A debut book about claiming the power of Pentecost for the church of today.
Newton challenges fellow Christians to use the power of the Holy Spirit, gifted to the church at Pentecost, in order to prepare for “spiritual battle”; at the same time, he warns the church against errors of complacency and worldliness. The author begins by explaining the background leading up to the story of Pentecost—the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, as found in the book of Acts. He also discusses the immediate ramifications of the Pentecost experience: an empowerment of the apostolic church to go forth and begin a widespread conversion effort. Newton then asserts that there are three principles of Pentecost: obedience, sanctification, and becoming of one accord. He notes that all three must be “working simultaneously together, to achieve the Pentecostal effect.” He elaborates by saying that “The general idea of Pentecost is to summon the presence and power of God.” The author speaks from the vantage point of a Pentecostalist tradition (specifically, the Assemblies of God), but many other Christians may find the concept of summoning God’s power to be difficult to accept. They may find it easier, however, to accept Newton’s view that obedience, sanctity, and harmony give the Holy Spirit a better outlet to work through the lives of believers. The author rightly notes that, in too many cases, these principles aren’t found in modern churches. “The church is supposed to be a watering hole for the saints,” he says, “but instead it is a breeding ground for devils and demons.” However, the author also asserts that humanity is definitively witnessing the signs of the end times, pointing to the rapid change in views on homosexuality and “the prevalence of the works of the flesh.” Socially progressive readers will be taken aback by Newton’s treatment of homosexuality in particular (“Homophobia is a word created by Satan himself to deceive the world into accepting homosexual behavior”).
A brief, heartfelt work but one that’s certainly heterodox and controversial.Pub Date: June 24, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5175-1469-3
Page Count: 98
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION
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The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | PSYCHOLOGY | HISTORICAL & MILITARY
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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
Categories: PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION
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