A personal study of scripture and biblical history with snippets of impassioned information.
A case for Christianity that covers a quick history of the church and an overview of scripture and biblical themes.
Using the Hebrew word root yacad (foundation) as a springboard to establish his spiritual cornerstone, Lantz begins with what he calls the “main ingredients”–Christians must build their lives around a church and must follow specific biblical themes to become worthy of the title. Lantz sets out to unpack his own spiritual journey, but his work offers little insights into him personally. He delves into the origins of Christianity, which many claim is Catholicism, then moves into the Reformation movement and Protestantism. In the final section, Lantz identifies and explains a series of subjects, including hate, greed, vanity and pride, that keep people from God. The author briefly mentions that he suffers from depression, yet does not explain his affliction, merely listing scriptures that somewhat address the condition. The grandson of a preacher, Lantz included his grandfather’s notes and sermons in the book, as he states in the beginning, which results in a compiled, cut-and-paste sensibility and a lack of strong narrative flow. Though much relevant scripture and information is included, especially an overview of major figures in significant religious movements, the passages often have weak transitions that don’t flesh out the overall themes. Mid-book, Lantz declares his statement of faith based on unity–that all Christians are one and must exist together in Christ. His statement is an impassioned one and might lead readers to debate a much-discussed topic–how Christians can unify–if only he more deeply delved into it.
A personal study of scripture and biblical history with snippets of impassioned information.Pub Date: April 16, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4363-0890-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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