A dictionary-definition specimen of preaching to the choir, and one that begs yet another question: Is it unkosher to be so...
If you use Jesus as a character in a novel, do you have to pay him royalties?
It’s not spoiling the story—it’s all right there in the latter pages of the New Testament—to reveal that in LaHaye and Parshall’s (Thunder of Heaven, 2011, etc.) latest exercise in fundamentalist fiction, the brink of chaos of the title inaugurates a time when every good person on the planet can be found “worshipping and singing to the One who had ransomed them. Their Champion. Their Lord.” There’s no need to ask who the capitalized Person in question is. If you’re one of LaHaye’s legion of followers, then you won’t need to ask who supersecret agent Joshua Jordan, he of the double Old Testament moniker, is either. Jordan’s brief in this latest is to thwart the ambitions of the very, very bad secularists in power (“Let me tell you, those folks in power, including our president, really are bogeymen”) and the even worse secularist who is rising to attain world rule: “His global regulations against climate change,” the authors tell us, “have industries around the world being monitored by his environmental police.” Of course, in the fun worldview of the apocalyptic set, there’s no such thing as climate change, and anyone who hampers the desire of a corporation to do whatever it wants to is an agent of the Antichrist. When Jordan isn’t chasing after this impeccably groomed baddie, he’s jetting off to the Middle East to prep the world for the end of days. That’s work that can make a person tired, and Jordan’s wearisome banter is a mark. As with formula fiction since before the dawn of time, no one in these pages ever speaks like anyone in real life does. But why would they need to, when they’re floating rapturously up into the clouds?
A dictionary-definition specimen of preaching to the choir, and one that begs yet another question: Is it unkosher to be so ham-fisted?Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-310-31881-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Zondervan
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
This first novel, ostensibly about the friendship between two boys, Reuven and Danny, from the time when they are fourteen on opposing yeshiva ball clubs, is actually a gently didactic differentiation between two aspects of the Jewish faith, the Hasidic and the Orthodox. Primarily the Hasidic, the little known mystics with their beards, earlocks and stringently reclusive way of life. According to Reuven's father who is a Zionist, an activist, they are fanatics; according to Danny's, other Jews are apostates and Zionists "goyim." The schisms here are reflected through discussions, between fathers and sons, and through the separation imposed on the two boys for two years which still does not affect their lasting friendship or enduring hopes: Danny goes on to become a psychiatrist refusing his inherited position of "tzaddik"; Reuven a rabbi.... The explanation, in fact exegesis, of Jewish culture and learning, of the special dedication of the Hasidic with its emphasis on mind and soul, is done in sufficiently facile form to engage one's interest and sentiment. The publishers however see a much wider audience for The Chosen. If they "rub their tzitzis for good luck,"—perhaps—although we doubt it.
Pub Date: April 28, 1967
ISBN: 0449911543
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1967
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