2 comments about A Thomas More Source Book.

1. What a great contribution these authors have made to the world of Renaissance and Thomas More studies! This comprehensive anthology provides a wealth of primary sources as well as related materials on Thomas More and his world. Due to the multi-faceted character of its subject, this book will be of interest to historians, biographers, educators, theologians, writers, politicians, and many others as well. The "Man for All Seasons" was a lawyer, judge, husband and father, scholar, counselor to the king, and martyr, and this rich source book provides the background to the inner man. The authors begin with contemporary biographies and sketches of More, then explore samples of his own works. Selections from his early poems and letters are followed by some of his writings on education (he was a trend-setter in promoting education of women), government, and religion. The closing section, "More's Last Days", includes samples of his letters, various accounts of his trial, and the Paris Newsletter report on his execution.
   
   This book provides a solid foundation for More studies and would serve as an excellent college text. Following an informative Introduction, a treasury of More-related material is provided. Even the Elizabethan play "Munday and Shakespeare's 'Sir Thomas More'" is provided in its entirety. Explanatory introductions are given to all selections, and clear glosses enrich the text throughout the book. Perhaps the only thing one might miss here is More's most famous work, "Utopia", but for study at this level, it certainly deserves to be treated separately, in its entirety.
   
   This handsome and convenient text is further enriched by a lovely collection of portraits and other related artworks, even reproductions of pages from More's prayer book (showing his own hand-written additions). Helpful material at the end of the book includes several chronologies, some original well-annotated maps, and a very thorough Index. These tools should prove most useful to More scholars.
   
   In sum, I feel that this book provides a wonderful tool for those who explore the world of Renaissance England and the person of Thomas More. We can only be grateful that Professors Wegemer and Smith foresaw the need for this book and did such a fine job in producing it.



2. Although some scholars purchase this book as part of the class and lecture series on Thomas More, I bought it to console myself since I could not attend a class.
   I was impressed by Thomas More's clarity of thought and ability to decide "the right thing to do" at each turn in his life. Clearly, many of his contemporaries admired him for this characteristic of his as well, as their contributions to this book show. I enjoyed the thought-provoking depth which Thomas More shares through his own writing.

5 comments about The Last Pagan: Julian the Apostate and the Death of the Ancient World.

1. Very readable treatment of Julian, a.k.a. "The Apostate." Murdoch shows Julian to have been generally incorruptible, effective, inspiring, good leader. He was philosophically committed to a rule of law. I thought Murdoch downplayed a bit his inconsistency, immaturity and intolerance toward Christians. But his poor military decision in the way he waged war in Persia is clear.



2. Adrian Murdoch's book on Julian was a pure pleasure to read. The story of how Julian came to wear the purple and his fight against the growing wave of Christianity is fascinating, and this book reads more like a novel than a book of history. The only complaint I had was not about the book itself, but was that I had to go to amazon.co.uk to purchase an affordable copy. This was a great book, but it is not worth $75-100, and can be purchased for E10-15 at the other site.



3. It isn't very difficult to notice the religious fervor in the air of the United States, most particularly of the various Christian faiths. The hard-core proponents of Christianity - the so-called Religious Right - are trying to dominate government policy, and it is the rare politician who is willing to distance himself (or herself) from the Judeo-Christian faiths. Of course, such ardent faith will have its backlash, as noted by books such as Dawkins's The God Delusion. Along a similar line, though much more mildly, you can find Adrian Murdoch's The Last Pagan, a generally favorable biography of the Roman emperor Julian.
   
   Julian reigned from 361 to 363, a couple dozen years after Constantine had made Christianity the official state religion of the Empire. Julian had other ideas and tried to restore paganism. His short tenure in office - he would die from wounds received in battle - ended his effort and paganism would fall permanently out of power as a force in Western government.
   
   This, however, is the end of the story, and Murdoch provides a full (though relatively brief) biography of Julian. In the tangled politics after Constantine's death, Julian's uncle Constantius would come out on top, mainly by killing all the opposition. Julian would survive primarily because of his youth and his seeming lack of ambition. Put in what was an initially figurehead role in the Western army, Julian had his share of military successes and soon his army was forcing the purple on him. Julian's reluctance to being a usurper to the throne would be short-lived, but before civil war could erupt, Constantius would die of natural causes (if any death could really be "natural" among the emperors).
   
