A useful guidebook for Christians interested in literal answers to the Bible’s more acrimonious subjects.
An accessible look at some of Christianity’s biggest conundrums.
This work takes on some of the Christian faith’s larger questions and contradictions from the perspective of a deeply religious follower. Some are fairly general, such as, “What Happens after You Die?” and “What Is the Holy Trinity?” Others, however, take for granted that readers have a fairly in-depth knowledge of the subject (“Was God Being Evil When He Killed Ananias and Sapphira?”). Regardless of their complexity, however, the answers to many of the questions are fairly predictable. Edwards is an unabashedly devoted Christian and a firm literalist who states very early that he believes everything in the Bible is true: “The answers,” he writes, “are not out there; they are in there—in the Bible.” At times, readers may find this strict approach off-putting, as when he criticizes an old friend who used to question why God ordered the annihilation of the Canaanites: “By the way,” he declares, “anything that attributes evil to God is blasphemous—pure and simple.” At other times, however, the book may be a useful resource for believers. The author has a very thorough understanding of the Bible; if readers want to know more about the origins of the Holy Trinity in Scripture, for instance, this would be a good place to look. Despite his strong views, however, the author does take a balanced approach to issues such as the “end-times,” noting that “the words second coming and rapture appear nowhere in the Bible.” He’s also adept at pinpointing potentially confusing issues, such as why Jesus is known as both the Son of God and the Son of Man. The work, however, might have been improved by some consideration of other views, although, given the enormity of the subject, the author would have had to choose carefully.
A useful guidebook for Christians interested in literal answers to the Bible’s more acrimonious subjects.Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2013
ISBN: 978-1490819525
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: July 11, 2014
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
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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