A spirited call for Evangelicals to take a collective stand against abortion.
Debut author den Bok argues that the contemporary prevalence of abortion—both its widespread acceptance and performance—constitutes a moral catastrophe of the highest order. He scours the Bible to adduce evidence of its moral turpitude—the authentic Christian has an absolute duty to not only avoid murder, but also to actively defend the innocent from harm. And while the Evangelical Church has always been doctrinally opposed to abortion, it has only lethargically fought to end the practice. “What I am claiming is that the Church is guilty of failing to recognize that the plight of the preborn is an emergency that calls for extraordinary action.” Den Bok attributes the apathy of the church, what he considers a collective sin of omission, to a lack of leadership within the ranks and a profoundly pessimistic capitulation to the mainstreaming of abortion. Also, many in the church wrongly believe that political activism only saps energy away from the more spiritual aspects of religious life. The author, however, contends that modern abortion is as morally disastrous as the Holocaust, and the church’s dithering on this score as condemnable as its failure to more aggressively oppose the Nazis. The author also avers that an exploration of the church’s mission—understood from the perspective of its scriptural grounding and tradition—attests to its obligation to engage in social work in general and to take up the cause against abortion in particular. Den Bok concludes by briefly surveying the positions of well-known Evangelical leaders who also consider abortion a modern crisis and provides answers to hypothetical objections to his thesis. The author writes with great clarity and vigor, skillfully combining rational argument with a passionate call to action. This is a very short book—really more an essay than a full-length monograph—and den Bok’s ability to condense his positions without any sacrifice of clarity is impressive. This is, however, as the author concedes, a book written by an Evangelical to other Evangelicals, and those who are not at least Christian are unlikely to find its biblically based arguments persuasive.
A lucid and meticulous analysis of abortion certain to be helpful to Evangelicals.Pub Date: July 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5127-9082-5
Page Count: 90
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION | 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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Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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