Critical Compendium

What the Gospels Meant, by Garry Wills

“In his most recent book, “What the Gospels Meant” (Viking, 224 pages, $24.95), Garry Wills completes a trilogy, capping off “What Jesus Meant” and “What Paul Meant,” both published in 2006. All three books are informed, lucid, and accessible to general readers, but the last is the most poetic, penetrating, and moving. In “What Jesus Meant,” Mr. Wills gave us a Jesus who is more open to outcasts than the Vatican is today, and, in “What Paul Meant,” he presented a Paul who does not deserve his reputation — still popular among Christian fundamentalists — as an inveterate enemy of Judaism.” Read the review at the New York Sun.

Filed under: Nonfiction, Religion | Posted 03.03.08 | Comments: None

Liberty of Conscience, by Martha Nussbaum

“Martha Nussbaum straddles several disciplines, holding appointments in the philosophy department, the law school, and the divinity school at the University of Chicago. In her new book, “Liberty of Conscience” (Basic Books, 406 pages, $27.50), she reminds us that she also straddles cultural and religious traditions, having ancestors who came over on the Mayflower and having converted from liberal Episcopalianism to liberal Judaism of the Reform persuasion. Thus does she embody, so to speak, the diversity that she champions in this spirited work of advocacy.” Read the review at the New York Sun.

Filed under: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Religion | Posted 03.03.08 | Comments: None

Science and Islam, by Muzaffar Iqbal

“Muzaffar Iqbal, who is a well-known scientist and Islamic scholar based in Canada, has written a book about science and Islam that is weighted towards the Middle Ages and has nothing to say about camel breeding or falconry. He has an agreeably caustic and aggressive approach to outdated and erroneous ideas about the history of science. The book is a polemical essay, rather than a history, and welcome as such. One of the targets is the notion that Islamic science was little more than a reheated version of ancient Greek science.” Read the review at the Times Literary Supplement.

Filed under: Essays, Nonfiction, Religion, Science | Posted 02.02.08 | Comments: None

The Messenger: The meanings of the life of Muhammad, by Tariq Ramadan

“The Messenger cannot be considered an impartial historical biography in the Western tradition – still less an apology. Indeed, those familiar with the habitual points of Western interest in early Islam (which pretty much follows the tabloid code of sex and violence) will find Tariq Ramadan’s book a most frustrating document. Where are the pages devoted to the Prophet’s marriage to his child-bride, Aisha, or on his exemption from the limit of four wives placed on other believers, or on how the Prophet’s adopted son, Zayd, divorced his own wife, Zaynab, so that she could also join the household of Muhammad?” Read the review at the Times Literary Supplement.

Filed under: Biography, History, Nonfiction, Religion | Posted 02.02.08 | Comments: None

Burning to Read: English Fundamentalism and its Reformation Opponents, by James Simpson

“In his provocative new study, “Burning to Read: English Fundamentalism and Its Reformation Opponents,” James Simpson undertakes a bold reassessment not only of Thomas More as embattled “defender of the faith,” but of the English Reformation itself. His focus is quite specific; he identifies the years 1520 to 1547 as crucial. Though Martin Luther had nailed his inflammatory 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517, it was during these tumultuous later years that the Reformation established itself decisively in much of Britain.” Read the review at the New York Sun.

Filed under: History, Nonfiction, Religion | Posted 01.22.08 | Comments: None

Jesus Freaks: A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge, by Don Lattin

“There are (Jesus Freaks other than David Koresh), though not as deadly, who are part of this fold. Falling in this category is David Berg. The son of a preacher man and woman, Berg, as described in Jesus Freaks, was a second-rate evangelist. His momma, however, had the gift, though, try as he might, he couldn’t quite match her fervor on the pulpit. But perhaps God — or Lucifer, depending upon your viewpoint — smiled upon him because when his mother died, he stepped fully into the evangelical light. A few potential church scandals notwithstanding, he began collecting worshippers, many of them young. Which fully prepared him for Haight-Ashbury and its Summer of Love.” Read the review at Bookslut.

Filed under: Nonfiction, Religion | Posted 01.19.08 | Comments: None

Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up, by John Allen Paulos

“John Allen Paulos is a mathematician who teaches at Temple University and also a talented popularizer. In previous books he has trained his mathematical eye on humor, the stock market and what he reads in the newspaper. Now he has taken on God. Paulos is not a credulous man. He sees things, he tells us, in the cold light of logic and probability. (His stock market book told how he was suckered into losing a bundle on WorldCom stock, but never mind.) In “Irreligion,” Paulos intends to expose the “inherent illogic” of arguments for the existence of God. He finds these supposed proofs to be, by and large, a load of tripe.” Read the review at the New York Times.

