Book Description
In most discussions and analyses of American teenage life, one major topic is curiously overlooked--religion. Yet most American teens say that religious faith is important in their lives. What is going on in the religious and spiritual lives of American teenagers? What do they actually believe? What religious practices do they engage in? Do they expect to remain loyal to the faith of their parents? Or are they abandoning traditional religious institutions in search of a new, more "authentic" spirituality? Answering these and many other questions, Soul Searching tells the definitive story of the religious and spiritual lives of contemporary American teenagers.
Customer Reviews:
Worth every minute.......2007-07-18
Although this book can be somewhat slow at times (it's a book of analyzing statistics, what else would one expect?), it is a great glimpse into the minds of U.S. teenagers. Anyone who works with youth should read this book.
social scientific conclusions about American teenage religiosity.......2007-01-18
First the good news. In their ground-breaking National Study of Youth and Religion funded by the Lilly Endowment, the results of which are published in their new book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (Oxford University Press, 2005), Christian Smith (the Stuart Chapin Distinguished Professor of Sociology at UNC and a committed Christian) and Melinda Lundquist Denton of the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) document that teenagers overwhelmingly admire their parents as the single greatest influence in their lives, and gladly imitate their religious beliefs. Further, their study showed that teenagers actually like church. The conventional wisdom of teenage alienation from parents and hostility toward religion is an entrenched but erroneous stereotype, they argue.
Now for the bad news. When Smith and Denton asked these teenagers to describe the particulars of their religious faith, they were "incredibly inarticulate" about even the most basic tenets of their beliefs and practices. Rather, the vast majority of kids were abysmally ignorant of the religion they espoused. Here, for example, is the response of a 15-year-old who attends church four or five times a week, when asked to articulate her faith:
"[Pause] I don't really know how to answer that. ['Are there any beliefs at all that are important to you? Really generally.'] [Pause] I don't know. ['Take your time if you want.'] I think that you should just, if you're gonna do something wrong then you should always ask for forgiveness and he's gonna forgive you no matter what, cause he gave up his only Son to take all the sins for you, so..."
This from their scientific survey of 3,290 teenagers (ages 13-17) and parents, and 267 personal interviews, conducted across four years (2001-2005). Smith and Denton conclude that most "Christian" kids really operate with a vague sort of Moral Therapeutic Deism: be nice, don't do bad, for a remote deity wants you to be happy and feel good about yourself. In other words, says Smith, "we can say here that we have come with some confidence to believe that a significant part of 'Christianity' in the U.S. is actually only tenuously Christian in any sense that is seriously connected to the actual historical Christian tradition." If these kids reflect the biblical illiteracy of their parents, which I suspect is the case, and if we add to this portrait the depressing conclusions about Christian lifestyles in Ron Sider's The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience (2005), then American born-again believers have a long, long way to go in fidelity to the apostolic way of life.
If you cannot read Soul Searching, there are two brief reviews that I enjoyed. See Andy Crouch, "Compliant But Confused," in Christianity Today, April 2005, p. 98; and Michael Cromartie's interview with Christian Smith, "What American Teenagers Believe," in Books and Culture, January-February 2005, pp. 10-11.
Really important stuff, especially "moralistic therapeutic deism".......2006-08-12
A sociological analysis of conducted between 2001 and 2005 at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill under the title, "National Study of Youth and Religion."
According to the research of Smith and Denton, the vast majority of U.S. teenagers identify themselves as Christian, have beliefs that are similar to those of their parents, believe in God, and have a positive general attitude about religion. About half say that faith is important in their lives, and four out of ten say they attend religious services weekly or more often. Most of them have never heard the phrase "spiritual but not religious" or have any idea what that means. "The vast majority of the teenagers we interviewed, of whatever religion, said very plainly that they simply believe what they were raised to believe; they are merely following in their family's footsteps and that is perfectly fine with them" (page 120).
But wait -- there's a problem. What is it that these teenagers have been raised to believe? "Our impression as interviewers was that many teenagers could not articulate matters of faith because they have not been effectively educated in and provided opportunities to practice talking about their faith. Indeed, it was our distinct sense that for many of the teens we interviewed, our interview was the first time that any adult had ever asked them what they believed and how it mattered in their life" (page 133). Yikes! Smith and Denton argue that "we suggest that the de facto dominant religion among contemporary U.S. teenagers is what we might well call 'Moralistic Therapeutic Deism'" -- a simple belief in a god (who is not very personal), with an emphasis on moral values and feeling good about oneself. Smith and Denton argue that this "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" is "simply colonizing many established religious traditions and congregations in the United States." (Moralistic therapeutic deism is discussed in detail on pages 162-170.)
