There’s much here to interest both adherents to and skeptics of today’s alternative and holistic medicines, as well as fans...
A well-researched biography that seeks to restore the reputation of the doctor satirized in T.C. Boyle’s novel The Road to Wellville (1993) and in the film of the same name.
Wilson (Comparative Religion/Western Michigan Univ.; Yankees in Michigan, 2008, etc.) has done much more than provide a sympathetic biography of the man who headed the once-famous Battle Creek Sanitarium, the name John Harvey Kellogg (1852-1943) gave to the Seventh-Day Adventist’s Western Health Reform Institute when he became its director in 1876. While the author fully explores the doctor’s role there, more important is his examination of the conflicts among various schools of religious, philosophical and scientific thought in the United States at the time. Kellogg struggled to reconcile the science he had learned as a doctor with the teachings of his church; ultimately, his deviation from church doctrines led to his expulsion. Believing that the purity of the body was as important for salvation as the purity of the soul, he developed the concept of biologic living, the rules for which he spelled out in detail in various books and promoted at the sanitarium. The first rule: “Obedience to the laws of life and health is a moral obligation.” Among his many precepts was the forgoing of meat. He taught that since the abandonment of vegetarianism in Eden, the human race has been sliding into decline, manifested by the short life span of modern men. In time, Kellogg became increasingly concerned over what he saw as the threat of race degeneration, devoting the last 30 years of his life to eugenics, the so-called science of improving the human race by controlling heredity. Wilson demonstrates convincingly where Kellogg’s ideas about health reform originated and how they evolved.
There’s much here to interest both adherents to and skeptics of today’s alternative and holistic medicines, as well as fans of American history, especially the history of religions.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-253-01447-4
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Indiana Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
An interesting but inconclusive look at the relationship between religion and money in contemporary America. Wuthnow (Social Sciences/Princeton; Sharing the Journey, p. 59, etc.) asks: What is the effect of religious belief on economic choices? Jesus cautioned that a person could not serve two masters- -both God and money. Yet, according to Wuthnow, that is precisely what many American synagogue- and churchgoers and professed believers are attempting to do. In the postindustrial era, people are working more hours than ever before and, under tremendous pressure to perform and gain ever more material goods, enjoying it less. What impact does religion have? Does it affect the careers people choose? Very little, according to the author, who bases his work on a wide variety of sources (including surveys and interviews). What religion might do, however, is make people happier on the job. It also influences workplace ethics, helping to determine whether one will be honest or willing to cut corners. Statistical comparisons of people of various moral stances, and of churchgoers to the population at large, also indicate that religious commitment influences people's attitudes toward money (showing it is as much the province of priest and rabbi as it is of economist and businessman), charitable giving, environmental consciousness, and opinions and actions concerning the economically disadvantaged. In the end, Wuthnow's answers are all mixed bags, demonstrating that Americans are at once deeply spiritual and profoundly secular. He also criticizes current religious leadership for reshaping modern religion so as to not afflict the consciences of their consumerist, capitalist congregants. Appendices on methodology will be helpful to serious students. Straightforwardly written in accessible prose, the book will appeal primarily to students and scholars of religion. There is, however, enough to attract the interested layperson as well.
Pub Date: Sept. 21, 1994
ISBN: 0-02-935628-8
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Children's author Grimes (From a Child's Heart, 1993, etc.) does an adult turn with this mild historical fiction about the mother of Jesus. Largely narrated in the first person, the novel tells the familiar story of Mary in a simple, pious way that is sure to please fundamentalist believers. Coming of age in the backwater of Galilee, ruled by the evil and tyrannical puppet-king Herod, Mary is attracted to the carpenter, Joseph, by his muscular good looks and his love of God. She is betrothed to him when she is visited by the Archangel Gabriel, who announces that she has conceived a child by the spirit of God. She envisions opprobrium and rejection as a result of this ``illegitimate'' pregnancy, but Joseph stands by her and vows to keep the matter private between them. Forced to flee to Egypt to avoid the mass infanticide ordered by Herod, they return only after the monarch's death. Jesus, the son she bears, impresses all those around him, and Mary remembers the promise of Gabriel and the old prophecies, but she still doesn't fully understand. Finally, Jesus embarks on a ministry of which she is no real part. She sees him only occasionally and is confused when he spurns her. She watches helplessly as he is arrested and executed. When he is raised from the dead, in fulfillment of the prophecies, Mary, like Doubting Thomas, refuses to believe it until she has seen it with her own eyes—after which she emerges believing and exultant. Passages from the Gospels punctuate the text and serve to give it a homogenized story line culled from disparate parts of the biblical tradition. Attempts to add resonance to the bare-bones account by portraying Mary's inner thoughts are only sometimes successful. Boy meets girl. Girl gives birth to Messiah. Messiah dies. Messiah lives. Enough said.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-15-173199-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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