Philosophy & Religion
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by Hal Urban (Get the Book)
Although we live in an ocean of words, we rarely acknowledge their power to uplift or put down, to inspire or discourage, to help or hurt. But in this jewel of a book, Hal Urban -- parent, award-winning teacher, and author of the classic Life's Greatest Lessons -- shows us simple and immediate ways that we can use language to change lives -- both our own and those around us. (Summary)
by Fred Bahnson (Get the Book)
Bahnson (Making Peace with the Land) is outstanding in his field. Now director of the Food, Faith, and Religious Leadership Initiative at Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Bahnson has spent a lot of time in a lot of fields. He developed his field studies into essays of depth and inspiration, humility and, yes, frustration, for he is dealing with the earth and the fullness-or dratted emptiness-thereof. More specifically, he deals with soil (not dirt), a living organism that "both craves life and wants to produce more life, even a hundredfold." With Christians, he plants in Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina at Advent, plows the Lord's Acre in North Carolina at Eastertide, and fertilizes Tierra Nueva in Washington State at Pentecost; with Jews, he harvests during Sukkot at Adamah Farm in Connecticut. Like Anne Lamott's spiritual writing, Bahnson's essays introduce people of deep faith, imprisoned pasts, ticklish humor, and hope-filled vision, farmer/priests being church by feeding the hungry and praying in the dirt. --Publishers Weekly
by Reza Aslan (Get the Book)
In his notes section, Aslan (creative writing, Univ. of California, Riverside; No god but God) remarks that he is heavily indebted to John Meier's multivolume A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Like Meier, Aslan analyzes historical information from first-century Palestine in order to situate Jesus within the turbulent social and political context of his time, appreciating the man for who he really was: one of many itinerant peasant preachers and teachers who sought to reinvigorate the Judaism of his day with eschatological and spiritual fervor. Aslan takes a somewhat dim view of Pauline Christianity, arguing that Paul's concept of a divine, cosmic Christ is at odds both with the Jerusalem church of James, brother of Jesus, and with the Gospel of John. Likewise, Paul's approach, Aslan believes, is at odds with sacred Jewish norms, e.g., circumcision, and with eyewitnesses who saw Jesus as reviving Judaism. But following the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE, claims Aslan, "the Christ of Paul's creation utterly subsumed the Jesus of history," giving the world the Christianity we have today. This perspective is hardly new but is accessibly and strongly presented here. VERDICT Readable and with scholarly endnotes, Aslan's book offers a historical perspective that is sure to generate spirited conversation. For Christian history buffs of all stripes. --Library Journal
by Simon Blackburn (Get the Book)
Sensing that many people are daunted by the big questions in philosophy, university professor Blackburn supplies this primer. Its capital weapon is logic, but Blackburn shrewdly postpones discussing that until he explores such areas as the self, free will, the reality of sensory perception, and God. Doubt, either initially or continually, infuses anyone who reflects on those spheres, and Blackburn illustrates ways to begin thinking about them by using the example of Descartes. Descartes gave yes answers to the question of whether the four spheres exist or not, through a logical process with which, after Blackburn has mapped it out, one can agree or not. One spoil sport was eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume, and Blackburn deploys further disputations of Descartes' beliefs, as in mind-body dualism. Blackburn does, however, subscribe to a species of free will, which he describes as "revised compatibilism." Finding out its definition is sufficient reason to consult Blackburn's book, written with exemplary concision and with conviction that philosophy needn't be an ethereal subject, alienated from practical concerns. --Booklist
