A straightforward, hierarchical plan for fixing society’s problems that will appeal to a limited audience.
Rigney offers a Christian blueprint for improving relationships in this leadership book.
The author opens his work with a grim diagnosis of the current state of society, in which politicians move from failure to failure, social threads are fraying, and “hardly anyone takes responsibility for themselves, their emotions, their actions, and their situation.” Rigney attempts to craft a “biblical cure” for these ills, and he bases part of his solution on the late therapist and rabbi Edwin H. Friedman’s bestseller A Failure of Nerve (2007), which he considers “an essential book for Christian leaders.” Early on, he takes Friedman’s essential idea of “differentiation” and expands on it with a reference to William Shakespeare’s play Troilus and Cressida and its notion of “Degree.” Every society, Rigney asserts, has important “relationships of difference” in which a husband has authority over a wife, a parent over a child, a pastor over a congregation, and so on. He cautions readers not to stray from these bedrock “degrees,” and notes that pressure to do so will come from “those closest to you.” He addresses his book to his fellow men (“all of us, as husbands and fathers”), who would occupy all the positions of leadership in this vision of society, which won’t appeal to all readers; in one chapter, “Courage in the Home,” he even condemns the notion of “acquiescing to one’s wife.” Skeptical readers will not be won over by such assertions, or by the author’s opposition to concepts of evolutionary biology, which he calls “gobbledygook.” However, those who share his beliefs will likely be cheered by his call to be “cool as a cucumber” in their faith, “because we know that Christ is risen, reigning, and working for our good.”
A straightforward, hierarchical plan for fixing society’s problems that will appeal to a limited audience.Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9781591280408
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Canon Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 3, 2024
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
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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