A persuasive, well-argued case against Trump by a prominent evangelical.
A noted Christian author takes aim at Donald Trump and his evangelical supporters.
As a 30-year professional golfer who co-founded the official PGA Tour Bible Study group and has authored more than a half-dozen Christian-themed books, including Moses Predicted COVID-19 (2020), Zarley has a long record of promoting his “lifetime evangelical” faith. Unlike many of his fellow White evangelicals, Zarley (who “voted for Republican presidents all my life until lately”) believes that former President Donald Trump was, and continues to be, “unfit for the job and a danger to democracy.” This book, part four in a planned series on biblical prophecy, argues that Trump’s personal and political behavior, from his narcissism to his overt sexual indiscretions, are antithetical to Christianity and the values found in the Bible. Written chronologically from Trump’s 2015 presidential campaign through the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, with a short introductory biography of Trump’s upbringing and business record, Zarley covers the major events, scandals, and blunders of the Trump administration through the lens of a dismayed Christian. Most chapters address specific incidents of the Trump presidency, such as his impeachment hearings and his handling of Covid-19, but others take a more holistic view, comparing, for instance, “the megalomaniac” Trump to Christ in their opposing views on success, judgment, and love. Originally published on the author’s blog at Patheos, the book’s 200 short chapters have been lightly edited to avoid repetition and make for a smoother read. And while Zarley is convincing in many of his political takes, which are typically backed by ample footnotes, the book nevertheless reads more like a compilation of op-eds than a seamless original narrative. Given the work’s admission that “Trump’s political division has hurt families all across America,” in particular Christian homes divided in their political allegiances to Trump, Zarley’s willingness to become a target of right-wing ire is commendable, considering his lifetime investment in evangelical circles. Whether he succeeds in his goal of “deprogramming supporters of President Trump,” however, is yet to be seen.
A persuasive, well-argued case against Trump by a prominent evangelical.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73525-912-3
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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