Philosophy & Religion
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by Barbara Brown Taylor (Get the Book)
Best-selling author and former Episcopal priest Taylor returns with another thoughtful book. This time Taylor confronts head-on faith and, most significantly, the dark night of the soul. But really this is a meditation on darkness itself more a journal, she emphasizes, than a manual. What does Taylor mean by darkness? Darkness, she writes, is shorthand for anything that scares me. That could include something as profound as the absence of God to the fear of dementia to the loss of family and friends, as well as that nagging question of what it will feel like to die. She recounts how she became impatient with church teachings that accentuated the light while denying the existence of darkness, and comments on the difference between faith and belief, certainty and trust. An elegant writer with the common touch, Taylor is always a wonderful guide to the spiritual world, and this book is no exception. Here she encourages us to turn out the lights and embrace the spiritual darkness, for it is in the dark, she maintains, that one can truly see. --Booklist
by James Romm (Get the Book)
Was Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger an exemplar of Stoic virtue who, pulled into politics in the service of Emperor Nero, did his best to modulate the young despot's cruelty? Or was he a shrewd manipulator whose ethical treatises were just a cynical attempt to restore a reputation sullied by his complicity in Nero's cruel and decadent court? Tacitus, who wrote a lot about Seneca, seems to have had trouble making up his mind. Romm suggests that we might bring together these conflicting portraits by understanding Seneca as a serious thinker who suffered from passivity and obsequiousness, and had the misfortune to live at a time when intellectual activity had become particularly dangerous. Seneca's elegant humanistic vision (which would influence, among other things, Roman Catholic church doctrine), therefore, was not fraudulent, but aspirational, and somewhat tragic: ideals articulated by a flawed man who was all too aware of his inability to live up to them. Vividly describing the intensity of political life in the Nero years, and paying particular attention to the Roman fascination with suicide, Romm's narrative is gripping, erudite, and occasionally quite grim. --Booklist
by J. Krishnamurti (Get the Book)
Krishnamurti shows how people can free themselves radically and immediately from the tyranny of the expected, no matter what their age--opening the door to transforming society and their relationships. J. Krishnamurti (1895-1986) was a renowned spiritual teacher whose lectures and writings have inspired thousands. His works include On Mind and Thought, On Nature and the Environment, On Relationship, On Living and Dying, On Love and Loneliness, On Fear, and On Freedom. (Publisher)
by Andy Crouch (Get the Book)
The executive editor of the magazine Christianity Today follows his groundbreaking book, Culture Making, with a study on the idea of power and how it drives our relationships and lives. If our understanding of the term "power" is shaped by the world's definition, which often carries a negative connotation, we will fail to recognize that it was intended to be a gift from God to help us make something of the world. Broken into four parts focusing on biblical stories about the creation of power and where it will lead, the book also offers personal experiences and examples from modern culture to show that power, as we think of it today, isn't how it originally was intended by its divine designer. How are power and idolatry related? What can we learn from powerful people in our business culture like Steve Jobs? How can a Christian in power be a good steward and use it to help solve injustice in the world? These are just a few of the questions that readers will ponder from Crouch's deeply layered study. The wide-ranging allusions and references from the Cornell and BU grad who served as a campus minister at Harvard might lose readers who are less well-read. --Publishers Weekly
by Marcus J. Borg (Get the Book)
A participant in the Jesus Seminar, the group of biblical scholars whose studies to ascertain what Jesus really said eventuated in The Five Gospels [BKL Ja 1 94], Borg is further concerned with how Jesus' original message may remain at "the heart of contemporary faith." In the six chapters of this book, he first presents his own journey of faith from childhood's trusting belief through young adult skepticism to mature apprehension that a "Christian is one who lives out his or her relationship to God within the framework of the Christian tradition." That tradition, subsequent chapters argue, arises out of four aspects of the "pre-Easter Jesus": Jesus as a "spirit person" (i.e., one who had an "experiential awareness of the reality of God"), a teacher of wisdom, a social prophet, and a movement founder. Further, the tradition calls upon Christians to follow Jesus "from life under the lordship of culture to the life of companionship with God" and from belief not in fixed doctrines but in giving one's heart to the "living Lord, the side of God turned toward us." First-class argumentation for experiential as opposed to institutional Christianity. --Booklist
