Catalyst - Book Review Archives
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July 2008
The Anglican Vision
Publisher: Cowley PublicationsDetails: 148 pages, paperback, c. 1997, $11.95
Description: In this first volume to the New Church's Teaching Series James Griffiss provides an introduction to the Anglican tradition. He focuses especially on Anglicanism's ability to hold together theological continuity (especially the emphasis on the Incarnation) with social and cultural change. After discussing the Episcopal Church today and the ways in which it has changed over the past fifty years, Griffiss shows how the distinctive Anglican approach has been lived out in its history, spirituality, mission, worship, and approach to Scripture. Throughout, the book stresses the place of Anglicanism in the late twentieth century and its ability to be both flexible and traditional in rapidly changing cultures.
The Anglican Vision is intended for wide parish use, including adult education, parish forums, inquirers and newcomers classes, and study groups throughout the church year. It includes a study guide, list of resources, and suggestions for further reading.
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Choral Masterworks: A Listener's Guide
Publisher: Oxford University PressDetails: 321 pages, hardcover, c. 2008, $30
Description: Here are more than fifty illuminating essays on the classic choral masterworks, ranging from Handel's Messiah, Bach's Mass in B Minor, and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, to works by Haydn, Brahms, Mendelssohn, and many others. Steinberg spans the entire history of classical music, from such giants of the Romantic era as Verdi and Berlioz, to leading modern composers such as Elgar, Rachmaninoff, Vaughan Williams, and Stravinsky, to contemporary masters such as John Adams and Charles Wuorinen. For each piece, Steinberg includes a fascinating biographical account of the work's genesis, often spiced with wonderful asides, such as the true story of Mozart's Requiem --Salieri had nothing to do with the composition of it, nor did he poison Mozart, who most likely died of rheumatic fever. The author also includes an astute musical analysis of each piece, one that casual music lovers can easily appreciate and that musicians and more serious fans will find invaluable. The book also includes basic information such as the various movements of the work, the organization of the chorus and orchestra, and brief historical notes on early performances.
More than twenty million Americans perform regularly in choirs or choruses. Choral Masterworks will appeal not only to concert goers and CD collectors, but also to this vast multitude of choral performers, an especially engaged and active community.
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Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press.Details: 169 pages, paperback, c. 2006, $17.95
Description: In a powerful book, evangelical theologian and former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Jack Rogers argues unequivocally for equal rights in the church and in society for people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. Throughout history, he observes, Christianity has moved towards ever greater openness and inclusiveness. Today's church is led by many of those who were once cast out: people of color, women, and divorced and remarried people. He argues that when we interpret the Bible through the lens of Jesus' redemptive life and ministry, we see that the church is called to grant equal rights to all people. Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality describes Rogers' own change of mind and heart on the issue; charts the church's well-documented history of using biblical passages to oppress marginalized groups; argues for a Christ-centered reading of Scripture; debunks oft-repeated stereotypes about gays and lesbians; and concludes with ideas for how the church can heal itself and move forward again. A fascinating combination of personal narrative, theology, and church history, this book is essential reading for all concerned with the future of the church and the health of the nation.
"Rogers adds immensely to those who argue for the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the church and in the clergy...For those who truly wish to know what the Bible does and does not say, this is a real find." --The Right Reverend W. Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, Episcopal Church
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Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Details: 254 pages, hardcover, c. 2008, $24.95
Description: Today between forty and sixty nations, home to close to two billion people, have either collapsed or are teetering on the brink of failure. The world's worst problems--terrorism, drugs and human trafficking, absolute poverty, ethnic conflict, disease, genocide--originate in such states, and the international community has devoted billions of dollars to solving the problem. Yet by and large the effort has not succeeded.
Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart have taken an active part in the effort to save failed states for many years, serving as World Bank officials, as advisers to the UN, and as high-level participants in the new government of Afghanistan. Now, in Fixing Failed States, they describe the issue--vividly and convincingly--offering an on-the-ground picture of why past efforts have not worked and advancing a groundbreaking new solution to this most pressing of global crises. Military force, while certainly necessary on occasion, cannot solve the fundamental problems, and humanitarian interventions cost billions yet do not leave capable states in their wake.