   Julian's restoration of paganism was not a persecution of Christianity, which he still promoted tolerance of. For the Christians of the era, however, intolerance of paganism was a matter of course, and it wouldn't take long after his death for Julian to be vilified. Only in more recent times would his reputation be reconsidered. Even among many Christians, he doesn't seem worth the effort to really hate anymore, as he was scarcely more significant than a James Garfield or William Henry Harrison.
   
   But even if his real impact in Roman history was small, he still can be a hero to some and provides one of the great historic "what-ifs": if he reigned longer, could he have truly restructured the religion of the Empire?
   
   How well does Murdoch depict all this? Reasonably well, although at times he is a slow read with a fondness for the occasional overly-fancy term. Overall, however, he has written an entertainingly informative book. Julian may not have been the most important figure in Roman history, but his life was interesting and does offer lessons that are good even today.



4. Adrian Murdoch's THE LAST PAGAN: JULIAN THE APOSTATE AND THE DEATH OF THE ANCIENT WORLD tells of the violent death of the emperor Julian and his journey from his Christian childhood to his involvement in pagan cults and his mission to establish paganism as the dominant faith of the Roman world. An eye-opening alternate history that uses over 700 pages of Julian's original writings to provide some eye-opening new revelations on his beliefs.



5. Though he ruled for less than three years, Julian looms colossal in memory and imagination. He was born in 331 (or 332) into a brutal family and a bloody business. His father was Emperor Constantine's half-brother. Murdoch notes that, after Diocletian's retirement in 305, "Julian's family spent a great deal of the next fifty years developing ingenious ways to kill each other." The motive was usually intrigue, plots for accession, or just the suspicion bred by such an atmosphere.
   
   In 326, one year after the Council of Nicaea, Constantine ordered the execution of his wife and eldest son. The three remaining sons succeeded their father in 337 and rather quickly dispatched almost all their male relatives. Two young boys were spared, five-year-old Julian and his teenage brother Gallus. Julian was too young to be a threat and Gallus too sickly.
   
   Though Julian continued to live the privileged life of the imperial family, he kept the memory of that purge, whose victims included his own father. The imperial family was officially Christian by this time, and the hypocrisy was not lost on Julian, who was himself raised a Christian, and was a schoolmate of St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory Nazianzen. His cousin the emperor Constantius, the murderer of his family, professed the doctrine of Jesus Christ.
   
   Julian learned to keep his thoughts to himself. Constantius was his patron, and alienation from him meant certain death. Julian studied philosophy and rhetoric at Athens and secretly investigated the "old religion," the pagan mysteries. Though he kept up his exterior practice of Christianity, his mind and heart belonged to the old gods.
   
   Appointed to leadership in the military, he rose rapidly with some stunning campaigns in the western provinces and barbarian lands. He gained a reputation for toughness; for, unlike other generals, he shared the hardships of his troops and rewarded them handsomely. All this made for tenacious loyalty. Not surprisingly, in 360 they declared him emperor.
   
   Julian began his march toward Byzantium to confront Constantius. But Constantius died in 361, before their forces could meet.
   
   Then began the reign that gave Julian his place in history. Murdoch notes that Julian did some things extremely well--tax reform, for example, and military leadership. But no one remembers Julian as a tax reformer or even much as a general.
   
   He is remembered as "the Apostate," and Murdoch gives a fascinating analysis of his religious ideas and practical reforms. He made vast sums available to restore temples that had fallen into disrepair over a generation of Christian hegemony. He promoted pagans to prominent positions in the capital and boosted the wages of the pagan priesthoods.
   
   He tried, at least in the beginning, to include Christians in his dawning era of toleration, but the Church's big names were wary. Pagan restoration became the keynote of Julian's rule.
   
   Yet, as Murdoch makes clear, Julian's paganism was not really the old religion. It was, rather, a mirror image of Christianity. It was an anti-Church, a reactionary project.
   
