A perilously immature spiritual autobiography.
A disjointed selection of personal and religious reflections that is at best impolitic and at worst nasty indeed.
In large part, Yeiser’s book is a transcription of the author’s journals from the mid-’90s. Yeiser, a Christian who, as the title suggests, continues “maturing in faith,” writes on a bevy of topics, mostly relating to his evolving sense of spiritual understanding. But even for an occasional diary, the book is surprisingly fragmented. At times, Yeiser seems to pursue straight autobiography. At other times, he reviews the tenets of his faith. Occasionally, he will simply quote the Bible at length. Frequently, Yeiser wanders into seemingly random, and unintentionally funny, theological speculation: “Something tells me that the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden was not an apple, but a fruit that makes us sexually horny.” It’s a humorous non sequitur, but one that is not irrelevant to the author’s own spiritual concerns, for Yeiser, like Augustine before, cites carnal sins as the main stumbling blocks that hinder his personal march toward faith. Thus Yeiser frequently holds forth on sexual issues, including romance, marriage, abortion and homosexuality. For example, he writes of the morning-after pill: “Dumb young girls, remember, even if you take the morning-after pill now days after having good, immoral sex, you just killed your baby.” It’s a startlingly flippant critique, even from an abortion opponent. Unfortunately, this is not the author at his most outrageous. In a passage halfway through the book, the author implicates the people of Israel in the death of Jesus and argues that God, by way of punishment, visited upon them two millennia of exile and violence–which ended only with the death of Hitler in 1945. To imply that the Holocaust was the culminating punishment for the Jews’ murder of Jesus is not only wrongheaded, it is almost unspeakably offensive. It is statements like these that reduce Yeiser’s journal from harmless meandering to dangerous slander.
A perilously immature spiritual autobiography.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4363-7580-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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