Refreshingly colloquial account of a spiritual journey complete with “ups and downs. Some open highway, and, um, lots of...
Beliefnet.com’s “Sick Soul” columnist wryly explores the strange vagaries of belief.
Spalding does not move among deeply compelling religious figures, but rather consorts with the strangely entertaining and, often enough, the sideshow halt and lame. He’s not looking for future saints, but rather to see how religious views, no matter how peculiar, shape the holders’ lives and make them tick. So he shoves off like Bunyan's pilgrim to see what he may see, which includes a night with the Christian Wrestling Federation: “big guys with big mouths . . . who look like extras in a prison film”—not unlike their secular peers, in fact, except for their exhortations on Jesus’ behalf. Spalding also meets the Jesus lookalike, Whatsyourname, who “somehow inspires an amazing, spontaneous display of faith in Christ without seeming to challenge anyone’s reason,” and runs across a guy who feels that his uncanny ability to hit lottery numbers is the result of a special interest looking over his shoulder. The author drops in on the Garden of Eden, the Holy Land Experience, and Las Vegas, where he visits with the Strip's chaplain, whose responsibilities include administering the last rites to skydiving Elvis impersonators whose chutes don't deploy. He makes house calls with a ghostbuster and is given the dismaying news that “ghosts are, well, I don't know if stupid is the right word, but hardheaded. Immature.” Perhaps most spiritually, or at least most questingly, he makes the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, with all “its hardships and weirdness, its thrills and unexpected pleasures.” What do these experiences reveal to Spalding? If nothing else, “they clarify who or what we are not, [showing] a set of beliefs to which, we can then safely say, we do or do not subscribe.”
Refreshingly colloquial account of a spiritual journey complete with “ups and downs. Some open highway, and, um, lots of toll booths.”Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 1-4000-4653-X
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2003
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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