A generous and erudite study of how people believe.
A study of the human tendency to find realness in spirituality.
Luhrmann, an anthropologist and psychologist at Stanford and author of the noted When God Talks Back (2012), sets out to show how people of faith, across religions and cultures, manage to see the supernatural as real in their own lives. Commendably, the author examines faith with a level of respect that is rare in most studies of a secular nature. She transcends usual dismissals of religion in order to discover how spiritual beliefs can affect, move, and even change people in an imperfect, often cruel world. Luhrmann looks at religious adherence through two primary lenses: the “faith frame,” which is a way of thinking, and “kindling,” which is a way of feeling. In the faith frame, a person recognizes that “gods and spirits,” as the author puts it, are real, yet not in the sense that a table or chair is real. Thus, faith in a god or spirit takes a level of mental work that faith in, say, gravity does not. “Kindling,” by contrast, denotes the practices through which a person of faith feels and experiences the presence of gods and spirits; this can manifest in calmness, a sense of being loved, and even voices and other tangible elements. “At the heart of the religious impulse,” writes Lurhmann, “lies the capacity to imagine a world beyond the one we have before us.” It is that will of imagining—not necessarily the same as imagination—that the author investigates most engagingly. Drawing on extensive research with such populations as magic devotees in London and charismatic Christians in the Vineyard Church community in America, as well as her deep understanding of religious traditions across the globe, Luhrmann creates a thorough, insightful narrative that will appeal the most to scholars and students.
A generous and erudite study of how people believe.Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-691-16446-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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