   Julian himself recognized Christianity's influence on his ideas. You can take the emperor out of the Church, but you can't take the Church out of the emperor. Murdoch says: "Julian's attempts at creating a pagan doctrine betray his Christian upbringing. . . . By the very fact of his early education, he was already, as he would have put it, polluted."
   
   Whereas the old religion had been a riot of gods, cults, and feasts, Julian strove, in a very Roman way, to impose unity and uniformity on worldwide polytheism. It was the religious equivalent of herding cats.
   
   In Julian's schema, the emperor himself served as a sort of pope over a hierarchy that mirrored the Catholic structure of metropolitans, bishops, and priests. He set up pagan philanthropies in imitation of Catholic charities. He urged his clergy to lead lives of virtue and preach philosophy to the people. Julian himself had chosen to lead a celibate life after the death of his wife. As Murdoch puts it: "He wanted the pagans to out-Christian the Christians."
   
   His pagan "coming out" climaxed during an extended stay in Syrian Antioch, a city of a half-million people situated en route to the battlegrounds where he would meet the Persians.
   
   While in Antioch, he renewed the pagan practices, though he was hardly satisfied with the priests' performance and showed himself to be as prissy and uptight as the most over-educated diocesan liturgist. And if the pagans were tepid in their response to Julian, the Christians were downright contemptuous. Murdoch does not miss the irony of a pagan prig enraged by his encounter with a city full of Christian sensualists.
   
   Julian's experience in Antioch led to harsher strictures on Christians. He banned believers from teaching grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy. This, says Murdoch, was Julian's "master stroke." Banished from the public square, Christianity could be minimized as a cultural force. He "had marginalised Christianity to the point where it could potentially have vanished within a generation or two, and without the need for physical coercion."
   
   It was not to last, however. As Julian shook the dust of Antioch from his feet, he marched his troops to their devastating defeat at the hands of Shapur II of Persia. Murdoch is superb in his systematic yet suspenseful narrative of that miserable campaign.
   
   On that battlefield at the Persian frontier, Julian fell, and with him the eastern empire began to crumble. Some (Christian) histories portray the emperor struck by a spear and crying out, "Thou hast won, O Galilean!"
   
   Yet Julian the Apostate lives in our collective memory. For some, he is the archetype of the ideological dictator, the bloodless wonk whose ideas justify his bloodletting. For others, he is a romantic anti-hero--the rebel against the inevitable.
   
   He survives in spite of his utter lack of the qualities that make Nero and Caligula--and even Constantine--perennial subjects of potboiler novels and gory flicks. In contrast to other emperors, Murdoch says, Julian's story usually bogs down with "an excess of philosophy and too little sex." To Murdoch's credit, the story never bogs down in his telling.
   
   For Murdoch, Julian's death was a critical moment in the fall of the empire: "To all intents and purposes we can say that paganism died as a credible political and social force in the last days of June 363."
   
   In ends such as these, Christians found their beginnings.

4 comments about David Livingstone (Heroes of the Faith).

1. I found this biography to be an interesting glimpse into the life of Dr. David Livingstone. Having no prior knowledge of this Missionary to Africa, I found this to be a very informative book. With admirable strength and courage balanced with humility, all supplied by the Holy Spirit , Dr. Livingstone hiked through the wilderness of Africa, intent on showing the natives the love of Christ. By his kindness and fairness to the African tribes, and by oral preaching in their own languages, he brought the saving news of Jesus Christ to them. He helped to heal animosity between neighboring tribes, and sought to replace the horrible slave trade with honest commerce by searching out water routes to the interior of Africa. Overall, following him through his struggles and sorrows built an attitude of respect for Dr. Livingstone and his work, making for an excellent book.



2. The true story which this book is supposed to be telling was corroded by bias, which paved way for fictitious lies and assumptions. First and foremost, David Livingstone was not the first person to discover Victoria Falls. The native Africans who knew the Falls before him, were the ones that led him to its location.
   Also, castigating Africans for not trusting and loving him at-the-first-sight was very unfair. It showed how myopic the author, (Sam Wellman), and the reviewer, (Hazel Rochman), are. Both men must be joking if they assumed that readers have forgotten that Dr. Livingstone entered Africa at a period when the aim of 99.9% of Europeans who went there was to abduct and sell Africans into slavery.
   This book is dying for a revision. It will be an interesting piece if all the facts and figures are frankly accounted for.



