A potentially controversial approach to the Bible.
A book that argues for presenting biblical miracles as metaphors.
Fratianne (co-author: What Has Prayer Got To Do With Anything, Anyway?, 2018, etc.), an emeritus professor of Surgery at Case Western Reserve University, encourages a modern approach to Scripture that will fit readers’ 21st-century experience. First, he argues that Jesus’ purpose was to teach the essence of God’s love—and that this love should be replicated and shared among all of humanity. Early on, the author notes that he was shaped in many ways by a strict Catholic upbringing, and he believes that sermons on sin and punishment only push people away from the church: “No wonder, when we grow up, so many people turn away from the Church when they are made to feel they were created to be a bad person.” Secondly, Fratianne urges the church to move past supernatural explanations for biblical stories, which he often equates with “magic.” Instead, he believes that they should be taught as metaphors. For instance, he says that he believes that Moses didn’t see an actual burning bush but that he had no other words to describe what his mystical experience felt like. Likewise, Jesus did not literally feed masses of people with a few fish and loaves of bread, the author says; instead, the people felt full and satisfied due to his teachings. Fratianne’s tone is approachable and caring—at various points, for example, he references his own experience as a burn specialist while pointing out the importance of love, patience, and hope toward recovery as well as the commitment of caregivers from all traditions—and his message will likely be welcomed by some progressive Christians. Traditionalists, however, may cringe at his treatment of Scripture at times. For example, he presents the resurrection of Jesus in metaphorical terms—Jesus is resurrected in the hearts of believers as they follow him, he says. As for the title, heaven, he says, isn’t a place but “a state of being, centered on the presence of the Holy Spirit within us.”
A potentially controversial approach to the Bible.Pub Date: May 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4808-6001-8
Page Count: 202
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A useful text for readers curious about New Age spirituality.
An intense exploration of the mystical concept of “ageless wisdom,” which Seifer and Vieweg describe as a body of ideas, laws and truths that have guided seekers throughout time in finding and reveling in the world’s spirituality.
This second edition of the text, following closely on the heels of the first, opens with a well-written and thought-provoking introduction that quickly lays out the authors’ hypothesis–mankind is now, more than ever, ready and willing to embark upon a spiritual quest. The authors point to tragedies such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina as catalysts for this movement. Seifer and Vieweg support this theory with a series of 10 dense chapters, each of which opens with a thought-provoking quotation from a saint, poet, writer or prophet that logically guides the chapter. Although the book provides ample coverage of the history of ageless wisdom, the authors also focus on illuminating its role in the world’s current state, and make predictions about its future. Seifer and Vieweg thoroughly cover reincarnation, the qualities and existence of the human soul, the experience of spiritual awakening and the history of ageless wisdom. Woven throughout the text is a fine balance of description of and quotations from spiritual leaders from around the world and across time–this provides this text with a global and timeless perspective. Each chapter concludes with end-notes which provide additional information, much of which is historical in nature and provides opportunity for future exploration. The book also includes a short glossary of terms, enabling readers to better understand some of the more complicated spiritual concepts, such as Etheric Vision (“the power to see the subtler grades of matter with the strictly physical eye”). Though abstract and wordy, the book is appropriate for seekers wanting to understand the roots of ageless wisdom.
A useful text for readers curious about New Age spirituality.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-9820047-0-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Rigorous yet readable notes, sketches, and articles that round out a four-volume panorama of the philosophical pantheon. The eminent existential philosopher Jaspers (18831969) died before he could complete this work. Editors Ermarth and Ehrlich have, however, been able to stitch together a coherent book that, in accordance with Jaspers's plan, primarily covers the philosophers whom he termed ``the disturbers'': thinkers for whom doubt and despair loomed large. Jaspers opens with a discussion of Descartes. A disturber in the probing style of his thought, he stands apart, however, insofar as he compartmentalized issues of faith and philosophy. The other disturbers Jaspers characterizes as ``great awakeners.'' Working the boundaries between philosophy and theology, they sought to think man back to some sense of completeness. These include Pascal, whose famous wager for the existence of God Jaspers critiques at some length; Kierkegaard, the great philosopher of faith, over whom Jaspers lingers longest; and Nietzsche, discussed briefly in part as a counterpoint to Kierkegaard. Interestingly, Jaspers includes a chapter on the 18th- century theoretician and critic Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, declaring his work to be exemplary for its critical discernment. In a short section on ``philosophers in other realms,'' such as the sciences, Jaspers discusses the philosophical import and the (in his view) severe limits of Einstein's thought. Max Weber, in contrast, elicits unstinting praise. The book closes with an appreciation of Marx that subsumes a harsh critique of the Marxist style of disputation. Jaspers makes information about philosophers' lives and the dissemination of their works integral to his accounts of their ideas. Thus a sense of history and of human contingency pervade these pieces. Twenty-five years after its author's death, this is by no means a cutting-edge work—but this great thinker's ruminations on his predecessors have a timeless quality to them.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-15-136943-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
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