives this unpretentious and carefully constructed book an additional rhetorical and spiritual thrust. Included in this slim volume is an easily grasped how-to section that gives readers interested in observing the Stations clear directions for getting the most out of the book and their time. This book has a very specific market–even among Christians–and so its appeal is limited. However, for those more interested in an easily approachable guide to the subject than in a portable seminary, the well-crafted formula of the book makes for an optimal introduction. The book's chapters are devoted to each particular station and contain an opening prayer, an announcement of the station, the call and response to bless God, a fitting passage from the Bible, a meditation on the particular passage and an optional hymn. The book should be useful for private observance, but it is still presented primarily as a text meant to be used in some form of group religious observance. The passages offered are a powerfully concise version of the New Testament's messianic message, but readers should be advised that there is little theological analysis or ancillary commentary provided by the author. Each station is accompanied by a relevant illustration that distills the essential events of the particular station and should aid in observance and preparation for each station. The book is a markedly utilitarian production, and it is in this capacity that it should serve its users most effectively and movingly.
A proper guide and devotional for the Stations of the Cross.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4415-8964-4
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A scholarly survey of how the figure of the Antichrist has been understood through the centuries, from Second Temple Judaism to present-day America. McGinn (Historical Theology/Univ. of Chicago Divinity School), editor of the acclaimed 80-volume Classics of Western Spirituality series, argues that the theme of the Antichrist (in its original form, a literal belief in a being of ultimate evil) illuminates much about how people view themselves and evil in society. Beginning with the apocalyptic traditions of Judaism, McGinn moves through early Christianity, Gnosticism, Byzantine apocalypticism, the Western medieval world, the Reformation, and the more subdued references since the Enlightenment. The Antichrist figure can be understood as an external enemy, such as Nero, or, following the thought of Augustine and some modern novelists, as a reality lurking within believers themselves. Another polarity in the theme is that the Antichrist is sometimes seen as inspiring universal dread or, alternatively, as coming under the appearance of good- -hence John Wycliffe's identification of the pope as the Antichrist and the separatist Roger Williams's view that any established Christian society was a form of Antichrist. In modern times, due to the polarities of the Cold War and the specter of nuclear apocalypse, the theme has had a vigorous existence in Russia and the United States; and recent claims, locating evil in apparent sources of power, hold that the Antichrist can be seen at work in the United Nations and in the credit-card system. McGinn notes that, since apocalyptic thought harbors no shades of gray between good and evil, anyone not fully in accord with a given belief may be seen by those who hold that belief as an adherent of absolute evil. An excellent sourcebook for anyone wishing to understand the kind of anxieties that are likely to multiply as we approach the year 2000. (30 b&w photos, not seen).
Pub Date: Dec. 9, 1994
ISBN: 0-06-065543-7
Page Count: 416
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1994
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