Psychoanalyst Strozier (History/John Jay College/CUNY; Lincoln's Quest for Union—not reviewed) probes the minds of ``end- time believers'' to investigate a growing religious trend that he sees as one response to a widespread sense of ultimate threat. Over one quarter of the American people believe that God will cleanse the earth in a fiery destruction, send Jesus back to rule for 1,000 years, give the saints victory over death, and cast everyone else forever into a lake of fire. Strozier bases his study on five years as a participant/observer at four New York City churches and on interviews with church members. He finds that fundamentalist discourse is permeated with images of violence and circles around the problems of guilt and shame. Strozier takes care not to caricature his informants or to treat their beliefs as pathological. In some cases, he sees them as leading towards a greater engagement with life, e.g., the Reverend Charles and his Harlem congregation, for whom the apocalyptic vision is an urgent call to greater awareness and social action. Typically, however, he notes a profound split separating believers from an ever more rotten world, and their own sinful past from their present perceived purity. Human beings can bring nothing to their redemption, according to this view, and there is a dissociative shift in agency toward an angry God who dooms sinners to a genocidal cleansing. Strozier offers some penetrating insights along the way, but many readers will find it odd that a study of American religiosity is confined to New York City. In his historical survey, Strozier does not refer to the apocalyptic excesses of some early Puritan groups, and he makes no attempt to show how apocalyptic beliefs stand in relation to traditional Christian doctrine and what this might imply psychologically. Nor does he address the obvious question: Why are such ideas more popular in this country than elsewhere? A timely study that, as the author says, offers more interesting questions than simple answers.
Pub Date: April 19, 1994
ISBN: 0-8070-1226-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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