3. David Livingstone's life is all but forgotten in this generation that despises anything missionary or Christian but this is a shame. For Mr. Livingstone was ahead of his time in his treatment of the lovely African peoples. He treated them with sensitivity and respect in an age when most white men wanted to 'steal' the blacks and sell them into slavery or abuse them for their own greedy purposes. Livingstone showed the patience, kindness, and mercy that are required of those who heed God's calling as missionaries. Sam Wellman presents the life of this extraordinary man in layman's terms. A beautiful book about a beautiful human being and the people that his life touched.



4. Recently when looking over a shared bookshelf, I made choice to read something I intended to be simple and quick. I was not disappointed. This short book was both simple and quick. A bit of a cross between a long magazine article and a children's book. It did however satisfy a basic understanding of David Livingstone's life.
   
   The series title 'Heroes of the Faith' certainly gives some insight into where the reader is about to embark. Mr. Wellman's run of Mr. Livingstone's life is full of excitement and adventure. It is a surface account, yet manages to be well written to provide flow and continuity. If one wishes to get a good general idea of this remarkable man's life and accomplishments this book would be an excellent choice to provide quick satisfaction. I do believe the author accomplishes a goal of providing the reader with the admirable aspects of Livingstone's life in a easily digestible format. The book also creates a desire to do further reading on David Livingstone.
   
   The series title 'Heroes of the Faith' also provides insight into shortcomings of this work. David Livingstone is painted in a very positive light. Even when the author does mention some of his shortcomings or faults the reader finds themselves wondering if he is really mentioning a shortcoming. The intention is to portray a hero, not to provide a critical look at his life and work. One is however able to read between the lines that perhaps Mr. Livingstone was not the easiest individual with which to get along. I do not feel the author was trying to hide this from the reader, but rather focus on Mr. Livingstone's strengths.
   
   I would definitely suggest this book as an introduction to David Livingstone's life and work. I give it 4 out of 5 stars as I feel the author accomplishes his goal of portraying a hero in a very easily read format. Minus one star for at times minimizing Livingstone's faults too far.

2 comments about An Unbroken Chain: My Journey Through the Nazi Holocaust.

1. Oertelt tells the story of his life in Germany from his 1938 until his liberation from a concentration camp. It is a stirring memoir -- heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. He uses the analogy of an 18 link chain to demonstrate how each link was important to his survival. The details in the book are remarkable in their lucidity and specificity. He is never graphic in his descriptions, but he is brutally honest. In the end, it is an uplifing tale in the context of terrible sadness.



2. Mr. Oertelt came and spoke at my college in MN when I was a junior. Not only was he an amazing speaker, but he made the Holocaust a reality to everyone packed in that auditorium. He signed his book for everyone who wished to purchase it. I read it in one night unable to out it down!!! Highly recommended!

5 comments about Wild Child, Waiting Mom: Finding Hope In the Midst of Heartache.

1. From the first page, I realized that I finally found another mom who could identify with my heartbreak over a wayward child. But this book is so much more than that. It's a true story of how God changes lives in HIS time; not only the prodigal daughter's, but the hurting waiting mom's as well. I highly recommend this book to anyone who struggles with their adult child's choices. Through her own experience, Mrs Hayden has helped this waiting mom more than she can imagine. Although we are currently embedded in the midst of our journey I now have renewed hope and peace.



2. This book was chosen as the book of the quarter by the board of directors for Parents Helping Parents, Inc. in Edmond, Oklahoma
   
   Both mother and daughter share their story of fear, frustration and disappointment in a very honest and open way that helps the reader feel deeply involved and captivated. Karilee struggles with questions for God like, "Does God even hear my prayers?" The book answers these questions and many more while giving testimony to His sovereign nature and the plan He has for every life. Wendi's return to faith is a powerful experience that will give hope to all that it is possible to be forgiven and restored regardless of the depth of one's addiction.
   