Their analysis of moralistic therepeutic deism concludes: "We have come with some confidence to believe that a significant part of Christianity in the United States is actually only tenuously Christian in any sense that is seriously connected to the actual historical Christian tradition, but has rather substantially morphed into Christianity's misbegotten stepcousin, Christian Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. This has happened in the minds and hearts of many individual believers and, it also appears, within the structures of at least some Christian organizations and institutions. The language, and therefore experience, of Trinity, holiness, sin, grace, justification, sanctification, church, Eucharist, and heaven and hell appear, among most Christian teenagers in the United States at the very least, to be supplanted by the language of happiness, niceness, and an earned heavenly reward. It is not so much that U.S. Christianity is being secularized. Rather more subtly, Christianity is either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious faith" (page 171).
Wake up, church planters and church builders! I think we've just heard the voice of a prophet speaking.
soul searching..........2006-03-22
excellent content.
rather hard to read due to the font size.
National Survey of the Spiritual Lives of Teens.......2006-03-14
Chris Smith did a marvelous analysis of the religious and spiritual life of teens in the United States. I am using this comprehensive research to assist us as we plan for the teens in our parish. The analysis is "user friendly" and certainly touches on a very important part of the lives of our teens.
Customer Reviews:
Good points, but he could make them more concisely.......2001-07-06
Perhaps it was because Doherty was mainly preaching to the choir, but I didn't find this book to offer any startling revelations. I had to read it for a seminar, and found myself skimming the later sections of the book. It was well written and easy to read. He just could have said what he had to say in fewer pages.
Author offers a much needed correction for psychotherapy........1999-08-17
William Doherty hits the nail on the head in offering an alternative to the professional's approach concerning today's human problems. In the name of responsible psychotherapy, so many professionals have done a grave disservice to families and communities by eliminating responsibility to others in their guidance.
Book Description
Denison, Iowa, is as close to the heart of Middle America as it gets. The hometown of Donna Reed, Denison has adopted "It's a wonderful life" as its slogan and painted the phrase on the water tower that hovers over everything in town. And in many respects, life is pretty good here: it's a quiet town, a great place to raise children; the crime rate is low, the schools strong. It's home to the county's only Wal-Mart and a factory that does a booming business in antiterrorism barriers. For outsiders looking in, there is something familiar and comforting about Denison -- it conforms to the picture of the wholesome, corn-fed heartland which we as a nation cherish and which we think we know so well.
But something new and unfamiliar is happening in Denison, and traditional viewpoints and partisan labels don't quite capture it. The change goes beyond the post-9/11 loss of innocence; the sense of unease and, in some cases, of rebirth began well before 2001. Relations between the growing Latino population and the established Anglo citizenry are not always smooth. The industries that still predominate have become a mixed blessing for many people -- in the 1980s the meat-processing plant, for instance, froze wages, and they have remained basically static to this day.
For many years, Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson have made it their business to document interior America. In 1990 they won the Pulitzer Prize for their book And Their Children After Them, a conscious homage to the 1941 classic Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans. To gather their observations and insights on Denison, Maharidge and Williamson lived there for a year, spending time among the 8,000 people who live, love, work, run for office, go to school, and sometimes struggle to get by there. From the Lutheran woman who singlehandedly teaches English to Latino immigrants seeking grueling work in meatpacking plants to the leaders who struggle to rescue the community from economic ruin to the Latino businessman whose career is saved by two white men risking the wrath of small-town politics, the author and photographer trace the intersections of lives, the successes and failures, the real stories beneath Denison's mom-and-apple-pie surface.
Through Maharidge's gorgeous, plainspoken prose and Williamson's stunning photography, we are privy to a sweeping perspective layered with a microscopic depth of observation, and a searingly honest portrait tempered by heartfelt compassion. Denison, Iowa is a big, beautiful book about a small town at a critical time in our history -- and it's the crowning work of a brilliant, quarter-century partnership.
Customer Reviews:
Very thoughtful.......2007-04-04
Dale Maharidge, a former newspaper reporter, brings a well-rounded account of how cultural change presses upon the lives of a few citizens in a small town in Western Iowa.
This book fascinated me. I think it did so because of how well it oscillates between the worlds of economic development and narrative non-fiction. I have read "And Their Children After Them," but this book is cut from something finer. Maharidge has wandered into the disparate lives of many of Denison's people.
He even weaves a fable into the broader message of the story. There is a story about a white buffalo that comes back to haunt the white settlers who made victims of the Native Americans who once roamed the plains. Maharidge suggests that the waves of Central Americans and Mexicans, who happen to often have Indian blood, represent a reclaiming of the Plains by the Native Americans.
I lived in a small town like Denison for a year. In this case, it was Marshall, Missouri. Like Denison, Marshall relied on meatpacking. The town had beautiful homes on Arrow Street and a great past. The future, though, was clearly going to be different. The schools were full of Hispanics and Pacific Islander immigrants whose parents came to work in the slaughterhouses. It was a better life for the newcomers.
The problem in Denison, and in Marshall, is the one that Maharidge so eloquently captures. How do you get the existing townspeople to recognize that they must change or wither? Maharidge sees great hope in the ambition of immigrants like Luis Navar, a man who wants to become an independent contractor. At the same time, the long-time resident serving his lunch at the Hy-Vee disappoints Maharidge. She sees the newcomers as separate from the real members of Denison. "The White Buffalo is going to eat you alive," thinks Maharidge.
