Posts Tagged random house
Review: The Case of God (Complete)
Posted by Joel in Book Review on November 20, 2009
You can find the first part of this review, here and more posts on this book here.
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Thanks to Random House for this review copy. This is the complete review, for house-keeping purposes.
One of her underlying points, perhaps unintentionally, is that with the Protestant Reformation came the loss of religious rituals in Europe. She has spent a lot of time developing the idea that ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ means more than an abstract hope, but a commitment. So, if some one has faith in Christ, it is not that they believe that He existed, but that they have a commitment to Him and His teachings. For Armstrong, the former nun, rituals were important, across the millennium, in connecting people to their cultural gods, and no less when it came to connecting Christians to God. With the loss of the ‘real presence’ in the Eucharist, it become a theological symbol, a mere memorial, which allowed people to become further disconnected from the theology of the Cross.
It might be said, from reading Armstrong, that in a round about way, she blames atheism on the Reformation. Whether right or wrong, the loss of rituals have added to the erosion of Christianity in the lives of many people. There is no longer a ‘constant doing’ in the Christian life, but a mere ‘wait and see’ attitude. There is no commitment, but an abstract hope.
Review: The Case for God (2)
Posted by Joel in Atheism, Book Review on November 10, 2009
You can find the first part of this review, here and more posts on this book here.
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Thanks to Random House for this review copy. This is part 2 of the review.
While her first part of the book dealt primarily with the inability of humanity to come to terms with a transcendent God, bumbling through the centuries with rituals and language barriers, the second part of her book deals with humanity’s failed attempt to remove the transcendent God.
Starting with a brief overview of the Reformation, she almost proposes a new reason for the Reformation, and that of Rome’s inability to accept new scientific analysis and the hardening of its own theology in regards to Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle. It was Calvin, returning to Augustinian Science, who opened the door for a merger of religion and science. Something which will be disconcerting to atheists will be the very real fact that it was the Protestants who first led the way into science and indeed, into biblical criticism, against the march and might of Rome.
She is doing this, to counter the extremely fundamentalist position of the atheists, and indeed, of religionist, who believe that Religion and Science have always, and will always, be at odds, at each others’ throats.
Review: The Case for God (1)
Posted by Joel in Book Review on November 6, 2009
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Thanks to Random House for this review copy. This is part 1 of the review.
Reading other reviews, more conservative readers are simply missing the point of this book. Yes, the author is a liberal religionist, but she is not writing a book on theology or attempting to convert the Faithful to her liberalism, or to defend Christianity. She is writing to show the new, militant, atheists who seek to see all religions in fundamentalists (extremely literal) terms are simply and utterly wrong.
To dismiss her work as somehow a theological treatise or as a proof for the Divine is shows the lack of reading comprehension among many today. Her goal, as she restates several times, is
“As I explained at the outset, my aim is not to give an exhaustive account of religion in any given period, but to highlight a particular trend – the apophatic – that speaks strongly to our current religious perplexity.” (p140)
Religion is Not about Belief: Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God
Posted by Joel in Atheism, Book Review on November 4, 2009
I’m reading this book for Random House, and finding it, well, it’s difficult not to attempt to correct her theological assessments of early Christianity. I do, however, feel she gets the late 4th century’s Trinitarian development and the subsequent development of Eastern mysticism related to this doctrine quite well. For me, the deity of Christ is fundamental to the Christian religion, but her book is not an attempt at theology, but to argue against the militant atheists who see religion only in extreme fundamentalists terms. Further, I think she treats the mystical religions with a great deal more respect than Christianity, but again, the point of her book is as I said above. I should have the review by the end of the week (or next).
Below is take on the book from someone else:
In the Mail: Something Specific from Random House
Posted by Joel in Atheism, Book Review on October 26, 2009
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Random House has sent along a copy of Karen Armstrong’s book, The Case for God, for review. So far, she is getting excellent reviews on this book, which is in many ways a response to the recent rise of militant atheism –
Reviews
Praise for Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God
“The time is ripe for a book like The Case for God, which wraps a rebuke to the more militant sort of atheism in an engaging survey of Western religious thought.”
—Ross Douthat, The New York Times Book Review“Armstrong’s argument is prescient, for it reflects the most important shifts occurring in the religious landscape.”
—Lisa Miller, Newsweek
More on Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God
Posted by Joel in Atheism, Religious News on October 20, 2009
If I keep going, I am going to have to read this book. Here is an except:
‘The Case for God,’ by Karen Armstrong
Posted by Joel in Religious News on October 6, 2009
This is a review found in the NY Times, but I thought it fit with the book review this week:
