A complex and detailed call for Christians to embrace the knowledge of their faith.
An extensive study explores the role that different kinds of knowledge play in Christianity.
Romine’s impressive nonfiction debut is a comprehensive and lucid examination of the complicated role of knowledge—as both a category and a process—in the Christian faith structure. The author’s initial target will be familiar to readers of contemporary fundamentalist homiletics: “postmodernism,” here characterized as a rootless, unmoored search for merely provisional truths. This is a very different thing from the apprehension of essential, unchanging truths that is, according to Romine, the goal of faith and the gift of the Holy Spirit. It’s important, the author writes, for seekers to be sure that external, objective truth actually exists: “Postmodernism has worked against this, hindering the way to knowing God by destabilizing the tenets of knowledge.” Those tenets, in Romine’s worldview, are faith and a relationship with God, which are constant and not subject to destabilization. Unlike the impermanence readers see today in relationships, the author asserts, “God is different. His desire is for real commitment.” According to Romine, that commitment comes from the Holy Spirit, which “illumes the mind and heart” and creates the grounding for integrity and character in believers. The dichotomy at work here is elemental; the author deftly explains that formal reasoning has its limits because it’s unable to accept revelation, which is, readers are told, “a knowledge proper to theology, superseding the natural reach of philosophy and science.” At heart this isn’t a revolutionary synthesis; the idea of Stephen Jay Gould’s “non-overlapping magisteria” divide between faith and science has appeared in one form or another as long as both disciplines have existed. But Romine intriguingly elaborates on the concept of external, objective truth and the fact that the faithful grasp it through the interplay of their souls’ three components—mind, heart, and will—narrowly skirting the familiar and disastrous suggestion that all postmodern knowledge is false knowledge. The last thing Christianity needs would be another book denying the findings of science.
A complex and detailed call for Christians to embrace the knowledge of their faith.Pub Date: May 24, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5127-3760-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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