Cultural change is the new mandate of globalization. It is a hard lesson to adopt. That resistance is not just in the lunch counter servers. The same Navar clashes with the leaders of the town over contracts to repair a famous building. The town's leaders, in a poor moment, reward the contract through a shady backroom deal.
Going back to how this book is fascinating as piece of Journalism, Maharidge lives well beyond the constraints of news reporting. He develops a compassion to achieve his explanatory journalism. The book even discusses some of the difficult interpersonal decisions that portrayers of a place are confronted with as they work. Maharidge includes the stories of the townsfolk who wanted to befriend him beyond the point of comfort.
I would recommend this book to students of documentary journalism. This is such a better treatment of the topic of journalist-subject relationships than one might find in Janet Malcolm's "The Journalist and the Murderer." Whereas Malcolm picks apart the journalist as a seducer, Maharidge shows more of the reason for why a journalist must make friends in order to gain the trust that is needed to learn the secrets of a place. Maharidge samples the winter moonshine in one scene.
A triple threat........2006-02-07
Dull, depressing, and declasse. While I knew that this book wouldn't be highbrow or particularly insightful, I expected it to be marginally interesting. It's neither illuminating nor illustrative, it's just plain icky. I actually needed to bathe after reading this book. Skip it. There are scads of other "looking for the lost America in rural towns" books that manage the issue -- and the story -- much better.
Now we need a new chapter!.......2005-11-09
While I loved this book, there are those here who despised it. The writing is excellent, the stories are true, and I discovered we are more interesting than I had previously thought! As Denison continues to change and grow, be advised that the spirit of Donna Reed is alive and well. While I am not a native Denisonian, it is a really great place to live. When you read this book - and you really should - you'll be interested to know that Nathan Mahrt was just (11/8) elected Mayor by quite a substantial margin. I think Maharidge should come back in about five years and write a sequel!
Denison, Iowa.......2005-10-04
Having actually been born and raised in Denison, Ia, I found this book very hard to put down. I learned more about the history of my home town than I ever knew before and also how it has changed since I left. But it was also a book that left me with hundreds of questions. I wish he could have written more!
Middle america revealed.......2005-10-04
I live 15 minutes from Denison so this book was lauded as a must read. That is exactly what it is. For all of us to take a few minutes and understand how the small towns work. Why some of us are here and how the towns are changing and wondering what will become of them. I for one think someday they will be a thing of the past but, I hope that as in Dale's eyes just maybe it is the time of the white buffalo. I highly recommend this book to all who question life. I am so glad to finally know what happened to the night man. May his soul rest in peace.
Book Description
Susy Smith's thirtieth book contains more of the profoundly inspirational knowledge about life after death that she has received over the years from her mother and her spirit colleagues. Through the Survival Research Foundation and the Susy Smith Project at the University of Arizona, Smith hopes to scientifically prove that consciousness survives after physical death. She relives her years of awakening to a strong belief in life after death, and her psychic research spanning four decades of growing knowledge and changing attitudes about this controversial field.
Customer Reviews:
Suzy Smith knows how to tell a story and start a mystery........2007-08-27
Excellent description by Suzy Smith of her journey into mediumship. VERY easy to read and entertaining. Has some interesting insights into the life of a medium in training. She also presents a test to try to prove the existence of an afterlife that the reader can share.
Unethical!.......2007-04-24
Dr. Schwartz, I didn't have a choice of rating your book with NO stars, so I gave it one. You should be ashamed of yourself for exploiting Allison DuBois and her work with you. How dare you promise confidentiality and then betray the very person one of your books is based on? You have NO credibility.
GREAT READ.......2006-07-13
A must for any afterlife library.The chapter entitled "Mothers Chapter" is worth the price of the book alone. I know it will be hard to put this book down. A delightful 2 day read.
What a charming page-turner!.......2006-05-17
I stumbled on this book after reading about medium researcher Dr. Gary E. Schwartz of the University of Arizona. In the past year I had read two books by medium George Anderson, two books about him, at least four books by medium James Van Praagh, and at least five by the proflic author and medium Sylvia Browne. The name was a bit off-putting. She sounded like a sorority sister. As soon as I read a few pages written by Susy Smith on Amazon.com, I was hooked. Her writing as a former newspaperwoman is clear, amusing and skeptical. She keeps her assumptions at arms length, looking for fallacies.
Despite the title, most of the book is the author's autobiography. She discovered in her 40s by playing with a ouija board with some friends, that she could communicate with spirits. The words would come through her hands either in handwriting or later at the keyboard. The method was fraught with some danger because interlopers appeared. Apparently the same personalities who would make harassing phone calls or stalk on Earth don't necessarily improve by crossing over. But soon Susy--the nickname her father gave her, since her real name Ethel Elizabeth didn't fit a little girl--is having long conversations with her deceased mother with whom she had been very close. One of the most interesting chapters is mother's advice in chapter 19.
Then an educated gentleman starts to talk. He calls himself James. As he reveals more of himself, Smith realizes that he fits the description of 19th century Harvard psychologist William James.
