Liberal viewpoints from an overwhelmingly conservative movement.
Exploration of evangelicalism from a politically progressive perspective.
Campolo (Sociology/Eastern Univ.) is a rare breed—a politically liberal, evangelical Christian. Here, he pens letters to a young pair of imaginary evangelicals, designed to provide them with guidance and counsel. The result is an intriguing look into the evangelical movement. Campolo displays deep concern for how evangelicals are viewed by society and takes great pains to disassociate fundamentalists from evangelicals. The attention to public perception is understandable, since Campolo states that, “Evangelicals regard winning souls to Christ as a moral obligation of the highest order.” That many people stereotype evangelicals as literalists, fundamentalists, or worse, as misogynists and bigots, stymies such a mission. Many of Campolo’s theological views are seemingly conservative: He sees the Bible as the inspired word of God, disagrees with homosexuality, is pro-life and believes Jesus is the only true path to salvation. Nevertheless, his letters also display a liberal political viewpoint: He supports civil rights for homosexuals, argues for the United Nations, warns against excessive patriotism and opposes the war in Iraq. Much of his work is pointed at the current political climate, and he especially repudiates evangelical ties to the Republican Party, decrying “the recent Evangelical marriage to conservative politics.” The author provides an interesting historical perspective on the evangelical movement throughout the book, and draws upon the writings of a wide array of theologians. The book is not for everyone, and non-evangelicals of every political stripe will find its content puzzling at times. To some, Campolo’s message will seem hopelessly trapped in contradictions. But it does present a good introduction to the rifts which affect some Christian churches and denominations.
Liberal viewpoints from an overwhelmingly conservative movement.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-465-00831-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2006
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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