An uplifting and scripturally literate reading of the subject of barrenness in Christianity.
A pastor’s study of the unexpected dimensions of barrenness in Christian Scripture.
In her nonfiction debut, Hudson explores how Christian Scripture and its later exegesis view barrenness. She looks at five barren Hebrew “matriarchs” of the Old Testament: Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel; Rachel, Jacob’s wife; Sarah, Abraham’s wife; Rebekah, Isaac’s wife; and the unnamed wife of Manoah, who was also the mother of Samson. More specifically, Hudson considers “each of the five matriarchs’ miraculous conception and birth of a son” or her “journey from barrenness to fruitfulness through God’s divine intervention.” By examining the women’s lives and including fictionalized segments in which they tell their own stories, Hudson seeks to underscore the layers of interpretation possible in understanding barrenness in the biblical world. “God is ever-new in His ways of answering our prayers,” she writes, noting what modern-day Christians can learn from these stories, including lessons about patience and humility. “Just like a farmer who plants a seed, there is a time of waiting,” she writes. “There is seed time and harvest and each season is different.” Dealing with her subjects both as individuals and as emblematic of larger themes, Hudson ends each chapter with discussion questions and space for taking notes, and she includes devotional guides for contemporary Christians dealing with infertility or another aspect of barrenness. Her interpretative tone throughout is optimistic and faith-oriented, linking her biblical stories to living parallels: “When you look on Jesus, you too will know unspeakable joy and laugh with Sarah who was barren....” Some of her readings are oddly specific; she describes Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, for instance, with the anachronistic term “post-menopausal.” But the book’s joyful tone overrides such concerns, reminding her readers that “when God is about to birth something new in you,” it will be a cause for joy.
An uplifting and scripturally literate reading of the subject of barrenness in Christianity.Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4908-8954-2
Page Count: 154
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A smart collection of articles and interviews on stupidity.
Are people getting dumber, or does it just look that way?
That question underlies this collection of essays by and interviews with psychologists, neurologists, philosophers, and other well-credentialed intellectuals. A handful of contributors have ties to North American universities—Dan Ariely, Alison Gopnik, and Daniel Kahneman among them—but most live in France, and their views have a Gallic flavor: blunt, opinionated, and tolerant of terms in disfavor in the U.S., including, as translated from the French by Schillinger, moron, idiot, and imbecile. Marmion, a France-based psychologist, sets the tone by rebutting the idea that we live in a “golden age of idiocy”: “As far back as the written record extends, the greatest minds of their ages believed this to be the case.” Nonetheless, today’s follies differ in two ways from those of the past. One is that the stakes are higher: “The novelty of the contemporary era is that it would take only one idiot with a red button to eradicate all stupidity, and the whole world with it. An idiot elected by sheep who were only too proud to choose their slaughterer.” The other is that—owing partly to social media—human follies are more visible, whether they involve UFO sightings or “some jerk pressing the elevator button like a maniac when it’s already been pressed.” Social psychologist Ewa Drozda-Senkowska distinguishes between ignorance and stupidity, noting that “stupidity, true stupidity, is the hallmark of a frightening intellectual complacency that leaves absolutely no room for doubt.” Other experts consider whether stupidity has an evolutionary basis, how it erodes morale, and the “very particular kind of adult stupidity” exemplified by Donald Trump. Although not a self-help guide, this book suggests that it rarely pays to argue with blockheads. Unfortunately, notes neuropsychologist Sebastian Dieguez, the “imbecile…doesn’t have the mental resources that would permit him to perceive his own imbecility.”
A smart collection of articles and interviews on stupidity.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-14-313499-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
A powerful personal remembrance about the search for God amid communist intolerance.
A debut memoir recounts a lawyer’s courageous stand for religious freedom in Romania.
As a little girl, Prodan, now an international human rights attorney, always felt painfully set apart; her red hair and freckles distinguished her from the remainder of her family, and her mother, Elena, treated her cruelly. She was raised in Techirghiol, a small town ravaged by poverty, like so much of Romania suffering under the Communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu. She found a reprieve from the bleakness of her environs by devouring literature and later decided, as a partisan of justice and truth, to become an attorney. The author traveled to Bucharest to take her law school admissions exams and stayed with her affectionate Aunt Cassandra, who bore such a striking resemblance to her that Cassandra was often mistaken for her mother. At the time, Prodan considered the possibility that Cassandra was, in fact, her mother, although it remained unclear why Elena assumed the role, however coldly. Eventually, Prodan became a practicing attorney, married her first boyfriend from law school, and gave birth to two daughters. After years of feeling lost amid relatives, she finally found a home among a family of her own creation. But she discovered a deeper sense of peace in religion and started defending clients whose constitutional rights to religious expression were systematically denied by the government. The author’s efforts to catch the attention of the U.S. government, under the tutelage of President Ronald Reagan, caused the Ceaușescu administration to intensify its efforts to stymie her activism. Prodan was forced to risk her life, and the lives of her family, to maintain her religious and political convictions. The author paints a vividly disturbing tableau of the brutality of Romanian Communism and the chilling manner in which Ceaușescu feigned political liberality to the world while practicing totalitarianism at home. While it’s a memoir written in the first person, the book reads like a suspenseful thriller that also thoughtfully reflects on the moral value of freedom. At times, Prodan’s prose flirts with melodrama, and there are few moments of lightheartedness to leaven the book’s gloomy tone, but this remains a potent indictment of autocracy and a searing testament to human courage.
A powerful personal remembrance about the search for God amid communist intolerance.Pub Date: June 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4964-1183-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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