   One of the most rewarding and unique aspects of this book is the question and answer portion at the end in which both mother and daughter answer the most frequently asked questions when they do public speaking. This was a real insight into what hurts and what helps.
   
   Warren Pat Nichols



3. I was just at a Christian Camp called Fort Wilderness where much of this story takes place in McNaughton Wisconsin. I bought the book from the mother who wrote the book with her daughter. Her husband was the speaker this week. I had met this family over 20 years ago. This book has been such an encouragement to me of God's amazing Grace, especially because I can see these truths applied in more than just the mother & daughter relationships. Never give up because God has not. I applaud Karilee and Wendi for sharing this brutally honest story with us.



4. This book gives you mom and daughter prospective. The book gives you real life circumstances that we all deal with and helps those going through family struggles know they are not alone and that there is hope.



5. Happy Mother's Day! This book is a great read, providing the story of both a wayward daughter and loving parents in their own words. One of the most helpful chapters is at the end: "Asking the Hard Questions." It provides some responses, both from Wendi (daughter) and Karilee (mom) to such questions as "How could you have been so blindsided by your daughter's rebellion," "What actions/words from friends helped you and what actions/words hurt you," "What advice would you give to parents to prevent children from making the same mistakes you made?"
   Main idea: Never, never, never, never give up hoping and praying for God to do what only He can in your child's life.

1 comments about Romano Guardini: Spiritual Writings (Modern Spiritual Masters Series.).

1. I've always admired and often quoted Romano Guardini's observation that the Church is the cross on which Christ is crucified. This wariness of ecclesial institutionalism has always struck me as both prudent and in the best tradition of Jesus' own anti-establishmentarian sensibilities.
   
   But I must confess that, until Robert Krieg's excellent little book, I've never had much success in actually reading Guardini's writings. I've typically found them just a bit too pious, too Sunday-schoolish, for my taste. One reason for this, I now realize, is that I was reading them without knowing anything about their author.
   
   Krieg's illuminating Introduction to his collection of Guardini's spiritual writings showcases what a maverick this Italian-German priest actually was. His ordination to the priesthood was delayed a half year because his bishop thought him too rebellious; he refused to jump on the neo-Scholastic bandwagon fashionable in his time, instead embracing the phenomenological method propounded by Husserl and used by Heidegger and Scheler; he stalwartly kept the huge youth organization for German Catholics he led unencumbered by the official hierarchy; and although his old age and declining health prevented him from an active role in Vatican II, and even though he was wary of some of the directions it took, his writings influenced many of the Council's biggest players. Moreover, Guardini struggled with depression all his life, especially in his youth and in his final years. His suffering added depth to his writings and no doubt encouraged his interest in authors such as Pascal and Rilke.
   
   Knowing something about Guardini's life enables the reader (or at least this one!) to better appreciate his writings. True, some of them haven't aged as well as others, still coming across as rather syrupy and quaint. But others take on a new vitality.
   
   My favorite section in Krieg's collection is Chapter 1, where he provides representative samples of Guardini's defense of Christian humanism. Guardini's analysis of the self as necessarily relational, self-acceptance as the most difficult spiritual task any of us face, and the need to encounter the world with fresh, unfiltered vision (the phenomenological influence), are not only insightful but sometimes poignant. ("I see the cypress, and an encounter occurs between the cypress and me. If I approach the cypress appropriately, who knows how the cypress may respond? Is it only 'make believe' when in folk tales a tree sees people and speaks to them?" p. 54). This is extremely good stuff, just as relevant today as when Guardini lived and wrote.

3 comments about Lena.

1. A must read book for mothers of sons who are not "goody two-shoes." What a surprise this book was to me. The title and cover prove the axiom that you can't judge a book by its cover. I expected a story about a "little old lady" and instead found a wealth of information, inspiration, comfort and wisdom when faced with a prodigal son who had not yet come home. Readers will laugh and cry and praise God all in the same chapter. You will not want to put it down.



