What right has Pat Robertson to speak for America's Christians? A prominent activist, preacher, and editor of Sojourners magazine repeats his call for a religious vision of politics that goes beyond the current polarization of left and right. Wallis (The Soul of Politics, 1994) believes that many Americans genuinely want to see politics renewed by a sense of personal values and responsibility but do not want to give up the equally biblical imperative for social justice. Although he criticizes the Democrats for a lack of moral imagination, much of his book is an attack on Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition. He traces the way in which the religious right has successfully promoted itself as the voice of Christianity in this country, in spite of the fact that its leaders do not talk much about the teachings of Jesus and the Hebrew prophets. Wallis reminds us that the Bible consistently rebukes the rich and powerful for their neglect of the poor, and that evangelical Christians in the last century were leaders in the abolitionist movement and advocates for the poor. Although he speaks as a Protestant, Wallis admires the coherence of Catholic social teaching, in which opposition to abortion goes hand in hand with insistence on society's duty to care for the disenfranchised. Wallis's own political vision includes compassion for the poor, a renewed sense of community, and a new civility in public discourse. Although he is hard-hitting in his denunciations, he is not always as clear or specific in his proposals. On abortion, Wallis favors legal restrictions, not recriminalization, and the creation of a climate in which abortion would become ``less thinkable.'' He supports legislation to strengthen the family and also to protect the rights of homosexuals. He concludes with a policy statement that has been endorsed by over 80 Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox church leaders. Cogent and well written, Wallis's call for action deserves to be heard.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-385-31690-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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