Six essays on evangelicalism from America’s keenest observer of contemporary religion. Balmer (Grant Us Courage, 1995, etc.) reveals the heart of evangelicalism in the US, past and present. The book is somewhat more modest than the subtitle implies: The pieces here do not constitute anything as grand as a history of American evangelicalism. Readers will come away with textbook detail, but will nonetheless become deeply acquainted with the character and quirks of American evangelicals. Balmer begins by introducing the 18th-century Pietists, arguing that although evangelicalism has roots in the familiar Puritans, evangelical practices today draw at least as heavily on their Pietist ancestors. In —Diversity and Stability,— Balmer explores the development and ramifications of religious disestablishment in the United States. —Visions of Rapture— examines evangelicals— embrace of Scripture’s apocalyptic prophecies. Balmer suggests that evangelicals spill so much ink on prophecies because debating whether Saddam Hussein is the Antichrist can provide a night’s entertainment at a sleepy dinner party, because imagining the last times allows —for flights of fancy about the shape of a new and perfect world,— and because ruminating about the world’s end inspires conversion. —A Pentecost of Politics— shows how evangelicals and America’s public discourse have shaped each other. Balmer traces evangelicals— commitments to femininity and domesticity from the 19th century to the present before scrutinizing, in the final chapter, the religious right’s attempts to reclaim the nation for God. The writing is even more delightful than the content: Those who aren—t already fans of Balmer will wonder why all academics can—t write as well as this one. For anyone interested in contemporary faith, politics, and culture, and for anyone who wants to know how we got from Plymouth Rock to Pat Robertson.
Pub Date: Nov. 12, 1999
ISBN: 0-8070-7710-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
A generally superb collection of both traditional and unorthodox readings of the Book of Ruth. The biblical story of Ruth—the young Moabite widow who followed her Israelite mother-in-law, Naomi, to the Land of Israel, married her husband's kinsman, and became mother of the messianic line through her descendant, King David—is an intriguing one, especially for women, who find few active female role models in the Bible. Kates, and Reimer, both teachers of Jewish texts with doctorates in literature, have assembled 30 essays, poems, stories, and dramatic narratives by contemporary female scholars, authors, psychiatrists, rabbis, and poets. All the contributors bring their professional and personal experiences to their interpretations of the Ruth story: Some are subjective accounts, such as the joint effort (``Feminine Plurals'') of psychiatrists Roberta Apfel and Lise Grondahl—an older Jewish supervisor and her young Christian supervisee—who use the relationship between Naomi and Ruth to understand and enrich their own; others, like Tamar Frankiel's kabbalistic approach to the messianic lineage in Ruth (``Ruth and the Messiah''), are more strictly scholarly. Often the two aspects are combined: Cynthia Ozick's ``Ruth'' is one part personal reminiscence, three parts textual analysis. These autobiographical and scholarly pieces are nearly always more interesting than the vanilla literary retellings of the story that add little to the conventional understanding of the text, although Gloria Goldreich's inclusion of Ruth's sister-in-law, Orpah, in her ``Ruth, Naomi, and Orpah: A Parable of Friendship'' adds a beautiful dimension to the relationship of Ruth and Naomi. Aviva Zornberg's shiur, or oral lesson, ``The Concealed Alternative,'' stands out as the most unusual; she draws on ancient commentaries as well as on Kafka, Nietzsche, and Buber to present a compelling understanding of the concept of redemption in Ruth. Despite occasional redundancies—only natural given the 400 pages of commentary on a brief text—this book is absorbing and provocative.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-345-38033-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
This second volume of Meier's magisterial attempt to create a ``consensus document'' about the historical Jesus on which scholars of all faiths could agree makes some tantalizing assertions about Jesus' public ministry. Meier (New Testament Studies/Catholic Univ.) divides this successor to Volume One (subtitled The Roots of the Problem and the Person, 1991) into three parts: an examination of the pervasive effect on Jesus of the life and career of John the Baptist, whom Meier calls Jesus' ``mentor''; an analysis of the centrality to Jesus' message of the concept of the ``kingdom of God''; and an extended discussion of the historicity of Gospel accounts of Jesus' miracles, healings, and exorcisms. Meier uses John the Baptist's career as his starting point, asserting that Jesus not only accepted baptism from the charismatic preacher at the outset of his public ministry, but he also adopted John's themes of the imminent judgment of sinners and the need for reform and repentance as integral parts of his own message. Unlike John, however, Jesus emphasized the coming of the kingdom of God, which he represented as both an approaching eschatological event and, in a mystical way, as being present in the actions, beliefs, and fellowship of the community of believers: ``The kingdom of God is in your midst'' (Luke 17:21). Meier argues that Jesus' preaching of the heavenly kingdom was most manifest in his miraculous works, which Meier inventories in painstaking detail, dividing them into exorcisms, healings, raising of the dead, and ``nature'' miracles, such as walking on water and cursing the fruitless fig tree and causing it to wither. The author concludes that the power of Jesus' message arose from his actual historical fame as a miracle worker as well as from his moral teachings. Scholarly, carefully reasoned, and lucidly written, Meier's portrait of Jesus as a fiery, wonder-working prophet rather than the gentle teacher of Christian tradition may continue the controversy (with believers and nonbelievers alike) initiated in Volume One.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-46992-6
Page Count: 1055
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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