2. The book Lena is one of the best I have ever read. I wish I could have known Lena. I have met the author. She's a wonderful womam.



3. I travel for a living- and I was up early on a Monday (4am) and wanted to sleep on the plane. I started to read this book and did not put it down until I was finished- from Minneapolis to San Francisco. What a story about a woman's child-like faith in God. This is a well-written book that clearly displays the true works of God through His faithful people. A MUST read.

5 comments about Perpetua's Passion: The Death and Memory of a Young Roman Woman.

1. I found 'Perpetua's Passion really interesting, getting an interesting picture of Roman Society and attitudes. I finished the book wondering if the author, had some type of axe to grind in this society. I thought she tried to dismiss any notion that Pepetua and the other martyrs might have been truly holy or had any divine access to God. She was always giving another reason for what happened as though nothing spiritual was taking place.



2. "Perpetua's Passion: The Death and Memory of a Young Roman Woman" is the story of Perpetua, a young Roman Christian who was martyred in 203 A.D. It is a book well worth reading...but it is also missing something.

   I found Perpetua's Passion to be very well written and apparently well researched. Joyce E. Salisbury adeptly explores and explains the Roman and Carthaginian culture that Perpetua lived in. Mrs. Salisbury also seamlessly weaves into this tapestry a compelling picture of the Christian Church during the time of these events.

   The book is based off of the diary that Perpetua kept during her captivity. Mrs. Salisbury explains the significance of Perpetua's actions in light of the culture of her day. She then shows the influence of Perpetua's story on the later Church.

   All of this is very commendable. I was most impressed by the scholarship and insight of this book. Yet a question forms within me when I contemplate this book:

   So what? Where is the heart in this book? There is nothing in this book which says anything about how these events speak to the soul of people today. Maybe I missed it...

   What happened to Perpetua was more than a clinical historical event that affected the people immediately around her and eventually helped form certain patterns of thought within the Church. It was much more. It was a mortal being making an eternal statement. It was a moment in time where the Christian truth that there is more than this life was given a full embodiment in the actions of a young woman--A young woman who had every reason to live, yet for her, to die was gain. It was a moment of ultimate surrender, and at the same time, one of ultimate victory. The blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the Church!

   In the end, in spite of my objection, I recommend this book. It is insightful and instructive. However, don't just read this book with your head. Approach this one with your heart and your soul.




3. Though this book is, on the whole, a useful one, it doesn't take a glimpse at the author's bio to quickly realize she is no classicist. How else can one explain two elementary errors back-to-back which, even to this amateur Roman historian, are as prominent as two sore thumbs?

   On page 36 (Chapter 2, "The City" subsection) the author asserts Polybius "wrote circa 200 B.C." Why? Because those who claim he was BORN at that time are only making "scholarly estimates" (according to my "Polybius on Roman Imperialism")? Or because Salisbury breezily, and in this case incorrectly, assumed that Polybius was a contemporary of the events he most famously chronicled (an assumption that fails to hold for most Roman historical sources; cf. Suetonius, Tacitus)?

   Similarly, a mere three paragraphs down, Salisbury claims Hannibal "crossed the Alps with his elephants and succeeded in laying siege to the city of Rome itself." I'd be prompted to ask "Why?" again if in this case the real reason weren't so blatant: Salisbury fliply read a history of the 2nd Punic War and just assumed that at the high-tide of his success Hannibal must have laid siege "to the city of Rome itself". This assertion is no more true than the Polybius one. In "Warfare in Antiquity" by Hans Delbruck (just one source where this can be found), the author states that Hannibal was so aware of his deficiencies in manpower and siege equipment that he knew "despite the greatest victories, he would not be capable of besieging and capturing Rome itself" (Chapter II).

   I may seem to nitpick, but the errors I cited above are fundamental and have no place in a scholarly work, even if they are somewhat tangential to the book's main topic. I hope that in a future edition they will be corrected.




4. In Perpetua's Passion, Salisbury has served two different communities very well---those interested in early Christianity, and those interested in the history of women. She deftly creates a sociology of life in a group of early Christian martyrs, and does so in a way that makes very clear family relations, gender roles, and the strength of Vibia Perpetua herself. I have used this book when teaching a course on ancient & medieval women (and will do so again), and found that it worked very well. Students found it readable and useful and thought-provoking.