There are books that go deeper into metaphysics and details of life after life in books like Sylvia Browne's thought-provoking books like The Other Side and Back (2000). However for getting to know a wise, spunky, charming character who journeyed around the U.S. with her beloved daschund and her home behind her, a trailer home she painstakingly painted turquoise against advice, nothing can compare.
So why the title The After-Life Codes? A small part of the book tells how Smith left a cash prize for anyone who would be able to learn from her after her the information to decode a statement she had left with the laboratory in what is called the Susy Smith project. In her 80s, Smith had settled in Phoenix and met Dr. Schwartz and his colleage Dr. Linda Russek at Human Energy Systems Laboratory at University of Arizona in Tucson. They recruited her as a research medium and took her a computer to continue her writing. Smith finished this book, her 30th, in 2000 when she was 89 years old. A few months later she had a massive heart attack, which was fatal.
I can't find out if anyone got the prize, but in his 2005 book, The Truth About Medium, Dr. Schwartz describes how a day later in his grief he kept an appointment and met a young medium and her mentor, Allison DuBois and Catherine Yunt. He learned they had not read the paper that morning, as they had been travelling from Phoenix to their meeting. He subjected them to an impromptu study and asked if they had any information about a person close to him who had recently passed. He recorded their statements on a score sheet to show how accurate they were. An excerpt from chapter 1 of Schwartz' book can be found at the Amazon.com site for it. An academic paper on that experiment is posted at [...]. Incidentally, that Schwartz book got medium DuBois and her colleage to resign as research mediums after four years with DuBois charging at her web site, [...] that Schwartz was exploiting her Emmy-winning series. I guess the knowledge of a energy-based, eternal dimension where love, forgiveness, compassion, reason, mercy, tenderness, sincerity, generousness and courage--as the author says her mother describes it--is not enough to live in peace here.
Follow up information on Susy Smith, after death.......2006-03-29
This book is more autobiographical than specific to life-after-death evidence. However, and even so, it's a charming read and details the life of Susy Smith entertainingly.
Having said that, many are more interested in Susy Smith's after-death experiments---the experiments she claimed she would conduct upon death, from the other side---sending a message or phrase across to prove life indeed existed beyond death. These experiments have in fact taken place:
"Immediately following the death of Susy Smith, 89 years old, the author of thirty books on parapsychology and survival of consciousness, it was possible to conduct two experiments to see if evidence of her continued consciousness could be obtained. Experiment I involved a single-blind design with an experienced research medium who serves as Chairperson of the Mediumship Research Committee in the Human Energy Systems Laboratory at the University of Arizona. Experiment II was partially blind and included two new research mediums who were blind to the name and history of the deceased person (Smith). The findings from both experiments provided strong evidence for the continuance of information about Smith. It is hoped that the publication of these findings will encourage scientists and spiritual leaders to bring Smith's afterlife codes experiment and the Susy Smith Project to the attention of mediums and students."
For more information on the experiments, follow this link:
http://veritas.arizona.edu/susy.htm
The Afterlife Codes is good read, overall, though not much information was given on the actual "afterlife codes" mentioned in the title.
Peace.
Amazon.com
Chasin' That Devil Music has the feel of a documentary about the making of a thrilling motion picture. The main focus is on the Delta blues singers of the early 20th century--artists such as Charley Patton, Tommy Johnson, Son House, and Blind Lemon Jefferson who've achieved near-mythic status in blues circles. In addition, many of the articles gathered in this splendidly illustrated volume capture the process and people involved in tracking long-lost recordings nearly as elusive as the performers who made them. Here, for example, is the story of author/blues scholar Gayle Dean Wardlow's three-year hunt for the death certificate of Robert Johnson, the celebrated Mississippi bluesman and a figure whose legend has grown greater with each year since his much-debated death in 1938. The text here is nearly as raw in spots as the music that sparked it, but, as with those sounds (which can be heard on a terrific CD sampler included with the book), enthusiasts will find Chasin' That Devil Music riveting. --Steven Stolder
Book Description
Chasin' That Devil Music - Searching for the Blues presents the results of extensive research by a blues scholar who has researched the artists on old 78 RPM records to uncover their stories. Includes rare interviews and the actual songs which are on the CD included with each book.
Customer Reviews:
Definte, interesting, scholarship, good CD.......2004-01-21
Whatever you think of Wardlow's own views, this is the kind of definite real scholarship someone who wants to become really knowledgeable about Mississippi blues and its economic and cultural milieu. Despite what various comments are, Wardlow's writing is not overly intellectual, rather it is very factual. It is record collectors and blues lovers like Wardlow in the late 1950s and early 1960s that laid the basis for their being original Delta blues records (and their peers in old time "white" music)to be reissued and who "found" so many of the original blues stars. Wardlow provides a lot of good basic information about the recording practices for the music, and the situations of lots of blues players you may or may not have heard of. These are all articles where he announced his or others work making the discovery. \
One thing to read is his article that clearly illustrates that Robert Johnson never said, thought, or was rumored to have sold his soul to the devil. No one who knew Johnson ever said that. One informant took the story that Tommy Johnson told and told a credulous folk nik "blues expert" this in the 1960s, the rest has become a minor industry.
