An intriguing, wide-ranging attempt to renovate the way Christians relate to naked bodies.
A study explores Christianity’s relationship to the human body.
This latest book from Thompson (Loving Homosexuals as Jesus Would, 2004) delves into the vexed and ambivalent relationship between Christianity and the naked human body. The author takes a standard Christian stance that humans are the handiwork of God and therefore implicitly divulge something of his thinking. “The body reveals these mysteries by demonstrating the attributes of God in both form and function, design and behavior,” Thompson writes. “The body teaches us who God is.” The author grapples with the subject of physicality through a delightfully wide array of readings, ranging from Lady Gaga and St. Teresa of Ávila to canonical Christian writings and a variety of blogs on many subjects. He looks at Christianity’s long history of instilling shame and revulsion in its followers regarding the naked body, and he presents a broad survey of more contemporary writings designed to counter that tradition. Thompson is a proponent of a far more wholesome view of nudity, asserting that nothing fixes unhealthy body images faster than spending “quality time” with other bodies. Rather than a stigma, he tends to think of getting naked as becoming closer to the Creator of that nakedness: “I am throwing off the last remaining connection to society and its rituals, thus baring my soul to God with nothing in the way.” Some of the author’s claims will strike many readers as odd, especially in light of the progressiveness of his general argument. He mentions that Adam and Eve lived in 4000 B.C.E., for instance (the ancient Egyptians had been farming and manufacturing for thousands of years before that date), and he repeatedly references his own “struggles” with same-gender attraction. But his overall approach to his subject is refreshingly affirmative. “Lack of information creates confusion about sex, and lack of affirmation creates shame about the body,” he writes in one encouraging passage. “This confusion, and conflation, informs our impropriety.” Christians having questions about their own bodies will find a wealth of captivating content in these pages.
An intriguing, wide-ranging attempt to renovate the way Christians relate to naked bodies.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5326-5987-4
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Cascade Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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