A moving and insightful Christian chronicle.
A debut Christian memoir intertwines a faith narrative and a motherhood account.
The Bible is very much concerned with bodies, Shanks observes in her stirring, compassionate book, and a great majority of those are male. The Christian God is male; he sends his son for the salvation of humanity; and there is no escaping the ingrained sexism of the Old and New Testaments. Thanks to Christian dominance of Western society for the past 2,000 years, that sexism has entered into the very genetic makeup of the culture, setting up echoes of the Bible’s conception of women as secondary beings and the weaker sex, and combining those notions with all the modern trappings of patriarchal assumptions. “God values my body,” Shanks wryly observes, “if it is covered. If it is thin. If it is chaste. If it is flawless. If it is blemish-free. If it is pretty. If it is healthy. If it is young. If it is fair-skinned.” In 2018, she notes, only 11 percent of church congregations are headed by women, a number that’s scarcely changed since 1998. The stories that Christians hear from their earliest childhoods reinforce such disparities: With only a few exceptions, the heroes and villains of the Bible are all men, with women—and their bodies—most often relegated to the simplistic roles of temptress, goddess, or chattel. Shanks herself was raised in these traditions as a self-described “corn-fed Midwestern girl,” and the purpose of her book is to offer a counter-narrative to Christianity’s view of womanhood and motherhood. “God is bigger than the boxes we shove God into,” she writes, “and God created us bigger than the boxes we get shoved into.” Shanks argues that Christians miss out on the deeper meaning of their own Scripture by ignoring the feminine language and imagery present throughout. But it’s her running account of her own experiences as a mother that forms the book’s most compelling narrative thread. Female Christians—and particularly Christian mothers —should find these pages captivating.
A moving and insightful Christian chronicle.Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-935205-28-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Fresh Air Books
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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