The CD provided is fun and provides some players most havent heard of. The Western Swing tune about selling the soul to the Devil has beocme part of my performance repertpor!
A Valuable Piece for Blues Fans.......2002-09-20
I agree with Lampic's review in that the author comes across as egocentric while compiling the history of the Mississippi Delta blues, offering some inappropriate and disrespectful comments while interviewing seventy-five-year-old bluesmen. Regardless, the content of this book is very important and valuable to anybody who is as passionate about the music from this era as me.
We are all familiar with Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, Skip James, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Elmore James, and Son House. These names give us the true definition of Mississippi Delta blues and have now obtained a well-deserved legendary status, becoming subjects of countless music compilations and biographies. But they weren't the only blues singers from the Delta. The author recognizes this and gives us strikingly vivid and detailed accounts of the lives and contributions of the lesser-known bluesmen; namely, Ishmon Bracey, King Solomon Hill, and Tommy Johnson (although Tommy Johnson has recently been a subject of intrest after the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" phenomenon). These men have long been overlooked and their music was shadowed by that of Skip James and Robert Johnson during the blues revival of the 1960s.
One particularly interesting portion in this book is the re-examination of Robert Johnson's death, which has been the subject of many-a-legend. Wardlow rehashes the search for Johnson's death certificate and offers his own ideas, based on his own research and interview sessions, about how Johnson really died.
We also learn the fates of many of the other performers, which is often heartbreaking--these men are my heroes, and it's so sad to learn that many were victims of alcoholism and extreme poverty.
The accompanying CD is an excellent item indeed. Not only do we have audios of Wardlow's interviews, but many previously unreleased (or thought to have been lost) recordings from Skip James, Tommy Johnson, King Solomon Hill, and Ishmon Bracey (among others). What's even more remarkable is that these came from Wardlow's own private collection of blues 78s--I'd love to see this guy's record library!
Wardlow also includes an extremely comprehensive discography for each bluesman, arranged by catalog number for Paramount and Yazoo. This list alone is worth the price of the book--I now have a basis for building my own collection (although I tend to stick to the cheaper and less fragile CD releases, rather than trying to track down the original 78s!)
If you look beyond the writing style and the occasional arrogance, this book is excellent for its historic information and accompanying music collection.
"They forgott,but I know better".......2002-01-29
Am I the only one who noticed that this is not a book about ancient blues masters but a monument to its author? Come on,folks,read between the lines - Wardlow talks to old blues musicians just to add his own (patronising) remarks how they forgott everything and he knows better.The argument about King Solomon Hill is nothing but one big ego-trip,he was frustrated for 18 years because his theory was ridiculed at the time,so now he can point that he was right the whole time.Wardlow never mentioned why he got hooked on blues music in the first place (except that he found that old 78 records were collectors items) but through the whole book (collection of articles) shows his white-boy-turns-blues-knows-it-all attitude,treating blues music with intellectualism typical for someone who collect recording dates and musician's names,just so he can later point that he knows those dates and names better than old musicians who recorded them.True,if its not for Wardlow and people like him,many of these names would be completely forgotten,but I find his writting style annoying and CD is the best thing about the whole book.
The mystique of early rural blues.......2001-08-22
This book IS a reprint of previously published articles, not all of them written by Wardlow (for instance, an interview with Wardlow by other reporters is included), but apparently most of these articles have never appeared in book form. They are fascinating for a reader interested in learning more about how people like Charley Patton and Robert Johnson, long dead, are more celebrated today than would have been imaginable, let alone possible, in their own times. Wardlow was one of the early "investigators" who unearthed obscure recordings and salient information about the musicians who made them. This book is largely an account of that difficult process. Now, when it's relatively easy to hear the complete recorded works of Son House, Blind Willie Johnson, et. al., it's hard to imagine what blues fans had to go through to hear this music 40 years ago. Wardlow's book is a revelation and an inspiration also. The "free" CD is wonderful, too, and worth the price of the book itself.
Blues Masterpiece.......2000-07-04
Gaylon is one of the world's top authorities on pre-war blues and his book is true masterpiece. After collecting for 25 years I still learned a lot from this great book.
Book Description
Deep down it's easy to believe that the better job, the nicer house, or the more dynamic church will finally make us feel ''at home.'' In Searching for Home, M. Craig Barnes challenges this belief. He reminds us that paradise is lost and we can't go home again. Our great comfort and hope, however, is that we are never lost to God. Seasoned by more than twenty years as a pastor, Barnes discusses the importance of confession, worship, and grace in our search for home. He offers advice about how we can move from being transient nomads ''too frightened to be grateful'' to pilgrims who are at home with God, guided by our pleasure in him. This book was written for both Christians and seekers who are still looking for a sense of belonging or ''home.'' It will be a useful tool for pastors, adult Sunday school groups, and counselors of all kinds who are advising pilgrims along the way.
