A sometimes-rousing call for Christians to remember the commandments’ wisdom.
A compact sequence of sermons on the meaning of the Ten Commandments.
Debut author Ingraham begins his fast-paced overview by asserting that the country is currently embroiled in a “religious war”—specifically, an “effort to distance the United States of America from its Judeo-Christian beginnings despite the abundance of evidence contained in the writings of the Founding Fathers.” He ignores the explicitly secular principles that the Founding Founders wrote into the First Amendment, instead launching into a full-throated defense of the Ten Commandments and a lament about the removal of a monument commemorating them from public grounds in Alabama in 2004. “How much safer we would be if only we obeyed [God’s] commandments,” he writes. “How better this world would be if only his commandments prevailed.” Some commandments, of course, such as injunctions against killing, stealing, and bearing false witness, do prevail in most countries of the world. The author’s main focus is on the first commandment (“Thou shalt have no other gods before Me”), and the book hardly acknowledges that billions of people adhere to non-Christian religions or no religion at all. Each successive chapter, however, goes on to explicate a single commandment in great detail, employing copious, well-chosen quotes from Scripture and anecdotes drawn from history. Ingraham is skillful at weaving the commandments into the broader context of the Old and New Testaments; he richly deepens his comments on “Thou Shalt Not Covet,” for instance, by discussing St. Paul’s teachings to the Corinthians. Other material is less comprehensible, however, such as “Put God first, and your mouth will be satisfied with good things such that your youth is renewed like the eagles,” which is no more understandable than its reference, Psalm 103:5. But for the most part, his preaching has a bluff, accessible air of long experience (“As our Creator, God knows what is best for us,” he points out. “His intent is not to be a killjoy”). Each chapter ends with a list of discussion questions, designed to prompt deeper examination of finer points.
A sometimes-rousing call for Christians to remember the commandments’ wisdom.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-973602-09-5
Page Count: 111
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.
The Book of Genesis as imagined by a veteran voice of underground comics.
R. Crumb’s pass at the opening chapters of the Bible isn’t nearly the act of heresy the comic artist’s reputation might suggest. In fact, the creator of Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural is fastidiously respectful. Crumb took pains to preserve every word of Genesis—drawing from numerous source texts, but mainly Robert Alter’s translation, The Five Books of Moses (2004)—and he clearly did his homework on the clothing, shelter and landscapes that surrounded Noah, Abraham and Isaac. This dedication to faithful representation makes the book, as Crumb writes in his introduction, a “straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes.” But his efforts are in their own way irreverent, and Crumb feels no particular need to deify even the most divine characters. God Himself is not much taller than Adam and Eve, and instead of omnisciently imparting orders and judgment He stands beside them in Eden, speaking to them directly. Jacob wrestles not with an angel, as is so often depicted in paintings, but with a man who looks not much different from himself. The women are uniformly Crumbian, voluptuous Earth goddesses who are both sexualized and strong-willed. (The endnotes offer a close study of the kinds of power women wielded in Genesis.) The downside of fitting all the text in is that many pages are packed tight with small panels, and too rarely—as with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—does Crumb expand his lens and treat signature events dramatically. Even the Flood is fairly restrained, though the exodus of the animals from the Ark is beautifully detailed. The author’s respect for Genesis is admirable, but it may leave readers wishing he had taken a few more chances with his interpretation, as when he draws the serpent in the Garden of Eden as a provocative half-man/half-lizard. On the whole, though, the book is largely a tribute to Crumb’s immense talents as a draftsman and stubborn adherence to the script.
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-393-06102-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
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