An elegant and sincere examination of the promise and power of grace.
A debut guide meditates on the role of grace in modern Christian life.
Jesus calls his followers to a special life, giving them a distinctive part in fulfilling God’s purpose, explains Astudillo in his clear, accessible book. That road can often be one of hardship and sacrifice, requiring raw perseverance in the face of trials. According to the author, this is where the concept of grace comes in. Carefully and knowledgeably drawing on Scripture, Astudillo paints a picture of the function grace can play in Christian life, noting its restorative capacities. It’s through grace, writes the author, that Christians experience happiness even in the midst of difficulties: “This special grace not only frees us and fills our lives with joy but it also empowers us.” This compact manual is a call for Astudillo’s fellow Christians to reflect on the nature of God’s grace and the role that it plays in their lives. Throughout, he peppers his readers with questions designed to challenge their complacency about the tremendous reward grace can be. (Each of the book’s chapters ends with a “Pause and Reflect” section comprised of such questions.) “What more can I do to experience God’s grace in all its forms?” readers are asked. “Is there anything I can do to be ready to receive God’s grace?” The author deftly explores dozens of Gospel stories in order to underscore the fact that God’s grace is not automatic or predictable. It can often come when least expected and in surprising forms. Astudillo notes one of the most dramatic instances in the Bible: In the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, prays for release from his mission, he isn’t freed—but he is comforted. In plainspoken, often passionate prose, the author warns his readers that grace is not a passive gift: It’s intended to be used for God’s glory, to further the cause of going forth and making disciples of all nations. Astudillo’s fellow Christians should find this fluid guide illuminating on an aspect of their faith they may have been overlooking.
An elegant and sincere examination of the promise and power of grace.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-973612-18-6
Page Count: 124
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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