Customer Reviews:
wisdom for pilgrims.......2007-01-17
Craig Barnes served as the pastor of National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. from 1993-2002, after which he taught as a professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Today he continues in that role but also serves as pastor of Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. After studies at Kings College in New York and Princeton Seminary, he completed a PhD in church history at the University of Chicago under Martin Marty. All of that to say that he is a rare pastor-scholar who is deeply immersed in the trenches of every day life with his parishioners whom he clearly loves and respects, but equally at home reading sociological texts about American culture or parsing a fine point in history or theology that just might help you to think about something in a different way. If I count correctly, this is Barnes's sixth book, all of which explore just what it means to follow Jesus in our wild and broken world.
In this book he uses Dante's Divine Comedy and the journey toward home metaphor to unpack the pilgrim motif of discipleship. Each chapter begins with a short quote from the Inferno, Purgatory, or Paradise, and then proceeds with Barnes's theological and pastoral reflections, including his own Christian journey. Barnes does a fine job at avoiding cliches, taking the measure of contemporary culture, including a broad diversity of popular and scholarly sources, and drawing upon a fund of insights from pastoral counseling. The book moves us through the stages of Christian journey, from our profound lostness, to awakening, repentance, confession, faith, community, guidance, and sacrament. The truly good news of Jesus, writes Barnes, is that "all of the roads belong to God," and that "the Savior can use any road to bring us home." Quoting CS Lewis, he reminds us that God can even use the wrong roads to take us to the right places (pp. 121, 128).
Profound.......2005-06-29
This is the most spiritually profound and socially relevant book I have read in years. Plus, the writing is just exquisite.
Barnes has an incredible ability to pull together deep insights from scripture, literature, sociological trends, and his pastoral experiences to describe why the contemporary soul is so restless. Best of all, he provides a helpful and honest response to our deepest longings.
I have read all of his books, and enjoyed them all, but Barnes is never better than in Searching For Home. The book works on so many levels: social critique, personal spirituality, literary insight, biblical teaching. But they all come together in his deep passion as a pastor for people to find their home with the Triune God.
If you want to be both intellectually challenged and emotionally engaged, you have to give this book a try!
The need for home.......2004-02-13
In a society in which almost everyone is from somewhere else, and where they are likely to move on again before very long, how does one combat or respond to a profound longing for home? This is the problem M. Craig Barnes addresses in this timely book.
Barnes writes stirringly about the need for home. He cities many studies that show the rootlessness of our contemporary society and he offers anecdotal examples of our wanderlust. Barnes explains that he experienced this collective craving among the members of his congregation while serving as a pastor in our nation's capital, often a way station for those who serve for a time in government. Everyone was from somewhere else and spoke of that somewhere else as "home." He argues that most congregations will have this same challenge: many church members who long for a place that is far away and days that are long post, which they think of as their home.
Barnes reminds us that our home is not Duluth or Pomona or wherever else we were born, but rather home is "... the place where we were created to live from eternity to eternity ... ." Further, Barnes tells us that "When God created humanity, it wasn't until he breathed the holy ruauch into the nostrils of Adam that he became a living being" (both p. 33).
Not only is our rightful place with God, but God is the source of all that we are. We have come from God, we are going toward God: this is what it is to be human. Christians are the people who recognize this truth and who have as their companion on the journey God in the person of Jesus Christ.
The author, formerly the pastor of National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, is currently the pastor of Shadyside Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh.
If you find this review helpful you might want to read some of my other reviews, including those on subjects ranging from biography to architecture, as well as religion and fiction.
Book Description
The bestselling author of Nobody Nowhere and Somebody Somewhere offers an intimate diary of the universal joys and stresses of falling in lo ve as she continues her struggle with autism. "Donna Williams isn't just teaching us what it is like to be austistic. She is teaching us what it is like to be human."--Deborah Tannen, New York Times Book Review.
Customer Reviews:
Like chainsaws in a rainforest- a wild human journey.......2005-09-30
Autistic author Donna Williams never knew what it was to feel her hand and her leg at the same time let alone experience herself and other person within one moment of processing. Nor did she know the difference between real felt communication and the push button learned 'talking doll' responses and charicatures that made up almost all of her so called 'purposeful' communication and actions with others.
Now, in her new relationship with Ian, an Asexual man with 'multiple personalities' and somewhere on the Autistic Spectrum, finding out what is real from what is not becomes their life's quest.
With hilarious and reckless results they develop an NLP like strategy called 'checking' which appeals only to the feeling part of the brain and gets around stored learned responses. This 'checking' essentially triggers the thoughts, feelings and choices of the 'real self' buried under society-endorsed robotic facades and socially reinforced learned charicatures.
Like chainsaws in the rainforest of their lives, they pledge to follow through at all costs with what they find are their real wants and likes. The results are that they throw out much of the household furniture, their clothes, the contents of the cupboards and then realise they want to be married (but fail to check that it is actually to each other!) so, within a two week very Autistic marriage preparation, they recklessly marry one another!
