God of liberty : a religious history of the American Revolution

 by Thomas S. Kidd. Kidd directs his magnifying glass on a rare slice of the American Revolution: its religious aspects. The organization of the work is more topical than chronological, giving a chapter's worth of attention to matters of racial equality, slavery, revivalism, chaplains, the Constitution, and the 1800 election of Jefferson as president. If there are common threads running throughout, they are the questions: How was the Revolution influenced by religion, and how was religion affected by the Revolution? Kidd is quite adept at providing answers while explaining the complicated connections between religion, politics, freedom, and patriotism that make up the Revolutionary period. After reading this, some may wonder why religion is so shortchanged in other Revolutionary treatments. In his epilogue, the author also has something to say about the notion of a Christian America, a topic that is particularly relevant today. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

Ideas That Matter

 by A.C. Grayling. Grayling (philosophy, Birkbeck College, Univ. of London) writes technical philosophy but also contributes to wider public debates on contemporary political and moral issues through his numerous published books and commentary in magazines. His latest book reflects both of these interests and can be described as a personal dictionary of ideas: it is an A to Z listing of concepts drawn from philosophy, politics, society, religion, and science that do not hide Grayling's subjective views. Although the title of the work suggests a futuristic orientation, it is better understood as an attempt to explain the broad intellectual background of the 21st century by offering mini-discourses on very large concepts such as history, religion, truth, and war, among other subjects. That Grayling is able to offer pleasantly readable accounts of these immense topics in one or two pages is a testament to his skill as a writer for wide audiences. The personal views that Grayling most often interjects usually have to do with his secularism or atheism, which is apparent in any of the entries having to do with religion. As such the book is somewhat reminiscent of Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, but not as funny. --Choice (Check Catalog)

Giving voice to values : how to speak your mind when you know what's right

 by Mary C. Gentile. Gentile, director of the Giving Voice to Values curriculum and senior research scholar at Babson College, offers a powerful action-oriented manifesto for living with integrity, fighting for one's convictions, and building a more ethical workplace. Arguing that if enough of us feel empowered to voice and act on our values then the business world will be transformed, she shows how to practice and perfect speaking up, thereby building skills and confidence. While Gentile's goal is unimpeachable, the vaunted outspokenness might be a harder sell to individuals in more vulnerable positions. Nevertheless, she provides sound guidance to making the workplace fairer by appealing to the sense of purpose in others, completing a self-assessment to determine risk and personal communication style, and anticipating reasons and rationalizations for questionable behaviors. For those motivated to hear her call, Gentile presents a strong-and sorely needed-case for improving corporate culture. --Publishers weekly (Check Catalog)

American grace : how religion divides and unites us

 by Robert D. Putnam.  In recent controversy over the national motto, In God we trust, Putnam and Campbell see a symptom of profound change in the national character. Using data drawn from two large surveys, the authors plumb these changes. The data show that the tempestuous sixties shook faith in religion and that the seventies and eighties incubated a strong resurgence of devotion. But the two most recent decades add another twist, as young Americans have abandoned the pews in record numbers. Still, despite recent erosion of religious commitment, Americans remain a distinctively devout people. And devotion affects life far from the sanctuary: Putnam and Campbell parse numbers that identify religious Americans as more generous, more civically engaged, and more neighborly than their secularly minded peers. But the analysis most likely to stir debate illuminates how religion has increasingly separated Republicans from Democrats, conservatives from progressives. Readers may blame the Christian Right for this new cultural fissure, but survey statistics mark liberal congregations as the most politicized. But whether looking at politics or piety, the authors complement their statistical analysis with colorful vignettes, humanizing their numbers with episodes from the lives of individual Protestants and Catholics, Jews and Mormons. An essential resource for anyone trying to understand twenty-first-century America. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

The great divorce : a nineteenth-century mother's extraordinary fight against her husband, the Shakers, and her times

 by Ilyon Woo. Seductive and willful, Eunice Chapman, a woman small only in stature, is the focal point of Woo's engaging debut historical study of one 19th-century upstate New York woman's fight for her children. Eunice married "old, disagreeable, and repulsive" James Chapman for economic survival and, through the legal doctrine of coverture, becomes civilly, and legally, dead. James, an alcoholic abuser, left Eunice in the fall of 1811 and found refuge among the Shakers, taking the children with him. Today, Shakers are remembered for their simple lifestyle and handiwork, but they were a radical, religious sect "that often swooped in on disconsolate spiritual seekers offering themselves up to hungry souls eager to rebound from their broken faiths." The life of a Shaker was about falling in line, and Eunice-when she sought out her family in the Shaker community-would have no part of any of it. Woo takes readers through Eunice's custody battle, which shook New York State, and the utopian Shaker world and larger society. Eunice obtained a divorce and regained legal custody of her three children in 1818. Verdict Neglected history comes alive in this meticulously researched and compelling story of one tenacious woman. Strongly recommended to all interested readers. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)

APA ethics code commentary and case illustrations

 Campbell (Univ. of Georgia) and her fellow authors are all deeply involved with the American Psychological Association and particularly interested in and involved with ethical concerns in the discipline. In a period of moral uncertainties, they address the APA's body of ethical codes and standards, which specifies guidelines to abide by in every domain of the field. To highlight the relevance of each standard to everyday concerns and interpersonal transactions, the authors provide case studies of specific scenarios. These enable readers to reason their way through a problematic issue to reach an ethically sound, beneficial, and equitable solution in line with the prevailing code, promulgated in 2002. This readable volume will be invaluable across all the subdisciplines of psychology. --Choice (Check Catalog)

