An honest autobiographical account of a journalist’s return to faith on her own terms. As the religion reporter for the Dallas Morning News, Wicker has found she has to meet her subjects’ claims to faith with a mixture of respect, understanding, and a healthy dose of journalistic skepticism. Her own faith journey has been a rocky one. Raised a Texas fundamentalist within the narrow confines of the Southern Baptist tradition, Wicker was told what to believe and how to live—until a rebellious young adulthood led her away from the fold and into the paths of temptation. By her own admission, Wicker made some terrible choices, especially in love, and sank into a deep despair about ever changing her life. She experienced a moment of surrender in a department store when, as the Baptists of her youth would describe it, she gave her life over to God. Along the way, she met and married a man who taught her more about grace and unconditional love than a whole lifetime of sermons. Through that love and a rediscovery of the transformative, quiet power of prayer, Wicker became a self-accepting person who was then able to reach out to others for the first time. She also utilized this new grace in her professional life, seeking to understand how religious conviction has changed people’s lives in Dallas and beyond. Ultimately, Wicker was able to write a long, sympathetic feature story about the specter of her youth: the Southern Baptist Church. While she still disagrees with the pat answers sometimes espoused by down-home Texas Baptists, she realized while doing the story that they all had the same questions, and that the process of seeking might be the most important common denominator of all. Valuable not only for its frank, personal struggles with faith, but also for Wicker’s memorable interviews with religious folks of all persuasions.
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-312-19272-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
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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