An engaging, often sophisticated analysis of Christianity that fails to extend the same nuanced approach to other ideologies...
Dickerson, a Christian educator, focuses on the centrality of God’s love in this nonfiction exploration of spirituality.
Just as each human has a “unique set of fingerprints” used to identify them, so too, argues the author, does God, whose distinctive identifier is love. While exploring a myriad of topics germane to Christianity, from forgiveness and humility to biblical history and Renaissance art, Dickerson always returns to the significance of God’s love. The book opens with a critique of atheism, which combines anecdotes from the author’s two decades of interactions with atheists in post-communist Hungary as an English instructor with a philosophical analysis of its limitations. Indeed, while Christian apologetics are not the book’s focus, defenses of the faith against its putative ideological and spiritual competitors appear at various intervals. In addition to its refutation of atheism (which boils down to the familiar Christian maxim that “it takes great faith to believe that we are the product of chance”), the book similarly compares Christianity to Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and various New Age spiritualities. Dickerson concludes that the God of Christianity moves toward recalcitrant humans and that the central fault of most non-Christian religions is their reliance on humans to “make the first move toward God.” Just as atheists may be unconvinced by the book’s arguments (“atheists have difficulty explaining…the existence of male and female” is a claim that ignores long-established theories accepted by evolutionary biologists), so too may those of other faiths be irked by the book’s fleeting descriptions of their beliefs.
Contrasted with its straw-man treatment of non-Christian ideas, the book’s strength lies in its nuanced understanding of Christianity itself. With a master of divinity degree from Princeton and a doctoral degree in medieval history from Cornell, the author provides knowledgeable and thoughtful analysis of Christian theology and history. His chapterlong discussion of the “Lord’s Supper” is particularly admirable, offering a solid history that is sensitive to disagreements between Catholics and Protestants as to the meaning and history of the Eucharist. While definitively Protestant in its theological approach, the book is deliberately ecumenical and includes critiques of fellow Christians. While the book challenges the Catholic belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary, it also questions the Protestant emphasis on doctrinal purity, noting that “God does not want your dead doctrines any more than He wants your dead works.” Despite Dickerson’s academic background, the book is written in a conversational style that juxtaposes engaging vignettes with accessible biblical commentary. Having pastored two churches, the author has clearly honed his skills in distilling complex ideas into concise, digestible packages. Interspersed throughout the text are astute analyses of classical Christian art and frequent breaks for poetry, inspirational passages from the Bible, and even the occasional and adorable piece of artwork by Dickerson’s grandchildren, illustrating the book’s preference for personal connection over academic jargon. Christian scholars may prefer a few more citations and deeper engagement with scholarly sources, but the book’s blend of learned analysis and accessible prose will appeal to a broad Christian audience. An engaging, often sophisticated analysis of Christianity that fails to extend the same nuanced approach to other ideologies and faiths.Pub Date: July 20, 2021
ISBN: 9781666704877
Page Count: 124
Publisher: Resource Publications
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.
Want to get ahead in business? Consult a dictionary.
By Wharton School professor Berger’s account, much of the art of persuasion lies in the art of choosing the right word. Want to jump ahead of others waiting in line to use a photocopy machine, even if they’re grizzled New Yorkers? Throw a because into the equation (“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?”), and you’re likely to get your way. Want someone to do your copying for you? Then change your verbs to nouns: not “Can you help me?” but “Can you be a helper?” As Berger notes, there’s a subtle psychological shift at play when a person becomes not a mere instrument in helping but instead acquires an identity as a helper. It’s the little things, one supposes, and the author offers some interesting strategies that eager readers will want to try out. Instead of alienating a listener with the omniscient should, as in “You should do this,” try could instead: “Well, you could…” induces all concerned “to recognize that there might be other possibilities.” Berger’s counsel that one should use abstractions contradicts his admonition to use concrete language, and it doesn’t help matters to say that each is appropriate to a particular situation, while grammarians will wince at his suggestion that a nerve-calming exercise to “try talking to yourself in the third person (‘You can do it!’)” in fact invokes the second person. Still, there are plenty of useful insights, particularly for students of advertising and public speaking. It’s intriguing to note that appeals to God are less effective in securing a loan than a simple affirmative such as “I pay all bills…on time”), and it’s helpful to keep in mind that “the right words used at the right time can have immense power.”
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780063204935
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper Business
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
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