Anarchy evolution : faith, science, and bad religion in a world without god

 by Greg Graffin. With the assistance of science journalist Olson (Mapping Human History: Discovering the Past Through Our Genes, 2002, etc.), Bad Religion leader Graffin presents a memoir of a life lived "at the intersection of evolutionary biology and punk rock." In 1980, at age 15, Graffin co-founded the seminal punk band and also became fascinated with the writings and ideas of evolution. Bad Religion still plays and records, and the author is an evolutionary biologist with a doctorate in zoology from Cornell University. For Graffin, the appeal of both worlds was that, at their best, they challenged authority, dogma and given truths and opened up space for the anarchic process of creativity. As a naturalist, the author states that "the physical universe is the universe"—there is nothing more. But that is more than enough for him, as having a role in the unfolding adventure of life on earth—which includes both tragedy and death—sustains him. Life, he writes, is not simply an inexorable process of natural selection, in which the fittest survive and procreate, but an anarchic creative collision of biology and environment, chance and circumstance. Graffin and Olson explain this view of evolution in clear, accessible language. While avoiding easy analogies with evolution, a large part of the book is devoted to the evolution of Bad Religion, as its art and career careened in unpredictable directions. Along the way, Graffin provides a wonderful depiction of the early L.A. punk scene, a detailed account of his adventures doing field work in the remote Amazon region of Bolivia and an honest appraisal of his failure to successfully balance science, music and family. In the end, writes the author, it is the human trait of empathy—not religion or any other authority—that allows us to recognize our common humanity and to accept the uniqueness of each individual. Humble, challenging and inspiring. --Kirkus (Check Catalog)

Original sin and everyday Protestants : the theology of Reinhold Niebuhr, Billy Graham, and Paul Tillich in an age of anxiety

 by Andrew S. Finstuen. This unconventional study by Finstuen (Pacific Lutheran Univ.) presents "a curious trinity" of Reinhold Niebuhr, Billy Graham, and Paul Tillich, examined in relationship to one another through the prism of original sin. For each, the doctrine was the interpretive principle by which to reach a wide audience of "ordinary Protestants" in the post-WW II "age of anxiety." Keeping all these components together and focused is a delicate balancing act, but under Finstuen's skillful management of well-researched primary and secondary sources, the final product is an insightful and informative monograph. Finstuen perceptively describes the study's religious and cultural context, persuasively demonstrates that original sin was the underlying doctrinal cohesion among the three figures, and presents their individual and collective influence as diagnosticians of the human condition. Key to his analysis of the period and figures under study is the distinction between a "theological revival" that encouraged the independence of Christian faith from culture and a "captive revival" that encouraged the assimilation of faith into the culture. Niebuhr, Graham, and Tillich led the theological revival that set them against the prevailing ethos of optimism and conformity, and they, along with the "ordinary Protestants" of the era, emerge from this study in a new light. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty/researchers. --Choice (Check Catalog)

Inhabiting the cruciform God : kenosis, justification, and theosis in Paul's narrative soteriology

 by Michael J. Gorman. Gorman (St. Mary's Seminary and University, Baltimore) devotes four chapters to the apostle Paul's understanding of human participation in God's cruciform character. Chapter 1 attends to Paul's view that Christ's self-emptying in the Crucifixion represents the character of God (and not just Christ) and is to be the model-character for humans called to be in Christ as God's representative. Chapter 2 contends that Paul understood the justification of humans by God as requiring human "participating in Christ's resurrection life that is effected by co-crucifixion with him." Chapter 3 argues that Paul regarded human holiness as human participation in the Cross of Christ by the power of God's spirit. Chapter 4 shows that a life of nonviolence and reconciliation is required for human participating in God's cruciform character. A nice summary of this approach to Paul's position is Gorman's statement: "To be truly human is to be Christlike, which is to be Godlike, which is to be kenotic and cruciform." Gorman defines "theosis" as "the process of transformation into the image of this God." The book is nontechnical but carefully attentive to relevant literature on its topic. --Choice (Check catalog)

Crazy love : overwhelmed by a relentless God

 by Francis Chan. Chan, senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, Calif., offers a radical call for evangelicals to consider and emulate in this debut guide to living "crazy" for God. Chan's own life compels him to live with urgency, and with good reason. His mother died giving birth to him, his stepmother died when he was nine, and his dad when he was 12. As a pastor, Chan says that conducting weekly funerals for people younger than himself has likewise sobered him to life's unexpectedness and frailty. Chan writes with infectious exuberance, challenging Christians to take the Bible seriously. He describes at length the sorry state of "lukewarm" Christians who strive for a life characterized by control, safety and an absence of suffering. In stark contrast, the book offers real-life accounts of believers who have given all--time, money, health, even their lives--in obedience to Christ's call. Chan also recounts his own attempts to live "crazy" by significantly downsizing his home and giving away his resources to the poor. Earnest Christians will find valuable take-home lessons from Chan's excellent book. --Publishers Weekly (Check Catalog)