An approachable work that delivers reasoned critiques of organized Christianity despite embracing some fringe theories.
A Christian book offers eclectic takes on religious doctrine, ethics, and history.
A clinical psychologist, Slobodzien has studied Christian history and theology for decades after a spiritual conversion in the 1970s. He has written over a half-dozen works on Christianity and biblical counseling. In this volume, he challenges the stereotype of Jesus “as a meek, mild, peaceful, loving, hippie type of person” and provides an alternate vision of a “divine Warrior who first came to start an anti-religious revolution.” Indeed, in the work’s reading of the book of Revelation, Jesus will return at the battle of Armageddon as the head of an army that includes “the Royal Priesthood of all believers,” or his true disciples. But not all who call themselves “Christian,” the book claims in one of its central arguments, will be included in this apocalyptic roll call. Raised in an Italian/Polish Catholic family, the author has since determined that Roman Catholicism’s dogmas are not only incorrect, but that “Satan is still being worshipped today” in the religion’s “worship” of the dead (“All Hallows Eve”) and its veneration of the Virgin Mary (a cleverly disguised reinterpretation of the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar). Critical of all “organized religion” that bases salvation on codes of conduct and “membership rules,” Slobodzien does not pull any punches regarding Protestant churches either. Entire chapters are devoted to condemning megachurches and high-profile pastors who line their bank accounts via “spiritual financial extortion” and mislead their flocks through promoting Covid-19 conspiracy theories. While following a literalist approach to the Bible similar to evangelicals, the author critiques conservative Christians who use “false religious guilt…to attack God’s People” and presents refreshingly nuanced takes on incendiary culture war issues like abortion and sexuality. And while the book supplies several eccentric theories, such as Satan’s role in mass extinction events in Earth’s history and the conjecture that Neanderthals were the “Nephilim” of biblical lore, Slobodzien’s honest discussions of the “brutal Systemic Racism in our nation” are welcome views from a White Christian author.
An approachable work that delivers reasoned critiques of organized Christianity despite embracing some fringe theories.Pub Date: June 11, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 446
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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