A worthwhile aid to devotional study but not a final word on the subject of atonement.
Taylor takes a deep dive into the theology behind original sin and atonement through the death of Jesus Christ.
Based on a conservative evangelical approach to the Bible, this work reinforces the old yarn that, “In Adam’s fall we sinned all.” Debut author Taylor provides a highly readable and accessible work, replete with necessary scriptural references as backup, but on occasion veers into the realm of questionable theology. The book begins by discussing the nature of Adam’s sin of eating the forbidden fruit and how that sin was capable of being passed down not only to further generations, but to all of creation in the process. The author moves on to describe the way one perfect and divine man, Jesus, was able to provide a sacrifice capable of erasing the sin that had threatened creation. These are long-standing issues in Christian theology and have been the subjects of discourse for centuries. Taylor, however, brings up interesting, potentially controversial points. For instance: “The death sentence that was passed on to all men because of Adam’s trespass was taken away immediately without any man having to do anything to make that happen.” His premise is that Jesus’ death forgave original sin, and only individual sins remained to be forgiven. As another example, the author’s firm belief that the Old Testament character of Melchizedek is indeed Christ incarnate, and that all sacrifices were made through him until the advent of Jesus, may also stir debate. Taylor effectively imagines and conveys the level of suffering endured by Jesus in becoming a man and dying. Oddly, the resurrection plays only a small part in this work, leaving holes in the author’s larger soteriology. But overall, Taylor provides the reader with meaningful food for thought.
A worthwhile aid to devotional study but not a final word on the subject of atonement.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63357-136-5
Page Count: 181
Publisher: Crosslink Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 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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