Intertwined with their hilarious and surreal story is the story of their friendship with Alex, a functionally non-verbal teenager who knows all about being rather multiple, Autistic and out of control of one's own appearance, utterances and actions. Alex has just managed to communicate for the first time in his life through typing and afraid of being left behind by his reckless friends, he pleads movingly with great power and beauty through this only voice he has, not to be left behind. Along the way Donna, Ian and Alex all journey into the world of Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome and discover the world beyond visual fragmentation, meaning blindness, face blindness and fragmented bodies as they see each other and the world as cohesive, whole and three dimensional for the first time.
You will laugh and you will cry, you will cringe and you will cheer your way through Like Color To The Blind.
Has some good parts, but mostly seems rambling and misguided.......2004-03-13
This book is a sequel to Nobody Nowhere and Somebody Somewhere, and makes more sense in that context.
This book has moments I was really glad to see written about. The author describes seeing autistic people forced into an act of normality, with their teachers ignoring their real selves. I also liked the descriptions of acquiring tinted glasses and meeting a local autistic teenager. There were many scenes scattered through the book that I am glad I read about, and I liked the first part where the author said she'd been a nobody nowhere and a somebody somewhere but now wanted to be an anybody anywhere, and her friend said "You blew that in a big way."
Unfortunately, the bulk of the book revolves around a number of dead ends and convoluted paths the author stumbles into when attempting to live her life as herself rather than a bunch of characters and compulsive facades. It gives the impression that she is stumbling around in the dark, going the wrong way often, and describing every wrong turn in minute detail. She describes resisting her compulsive "defenses" by doing the opposite of what they want (with the predictable result that she ends up not much freer for doing that), and forcing herself to the point of complete physical immobility by trying to go back into her childhood to find a point where she was not using echo to move or speak.
She does these things along with her autistic housemate (who becomes her husband after the results of a "checking" ritual tell them both that they want to marry each other), and I think from experience that this whole section of the book should come with a warning label along the lines of, "Autistic people: Don't try this at home." The author does notice at some point that she may be leading autistic people down a misguided path, but most of the book does not show a lot of critical thinking in this regard. It's rarely stated clearly which things are mistakes and which things are good ideas, but an overlarge portion of the book is dedicated to an excruciatingly detailed account of false starts, false successes, and unsuccessful-sounding attempts to deal with compulsions.
Donna Williams is the best.......2000-09-17
again, Donna Williams takes us through the eyes of an autistic person. Shes amazing, but you should read Nobody Nowhere first, because that is the stroy of her life, and it might help you understand this book more.
A powerful tale of love and humanity.......2000-04-10
Before I read this book I didn't know anything about autism, and I didnt even realize what the auther's mental condition was until a fair way into the book. I happened to pick up this book at the library (catchy title, I guess), and loved it. This is not so much a story about autism, but rather a painfully personal account of the difficulties involved in sharing a life with another human being.
Finding and laboriously sticking to the true self........1998-10-08
"Like Color to the Blind" is the third book by Donna Williams, after "Nobody Nowhere" and "Somebody Somewhere" but it could easily stand by itself. Donna, who is autistic, puts forth an amazing effort to break through the socially acceptable masks that she had grown in order to relate to society. She is in a relationship with a man who has similar problems, and they help each other as much as they can. A very important part of this book is the account of Irlen filters, tinted lenses that reduce the many symptoms of visual overload. Anyone who has thought about obtaining these lenses should read this, as it is a very eloquent account of these problems and their disappearance. The author, though going through understandable rough periods, seems to put all of her free effort into retaining who she is. I could use any number of cliche's here (touching, great read, etc) but I will just say that I loved this book and I hope that other people will, too.
Average customer rating:
- Compelling & Condensed Guide to Life & Life-After-Life
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Soul searching: Seeking scientific ground for the Jewish tradition of an afterlife
Yaakov Astor
Manufacturer: distributed by Feldheim Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
 Judaism
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
| Children's Books
| General
| Haggadah
| Hasidism
| History of Religion
| Holidays
| Jewish Life
| Kosher Foods
| Law
| Movements
| Music
| Mysticism
| Philosophy
| Prayerbooks
| Sacred Writings
| Sermons
| Theology
| Women and Judaism
ASIN: 1568712499 |
Customer Reviews:
Compelling & Condensed Guide to Life & Life-After-Life.......2005-01-18
What could have been an enormously confusing book is instead an engaging 193-page paperback. Of all the fine accomplishments that Rabbi Yaakov Astor made in this publication, the overwhelmingly important one is the fact that he made it so readable! Soul Searching is written without undue drama, superb prose, and an eye to the reader's ability to absorb its spiritual lessons.
Soul Searching investigates various streams of thought about Life-After-Life. Impartial and skeptical science, the skittishness of the average person, documented cases of Near Death Experiences recorded by scholarly observers, various religious teachings, and a classically Judaic explanation of reincarnation and its purposes are presented simply, with relevance to each other and in a manner of increasing clarity. Some of Dr. Ian Stevenson's findings and conclusions about reincarnation, and those of other once skeptical researchers, have been chronicled in medical and psychiatric journals and are quoted in Soul Searching. The careful combination of clinical facts and profound insights allows readers of normal intelligence to understand what Astor wrote about. This book is not for nerds or super geniuses; it's for everybody.
