Considered, considerate and engaging.
A Christian examination of monogamy.
In this thoughtful volume, Cline, a bishop at the New Life Baptist Church, looks at the challenges of marital fidelity in Christian life. Cline takes the position that monogamy as viewed in the contemporary Western world is not entirely biologically or culturally supported, given humans’ own wiring and the expectations placed on men and women during dating. He does, however, believe that monogamous marriages are ultimately desired by God, and to that end, he deals frankly and kindly with the challenges of monogamy and how to handle them. He examines nonmonogamy in the Old Testament, showing how various important biblical figures had multiple partners or committed adultery. He also considers the prevalence of infidelity today, along with its emotional, societal and familial impacts. Cline ends with the idea that “a bigger challenge needs a bigger solution,” looking at ways in which Christians can admit to the challenges of monogamy and recover from infidelity in their own relationships. In a particularly useful chapter, he presents “rules of engagement” for marriage, clearly stating his opinions on what marriage will and won’t do. A later chapter presents advice to young people beginning their dating lives with an eye toward how and if lifelong monogamy should factor into their choices and behavior. Overall, the book presents an honest, nonjudgmental look at an issue that can be difficult to discuss among Christians, and his prose is readable and good-hearted. Of particular use is Cline’s ability to draw openly upon his own experiences, which helps the book feel humanizing while avoiding moralization. Though readers outside Cline’s denomination may not totally agree with his framework, people of faith and nonreligious readers alike will certainly gain new perspectives from his unflinching exploration of relationships, fidelity and how to hold another’s emotions in a romantic relationship.
Considered, considerate and engaging.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-0692299005
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Jasher Press & Co.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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