by Christopher Baido-Essien ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 20, 2012
Fresh, pertinent biblical criticism.
In this thoroughgoing analysis of the Christian Bible, Baido-Essien explains exactly what Jesus expects of his followers.
According to the Gospels, after Jesus is raised from the dead, he makes a number of post-resurrection appearances. In one of the last, he succinctly outlines the responsibilities of new Christian disciples in a short series of commands (just three verses long) that come to be known as the Great Commission. According to Matthew, it reads, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.” The Commission represents Jesus’ marching orders to the first believers, and it remains a powerful summary of Christian ethical teaching. Essentially, Baido-Essien’s book is a close reading of the Commission that tries to answer the following questions: What are the exact expectations of the Commission? What did each piece mean to the first Christians? How should it affect and direct believers’ lives today? He divvies up his analysis to correspond with the passage’s three verses. The first deals with Jesus’ comprehensive authority, the second with discipleship and baptism, and the third with teaching and the church. Baido-Essien handles all three prongs with energy and ease. Best of all, his analysis never feels stale or dated; whenever possible, he injects his interpretation with anecdotes and analogies that keep his writing fresh and current. That timeliness is the work’s strongest attribute: Baido-Essien remains convinced that the Commission has both historical and contemporary relevance, and he’s determined to demonstrate how its language affects modern believers. However, he grounds his project in a deep understanding of scholarly research, and his claims are both serious and substantial.
Fresh, pertinent biblical criticism.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2012
ISBN: 978-1467036986
Page Count: 384
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Albert Camus ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1955
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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by Stephen Batchelor ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2020
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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