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SACRED GAMES

A HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP

A thoughtfully conceived, thoroughly researched history that posits pagan origins for the rituals of Christian worship. Lang (Religion/Univ. of Paderborn, Germany) may be building a reputation for tackling enormous subjects—he co-authored Heaven: A History in 1988. Here, he economically uses a mere 450 pages to describe Christianity's six ``sacred games,'' or elements of worship: praise, prayer, sermons, sacrifices, sacraments, and spiritual ecstasy. Each section of the book offers a useful summary of the game in question, a feature made necessary by the almost encyclopedic detail of Lang's research. He begins not with the Bible but with ancient Greek texts, arguing especially for a cross- fertilization of ideas between Christian and neo-Platonic thinkers in late antiquity (the third century a.d.). For instance, the neo- Platonist practice of a ritual magic that Lang calls ``theurgy'' provided the foundation for Christian theology's doctrine of Christ's ``real presence'' in the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist. Lang is interested not only in theology, but in praxis; he strives to see his six ``sacred games'' alive in Christian ritual today, which makes for some provocative connections to our world. For example, in considering spiritual ecstasy, Lang includes the ``rebirth'' of Pentecostal worship at the turn of the 20th century. He claims that Pentecostalism should be understood as an ancient, ecstatic impulse. (This is, in fact, how Pentecostals themselves view their history, although they mark their origins with the New Testament ``gifts of the spirit,'' and not the pagan rituals Lang describes.) Lang chooses some beautiful art to accompany his text and doesn't shy away from including illuminative kitsch among the highbrow works. One wishes, however, that he'd included some Eastern Orthodox icons and that he'd paid more attention generally to the Orthodox tradition. An extraordinary resource for scholars, and a lasting contribution to the fields of Christian history and ritual studies.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-300-06932-4

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Yale Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1997

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THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS

AND OTHER ESSAYS

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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THE ART OF SOLITUDE

A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.

A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.

“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.

A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.

Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0

Page Count: 200

Publisher: Yale Univ.

Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019

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