Soul Searching makes compelling reading. It's a spiritual journey for anyone willing to explore the concepts between the book's covers. As people around the world struggle to appreciate the inability of societies to live in peace with each other, Soul Searching is a reassuring message that all is going to be well eventually. The whole system of human life is designed for ultimate success.
See full review at www.yochevedgolani.com
Average customer rating:
- Richard Schweid looks at the Afterlife
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Hereafter : Searching for Immortality
Richard Schweid
Manufacturer: Thunder's Mouth Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Grief & Bereavement
| Death & Grief
| Health, Mind & Body
| Subjects
| Books
General
| New Age
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Occult
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Spirituality
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
Personal Transformation
| Spirituality
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Theology
| Religious Studies
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1560256575 |
Book Description
As long as people have been on earth, they have constructed various explanations of what happens after death. Hereafter combines an overview of the history of these theories and a survey of the current attitudes toward immortality. Other than physical form and genetic structure, we hold little in common with our earliest ancestors in terms of how we live, but one thing we do share is fear and helplessness in the face of the fact that this self, which takes so much effort to construct and inhabit and nurture, is likely to last considerably less than a century.
Responses to the prospect of dying can be organized into three main categories: those who believe that somehow we shall be resurrected to pass eternity with intact bodies as the same people we were during our earthly sojourns; those who believe that what survives is a “soul”, or essence, which leaves behind forever the dead and decomposing receptacle in which it resided to move on in some fashion; and those who believe that death erases our lives entirely.
Schweid augments his research with interviews with Yale Divinity School theologians, biotechnologists, farmers, garbage collectors, bail bondsmen, preachers, rabbis, imams and soldiers.
Customer Reviews:
Richard Schweid looks at the Afterlife.......2006-07-18
Question: What do the following have in common?
- Chili peppers
- Eels
- Classic American cars in Cuba
- Cockroaches
- Spanish transvestites
- Catfish in the Mississippi Delta
- Immortality
Answer: Absolutely nothing -- other than the fact that Richard Schweid has found inspiration for a great book in each of them.
Richard Schweid has a uniquely charming way of telling a story. I've been a fan since reading his book on chili peppers years ago. As you read his work, you feel his presence there with you, but he never overpowers the voices of the people he's introducing you to or the essence of the tale he's telling. All of his books mix first-class reporting with serious scholarship and a fluid, witty writing style -- not to mention the sort of unique intelligence that leads a person to write about such diverse topics in the first place.
With Hereafter, he's managed to tell a story that is as universal as they come and yet still somehow deeply personal. He takes us along as he travels from Appalachia to the Ganges in search of answers to the Big Question: What comes next?
Without giving anything away, I can say that Mr. Schweid suffered an important loss while writing this book, and he manages to integrate his experience into the text in a way I've never seen before, but that I found profoundly moving. There can be no doubt that this is a man who writes from the heart.
Hereafter is a wonderful read: erudite, amusing, intimate, surprising and above all, very well-written throughout.
Average customer rating:
|
Soul Searching
Nicholas Humphrey
Manufacturer: Chatto and Windus
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Psychology & Counseling
| Health, Mind & Body
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Occult
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
Parapsychology
| Occult
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
General
| History & Philosophy
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0701159634 |
Customer Reviews:
Not what I had hoped........2006-01-29
I discovered this title in a bilbliography while I was doing some research on the nature of the human soul. I was hoping to find some modern material discussing the existence of the soul and what it is exactly--recent material following in the footsteps of Plato and Descartes, for instance. The title of this book misled me. It should simply ready "How Silly it is to Believe in Paranormal Activity of Any Kind," which is really far more descriptive of what is covered in this book.
In the first few chapters Mr. Humphrey exhaustively discusses what some other people have thought about the existence of the human soul, from Isaac Newton to William Blake. He includes a chapter that briefly talks about Harry Harlow's experiment with baby monkeys and his own experiences as an English schoolboy to point out that it's human nature to seek out love and reasssurance. The rest of the book is then taken with discussing the search for scientific proof of ESP as the search for proof of a soul and its capabilities, and how all the experimenters have really failed, and yet so many people insist on believing anyway.
Mr Humprey is obviously well-read and well-educated, but his writing style makes for a difficult read. He seems to ramble on and then insert what he sees as humorous commentary into the text. This often had me shaking my head and wondering when he'd get to his point, which comes out only in the very last chapter, where even there it is not clearly stated. I take what he says to mean that he doesn't believe in a soul, and that if we had one we'd be worse off for it. *If* Mr Humphrey had stated his own hypothesis earlier and *if* he had then used his research and exhaustive quotations in a cohesive manner to address his position and lead us to his conclusion this book would have been of far greater value to me.
This book is not useless, it's just not a very good read and does not address what I had imagined it would.
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