Calabria shows how a golden thread of social- and self-awareness underlies all major religions. Born into a Christian family, Calabria began to explore other religions in his teens, and by his 20s, he’d begun meditating with a yoga master. After much study of comparative religion, he concluded that what differs are not the specific teachings of a religion but the approach individuals take to the religion they have chosen. Exoteric believers, Calabria says, take their scriptures—whether the Bible, Quran, Gita, Avestas, etc.—literally and ignore inconsistencies in the texts. They are the dogmatists and fundamentalists of the world. Mesoteric believers, he says, see that there are similarities across religions and inconsistencies within them, which makes them more open-minded but also more equivocal. Mesoteric believers sound much like stereotypical New Agers (although Calabria doesn’t use the term), taking a bit here and there from diverse traditions. Finally, esoteric believers comprehend the Cosmic Religion, a kind of Platonic ideal of religion that underlies all the major religions. Esoteric believers will generally choose one specific tradition to follow, but, Calabria says, they see through the dogmatism and inconsistencies to practice the three unitary principles that the author calls Love God, Love Neighbor and Love Self. Calabria illustrates these principles through comparisons of Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, Sikh, Hindu, Taoist, Judaic and Zoroastrian scriptures and the teachings of several ascended masters (Jesus Christ, Guru Nank, Lao Tzu, Moses, etc.). Calabria seems to be well-read, although it can be disturbing that his main cited resource is Wikipedia and there’s no bibliography of secondary literature. His list of resources at the end of the book consists of links to websites for a variety of Kriya Yoga organizations. Calabria tends to make sweeping statements about world religions but seems to be really talking about only the Judeo-Christian-Muslim nexus and the Indo-Aryan religions—the same group that has been mined for “universal truths” since Madam Blavatsky introduced theosophy in the late 19th century. For readers seeking universal truths, this book is as good a place as any to start, though there’s not much new here.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1479183753
Page Count: 200
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Collected essays by Rabbi Heschel (190772), one of our century's most eloquent and challenging theologians. The introduction by daughter Susannah Heschel, herself a Jewish scholar at Case Western Reserve University, runs to the sappy, but the solid biographical nuggets remind us how this significant spiritual influence on Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant theologians (including Pope Paul VI and Dr. Martin Luther King) was a miraculous ``brand plucked from the fire of Europe.'' Essays on historical events and moral issues of the day, from WW II to Vietnam and the civil rights movement, make up two of the five clusters of essays and addresses here. The other three divisions and a coda of two interviews are more purely theological—though every topic is ultimately theological for Heschel. To this scion of Hasidic masters with a doctorate from the University of Berlin, ``God in search of man'' remains his primary thesis as well as the title of one of his 13 books. To Heschel, WW II underscored an ongoing human failure that allows people to ``suspect that science is a device for exploitation, parliaments pulpits for hypocrisy, and religion a pretext for a bad conscience.'' Never sparing academia or theology, Heschel rails that we ``have bartered holiness for convenience, . . . wisdom for diplomas and information.'' Despite his professional involvement with Reform Jewish and Christian seminaries, Heschel was a daring critic of both, the former for valuing human will over revelation, the latter for preferring Faith over Works. To Heschel, doctrine was unimportant compared to religious wonder, gratitude, and acts of kindness, as ``God is waiting for us to redeem the world.'' This essential collection captures the best of a leading thinker and doer who influenced many contemporaries with an ancient prophetic tradition that he made new.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-374-19980-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1995
Egyptologist Rohl compellingly presents a groundbreaking analysis of archaeological evidence for the historicity of the early books of the Old Testament. Because two centuries of archaeology in the Middle East have generally failed to prove the validity of the Old Testament accounts, historians have increasingly begun to relegate these ancient texts to the realm of folklore. Rohl, chairman of the Institute for Study of Interdisciplinary Sciences in London, acknowledges the paucity of evidence to support the conventional dating of biblical events, but he argues that the reason for this is that scholars have misdated important events in both Egyptian and biblical history, thus missing the biblical significance of archaeological finds. Closely analyzing such finds from Egypt, he concludes that archaeological support can be found for the major events of the early Old Testament by dating them according to his corrected ``New Chronology.'' According to this revised chronology, for instance, the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt took place in approximately 1447 b.c. (instead of c. 1250 b.c. as in the conventional dating). The most intriguing part of Rohl's text is his analysis of what he regards as archaeological evidence of biblical events: a ruined palace becomes the palace of the vizier Joseph, complete with a shattered statue of him; an ancient Egyptian city with evidence of Asiatic settlers becomes the place where the Israelites lived as slaves; another ancient town whose remains show signs of conflagration and mass burials proves to be Joshua's Jericho. If Rohl is correct, he has reanalyzed the archaeological record to find support for events told in the early books of the Bible, and he has produced a work with profound implications for both biblical and Egyptian history. A breathtaking archaeological tour de force, persuasively argued, sure to be controversial. The Learning Channel will begin airing a series based on this book in mid-January. (four-color and b&w photos, line drawings)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-517-70315-7
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1995
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