Filed under: Nonfiction, Religion, Science | Posted 01.16.08 | Comments: 1 Comment

Peace Be Upon You: The Story of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Coexistence, by Zachary Karabell

‘Many Westerners think the world would be safer if it were less Muslim, more Western. And in the Middle East and beyond, many Muslims are horrified by our arrogance; a tiny minority respond with violence. Yet the so-called clash of civilizations, as Zachary Karabell’s important new book demonstrates, draws strength from a profoundly partial reading of history. “Peace Be Upon You” is a polemic in the service of peace - readable, accessible and, maybe, indispensable.’ Read the review at the International Herald Tribune.

Filed under: Nonfiction, Religion | Posted 01.14.08 | Comments: None

There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, by Antony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese

‘Now, in a book written, according to its title page, “with” Roy Abraham Varghese - of whom more later - Flew tells the story of his “discovery of the divine.” This sounds like a victory for the faithful in the God wars: a welcome riposte to the atheist tomes of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris.’ Read the review at the New York Times.

Filed under: Memoir, Nonfiction, Religion | Posted 12.24.07 | Comments: None

Head and Heart: American Christianities, by Garry Wills

‘In his latest book, “Head and Heart,” Garry Wills surveys the fault lines in U.S. Christianity and argues that the real fracture is between “Enlightened” religion (of the head) and “Evangelical” religion (of the heart). Throughout American history, he writes, Christians have oscillated between these “two poles of religious attraction.” Wills is a liberal Catholic and an outspoken champion of the separation of church and state, so it should not be surprising that his sympathies run with the enlightened camp.’ Read the review at the Washington Post.

Filed under: Essays, Nonfiction, Religion | Posted 12.20.07 | Comments: None

Do You Believe, by Antonio Monda

‘Modern-day Renaissance man Antonio Monda - professor, author, editor, filmmaker and practicing Catholic - taps into his extensive network among America’s cultural elite for this compelling new book. While its straightforward subtitle, Conversations on God and Religion, plainly states what awaits between the covers, it’s the people with whom Monda converses that make this exercise so intriguing.’ Read the review at Time Out Chicago.

Filed under: Nonfiction, Religion | Posted 12.20.07 | Comments: None

The Portable Atheist, edited by Christopher Hitchens

‘The author of “God Is Not Great” seems to have won the battle for World’s Best Atheist (sorry, Richard Dawkins), and here has collected a far-reaching range of likeminded nonbelievers.’ Read the review at Time Out Chicago.

Filed under: Anthology, Essays, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Religion, Science | Posted 12.20.07 | Comments: None

The Intelligence of Flowers, by Maurice Maeterlinck, translated by Philip Mosley

‘As a sequel to his enormously successful 1901 essay, “The Life of the Bee,” which sold an astonishing 250,000 copies, (Maurice) Maeterlinck’s 1907 essay “The Intelligence of Flowers” (nicely translated here from the French by Philip Mosley) melds religious intuition and scientific observation. He describes numerous examples of intelligence in flowers as they seek to reproduce, and by analogy insists that the “genius” observed in the behavior of flowers resembles the wisdom of people.’ Read the review at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Filed under: Essays, Nonfiction, Religion, Science | Posted 12.20.07 | Comments: None

The Great Arab Conquests, How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In by Hugh Kennedy

‘In “The Great Arab Conquests,” Hugh Kennedy describes and convincingly analyzes the astonishing story of how the Arabs took over the Middle East. Beginning around 630, Arab forces burst initially into Syria and Mesopotamia, and then into Egypt and Persia. By 651, the Arabs had conquered the Persian Empire, which then stretched deep into the “stans” of Central Asia, and they were already pushing into Roman North Africa. Carthage fell in 698, Spain followed after 711. In 751, Arab forces defeated the Chinese in the struggle for Turkestan.’ Read the review at Christianity Today. Buy the book at Amazon.com.

Filed under: Nonfiction, Religion | Posted 11.22.07 | Comments: None

Philosophical Myths of the Fall by Stephen Mulhall

‘For readers attuned to these (conversations about humanity’s “fallenness,”) Stephen Mulhall’s “Philosophical Myths of the Fall” will be neither surprising nor counterintuitive. But we should not therefore underestimate the element of scandal in Mulhall’s project, which is to suggest that key canonical figures in modern philosophy - Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein - reinscribe the Christian doctrine of original sin. As Mulhall puts it, “all three in fact engender a conception of the human condition that constantly inclines them to reiterate elements of a distinctively Christian structure of thought.” The result is a “secularized conception of the self and its world” - a translation of the particularities of Christian confession into more neutral or more universal categories, and thus unhitched from any specific faith commitments.’ Read the review at Christianity Today. Buy the book at Amazon.com.

Filed under: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Religion | Posted 11.22.07 | Comments: None