by Richard Rohr (Get the Book)
In this brief but effective book, Rohr (Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps) commends silence to us as a function of the spiritual life, a component both of our own wholeness and our connection to nature and, ultimately, to God. -Silence is not a mere cessation of noise, he explains, but has its own qualities, which can be learned and cultivated. VERDICT Rohr's book brings the appreciative reader close to the spirit of the monastic life; it should please and instruct many an individual seeker, across denominations. --Library Journal
by Rebecca Goldstein (Get the Book)
Plato lives! Brilliantly re-creating Plato's philosophic dialogues, Goldstein transports the ancient Greek philosopher to the twenty-first-century headquarters of Google, where his probing voice engages three modern hosts in exploring what knowledge means in an age of computerized crowd sourcing. Further dialogues put Plato into conversation with an advice columnist fielding questions about love and sex, with a child psychologist arguing with an obsessive mother, with a television broadcaster trying to score political points, and with a neuroscientist certain he can resolve all intellectual questions with brain scans. Though Goldstein's gifts as a novelist animate these dialogues, her scholarly erudition gives them substance, evident in the many citations from Plato's writings seamlessly embedded in the conversational give-and-take. Goldstein's scholarship also informs the expository essay that prefaces each dialogue. Readers soon realize that the philosophical project that Plato launched 2,500 years ago has evolved as modern thinkers such as Kant, Leibnitz, and Spinoza have redefined its focus and methods. Readers will also confront the doubts of twenty-first-century skeptics particularly scientists who dismiss philosophizing as an anachronistic word game. But Goldstein prepares readers to grapple with changes in philosophic thinking and more important to recognize the abiding value of an enterprise too important to leave to academic specialists. --Booklist
by Edward G. Slingerland (Get the Book)
Throughout human history, successful and charming individuals have been envisioned as people who do things effortlessly, yet in modern Western thought, rational thinkers and "go-getters" are idolized. Slingerland (What Science Offers the Humanities), a professor of Asian studies at the Univ. of British Columbia, runs through historical philosophy and returns to the ancient Chinese idea of wu-wei, or "effortless action," where individuals become in tune with their bodies and exhibit de, an aura that signals trust and relaxation. Individuals in a state of wu-wei can be found in all career paths-from the businessman giving an effective speech to the tennis player with an effortless swing, as well as from the presidential candidate to the artist "in the zone." Slingerland presents four different ways of achieving wu-wei, as given to us by Chinese philosophers such as Confucius and Laozi: "long-term training," "embrac[ing] simplicity," nurturing "desirable behavior," or "go[ing] with the flow." Through anecdotes Slingerland explains the scientific reasoning behind why achieving wu-wei can be difficult-he evens presents a small exercise that demonstrates the feeling of disharmony in a small context. This guide is better suited to Chinese philosophy enthusiasts rather than to readers of how-to books; still, there are many insightful strategies for those studying self-improvement. --Publishers Weekly
by George Weigel (Get the Book)
Rome's station churches date from the early Christian era, with architectural and traditional elaborations added to many in the Renaissance and major repairs made as recently as the past decade. Their visitation by believers during Lent follows a specific order, with aspects of the faith related to each edifice. Weigel, a Vatican analyst for NBC news, presents a readily accessible overview of how these stational churches correlate to and support Roman Catholic Lenten practice and affirmations while at the same time providing an attractive meditative tour for any visitor. Art historian Elizabeth Lev uses Weigel's color photos to discuss architectural details along with the buildings' history. This is a unique guide book, referencing not only theology but the history of Western art, modern and post modern literature, urban history, and church history. Valuable to believers, scholars, students, armchair travelers, and those planning pilgrimages following Phil Cousineau's guides. --Booklist
by Shubha Pathak (Get the Book)
Figuring Religions offers new ways of comparing prominent features of the world’s religions. Comparison has been at the heart of religious studies as a modern academic discipline, but comparison can be problematic. Scholars of religion have been faulted for ignoring or reinterpreting differences to create a universal paradigm. In reaction, many of today’s scholars have placed chief emphasis on the differences between traditions. Seeking to reinvigorate comparison and avoid its excesses, contributors to this volume use theories of metaphor and metonymy from the fields of philosophy, linguistics, and anthropology to look at religious ideas, images, and activities. (Summary: Published by SUNY Press)
by Barbara Brown Taylor (Get the Book)
