In line with such cultivated, if sometimes fusty Christian apologists as C.S. Lewis, NBCC Award—winning novelist Price (for Kate Vaiden, 1986, etc.) calls on reason and experience to substantiate belief in a providential God, even in the face of great suffering. A Whole New Life (1994)was Price’s account of his faith-inspiring recovery from spinal cancer. A young medical student, also suffering from cancer, read the book and wrote Price asking for spiritual insight into his own pointlessly worsening state. This short book expands a letter Price composed in response and read in the fall of 1997 before an audience at Auburn Seminary in New York. Price never sent the letter to its first intended reader, who withdrew from communicating and, soon after, died. But the common public, who have now become the addressee of these words, should not scruple not to read them for fear of intruding on a private intimacy of two. The address to the young man is more an occasion for Price to attempt reconciling two distinct voices within himself: on the one hand, a professorial deist in the mold of the 18th-century Enlightenment, who believes with “the vast majority of the human race” and with “most religions”—as a religiously inclined philosophe would indeed put it—that God exists principally as mind and that the soul is immortal; and, on the other, a devout pietist who envisions Jesus Christ washing away all wounds. In the end, Price doesn—t so much fashion a unified theodicy out of these two perspectives as situate them at opposing ends of theological spectrum on which readers are invited to find their place—a helpful, if unoriginal, service. Though devoted readers of the prolific Price will savor this reflection, especially as a follow-up to A Whole New Life, the author’s modest demurral at the start of the book, that “few of its ideas would seem new to a well-read adult” is doubtless true.
Pub Date: April 12, 1999
ISBN: 0-684-85626-3
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
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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