5. STAMPED ON MY MIND FOREVER-FABULOUS BOOK. TO KNOW OF SUCH STRONG HEROISM OF THESE 2 SAINTS OF GOD MOVED ME TO A MUCH DEEPER WALK WITH GOD. IT MAKES YOU THINK IF YOU HAD THE FAITH TO DIE LIKE THAT. I LOVED IT TOTALLY.

4 comments about Keeping Faith: A Skeptic's Journey.

1. This is a fantastic book. As someone who has been working hard to understand religion and its influence on western culture, I have to say this book is a great first step. I found Johnson asked many of the same questions that I was asking. He then did the legwork to answer those questions, always including plenty of support for his points. Often, I would read a paragraph and write a thought about it in my reading journal only to reach the end of the page and find the exact thought I had just written right there in the book. This was like reading a book about myself...and yet it would seem johnson (a middle aged gay man who lives in san francisco) and I who am an 18 year old female and have rarely been out of my sheltered hometown in Idaho would have little in common. This is a fantastic book and has provided guidance for where to go next on this journey which will no doubt be quite long indeed. I recommend this book to anyone who is ready to begin a spiritual quest.



2. As the author moves into history and doctrine in the second and third sections of this book, I was often tempted to quibble. His comments about sexuality and religion ignored the Buddhist tantric tradition of Tibet, his discussion of St. Augustine ignored Augustine's "God became man that man might become God," he accepts the questional premise of the feminine goddess preceding the masculine god as universal ... However, this "imprecision" is a strength in this book. The book is a personal account of an individual's working through of issues regarding religious institutions, spirituality and dogma through his exploration of monasticism in the Zen Buddhist and Latin Rite Catholic traditions. It is not the work of a religious scholar - historian, theologian or spiritual director.
   
   The issues for Fenton Johnson revolve most strongly around the issues of sexuality, sexual abuse, discrimination by gender or sexual preference ... What is most impressive about his account, is the gradual change in his questions - as his questions become better formulated, tentative answers begin to form. In these questions and answers, the author recognizes the similarity of the religious journey as experienced through different paths. He learns to question and address his anger towards the institutional Catholic Church.
   
   The end of the journey as reported at the end of this volume implies significant room for and capacity to further modifications of his view. I would readily recommend this book to individual's seeking a role for faith in their lives. Fenton Johnson's account of his personal search should encourage others to recognize that in their struggle and skepticism they are not alone, that there are at least partial answers available if they learn to frame their questions appropriately.



3. After Reading Scissors, Paper, Rock, I was anxious to read more of Fenton Johnson's work. Keeping faith is a very different book in that it is non-fiction, deeply spiritual and very personal. The book basically consists of three parts, although the boundaries between the sections are not altogether precise. The first and longest part discusses Mr. Johnson's journey of searching for what faith means to him as a lapsed and disenfranchised Roman Catholic. The second part discusses the historical background of monasticism, shedding new light on church history (at least for me). The third part deals with Mr. Johnson's integration of his understanding of church history and personal experience to find a way to reclaim his personal faith. He very strongly emphasizes that searching for faith is a journey that never ends.
   
   For me, as a gay man, the most interesting part of Keeping Faith is the understanding of the juxtapositioning of Christian materialism (the incarnate Christ) with the emphasis on celibacy, as seen through a Buddhist lens. This discussion opened new vistas of understanding that help me integrate sexuality with faith.
   
   The journey, being very personal, sometimes makes for strange sequencing in the text. I really had to work at following Mr. Johnson's train of thought at times. But the writing itself is very clear and precise, much like in Scissors, Paper, Rock.



4. Fenton Johnson opens the door to eastern and western religious thought in ways that are both illuminating and touching. Johnson, maybe one of the best writers on the market today, takes us into worlds we should experience, and somehow keeps it fascinating.

No comments about Caryll Houselander: Essential Writings (Modern Spiritual Masters).