A refined jeremiad sure to shake up the Christian establishment.
A piercing critique of heresy in a country where “traditional Christian teachings have been warped into justifications for solipsism and anti-intellectualism, jingoism and utopianism, selfishness and greed.”
New York Times columnist and National Review film critic Douthat (Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class, 2005, etc.), a practicing Catholic, takes aim at the forces, on both the left and the right, that are corrupting American Christianity from within. From its glory days after World War II, when preachers were respected as legitimate moral arbiters and theologians had huge followings, Christianity has fallen on hard times. The traditional pillars of American religion—the once-omnipresent Protestant mainline exemplified by Reinhold Niebuhr, the nuanced and self-confident Catholicism of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, the evangelical revival led by Billy Graham and the beleaguered but transcendent black church of Martin Luther King Jr.—have all ceded their place in the public imagination, writes the author, as hundreds of dubious upstart doctrines claim converts in droves. The mushy universalism embraced by Protestant churches has caused believers to lose interest, the Catholic Church has been riven by dissension and scandal and the evangelical and historically black churches have given way to the creepy prosperity gospel of Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar and others. While some of the particulars of Douthat’s arguments will be controversial—e.g., his portrayal of the academics involved in the Jesus Seminar as being as unconcerned with the facts as are fabulists like Dan Brown—his full-throated defense of Christian orthodoxy deserves to be heard in an age when theology, if not spirituality, has become something of a niche interest. For Douthat, the beauty of Christianity lies in the “paradoxical character” of Jesus, who “sets impossible standards and then forgives the worst of sinners.” When churches focus on only one aspect of Jesus’ nature and profess to offer easy answers to all of life’s problems, he writes, they hold up a false idol for worship.
A refined jeremiad sure to shake up the Christian establishment.Pub Date: April 17, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4391-7830-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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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