An often inviting and zestful inquiry into some key Christian texts.
A brief explication of themes running through the biblical story of Genesis.
Nase’s slim nonfiction debut has an initially confusing title (which seems like three titles in one), but it quickly settles in to a steady, passionate, and scripturally literate exploration of key biblical tales and themes, beginning with the story of Adam and Chavah (the Hebrew name for Eve). The author is fascinated by the implications of Chavah’s creation—her fashioning from the body of Adam—and how it parallels certain things that Nase has come to believe about all humans: that “all people from every country, creed, color, religion, and nationality were beautifully and wonderfully made by our heavenly father.” This fascination leads the author down interpretative paths that will be familiar to readers of traditional Christian theology, as when she notes that Adam was given dominion over Chavah and cites the conservative Christian parallel: “Husbands are to love their wives, as Yeshua (Jesus) loved the church (people of all kinds, we are the congregation) and gave himself up for her.” Nase’s various speculations that contrast the flaws of Adam and the redeeming qualities of Jesus are often intriguing. However, sometimes they can get forbiddingly arcane: “Who is Adam? He is flesh! Man 6 who is equal to 666 has allowed the serpent to show his seed within him. Those three 6s are the me = 6 myself = 6 and I = 6.” The helpfulness of such latter passages is sure to vary wildly from one reader to the next. That said, the author’s interpretations of the stories of Rachael, Tamar, Leah, and other biblical figures are energetic and compelling enough to compensate for the occasional obscure reading.
An often inviting and zestful inquiry into some key Christian texts.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-72834-367-9
Page Count: 108
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The ever-popular and highly readable C.S. Lewis has "done it again." This time with a book beginning with the premise "God is Love" and analyzing the four loves man knows well, but often understands little, Affection, Friendship, Eros and Charity, exploring along the way the threads of Need-Love and Gift-Love that run through all. It is written with a deep perception of human beings and a background of excellent scholarship. Lewis proposes that all loves are a search for, perhaps a conflict with, and sometimes a denial of, love of God. "Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike than fullness and need, sovereignty and humility, righteousness and penitence, limitless power and a cry for help?" To relate the human activities called loves to the Love which is God, Lewis cites three graces as parts of Charity: Divine Gift-Love, a supernatural Need-love of Himself and a supernatural Need-love of one another, to which God gives a third, "He can awake in man, towards Himself a supernatural Appreciative love. This of all gifts is the most to be desired. Here, not in our natural loves, nor even in ethics, lies the true center of all human and angelic life. With this all things are possible." From a reading of this book laymen and clergy alike will reap great rewards: a deeper knowledge of an insight into human loves, and, indeed, humans, offered with beauty and humor and a soaring description of man's search for God through Love.
Pub Date: July 27, 1960
ISBN: 0156329301
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
The author’s sincere sermon—at times analytical, at times hortatory—remains a hopeful one.
New York Times columnist Brooks (The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement, 2011, etc.) returns with another volume that walks the thin line between self-help and cultural criticism.
Sandwiched between his introduction and conclusion are eight chapters that profile exemplars (Samuel Johnson and Michel de Montaigne are textual roommates) whose lives can, in Brooks’ view, show us the light. Given the author’s conservative bent in his column, readers may be surprised to discover that his cast includes some notable leftists, including Frances Perkins, Dorothy Day, and A. Philip Randolph. (Also included are Gens. Eisenhower and Marshall, Augustine, and George Eliot.) Throughout the book, Brooks’ pattern is fairly consistent: he sketches each individual’s life, highlighting struggles won and weaknesses overcome (or not), and extracts lessons for the rest of us. In general, he celebrates hard work, humility, self-effacement, and devotion to a true vocation. Early in his text, he adapts the “Adam I and Adam II” construction from the work of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, Adam I being the more external, career-driven human, Adam II the one who “wants to have a serene inner character.” At times, this veers near the Devil Bugs Bunny and Angel Bugs that sit on the cartoon character’s shoulders at critical moments. Brooks liberally seasons the narrative with many allusions to history, philosophy, and literature. Viktor Frankl, Edgar Allan Poe, Paul Tillich, William and Henry James, Matthew Arnold, Virginia Woolf—these are but a few who pop up. Although Brooks goes after the selfie generation, he does so in a fairly nuanced way, noting that it was really the World War II Greatest Generation who started the ball rolling. He is careful to emphasize that no one—even those he profiles—is anywhere near flawless.
The author’s sincere sermon—at times analytical, at times hortatory—remains a hopeful one.Pub Date: April 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9325-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