Ghani and Lockhart argue that only an integrated state-building approach can heal these failing countries. As they explain, many of these countries already have the resources they need, if only we knew how to connect them to global knowledge and put them to work in the right way. Their state-building strategy, which assigns responsibility equally among the international community, national leaders, and citizens, maps out a clear path to political and economic stability. The authors provide a clear, practical framework for achieving these ends, supporting their case with first-hand examples of struggling territories such as Afghanistan, Sudan, Kosovo and Nepal as well as the world's success stories--Singapore, Ireland, and even the American South.
The battle against terror, poverty, climate change, and much more cannot be won unless we can save these nations. In Fixing Failed States, two of the world's foremost authorities offer a way out of the current crisis--a framework for re-imagining the international system. It is a book that is unique in its essential optimism--an optimism that the authors have earned through their own substantial real-world efforts in failed states.
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Disciples of All Nations: Pillars of World Christianity
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Details: 362 pages, paperback, c. 2008, $19.95
Description: Long the dominant religion of the West, Christianity is now rapidly becoming the principal faith in much of the postcolonial world--a development that marks a momentous shift in the religion's very center of gravity. In this eye-opening book, Lamin Sanneh examines the roots of this "post-Western awakening" and the unparalleled richness and diversity, as well as the tension and conflict, it has brought to World Christianity.
Tracing Christianity's rise from its birth on the edge of the Roman empire--when it proclaimed itself to be a religion for the entire world, not just for one people, one time, and one place--to its key role in Europe's maritime and colonial expansion, Sanneh sheds new light on the ways in which post-Western societies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America were drawn into the Christian orbit. Ultimately, he shows, these societies outgrew Christianity's colonial forms and restructured it through their own languages and idioms--a process that often occurred outside, and sometimes against, the lines of denominational control. The effect of such changes, Sanneh contends, has been profound, transforming not only worship, prayer, and the interpretation of Scripture, but also art, aesthetics, and music associated with the church. In exploring this story of Christianity's global expansion and its current resurgence in the non-Western world, Sanneh pays close attention to such issues as the faith's encounters with Islam and indigenous religions, as well as with secular ideologies such as Marxism and nationalism. He also considers the challenges that conservative, non-Western forms of Christianity pose to Western liberal values and Enlightenment ideas.
Here then is a groundbreaking study of Christianity's role in cultural innovation and historical change--and must reading for all who are concerned with the present and future of the faith.
"I am lost in admiration for Lamin Sanneh's magnificent study of world Christianity, for the work's geographical scope and historical sweep, and for the breadth of the author's learning. Throughout, Sanneh asks the critical question: how can we reconceive Christianity in a way that frees it from its European and imperial contexts, permitting the faith to adapt to the kaleidoscopic realities of different societies around the globe. This is a splendid achievement." --Philip Jenkins, author of The Next Christendom
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Crossing: Reclaiming the Landscape of Our Lives
Publisher: Church Publishing, Inc.
Details: 120 pages, paperback, second edition, c. 2008, $16
Description: This book illuminates the spiritual journey we all take and the choices we make by focusing on five of the monastic hours: from Vigils which reflect on the edges of the day and our own difficulty in choosing to begin the journey, through Compline or night prayer, the time for letting go and remembering the reality of death. Full of humor and eloquently written, Crossing shows Christians how to bring faith and human experience together.
"A bold, intelligent and uncompromising primer on monastic spirituality." --Publishers Weekly
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Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church, and the Bible
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Details: 174 pages, paperback, c. 2008, $16.99
Description: Immigration is one of the hot-button political, social, and economic issues facing the United States today, with tremendous bearing on the future of the country. It is also a matter of great ethical import and so requires thoughtful engagement on the part of both individual Christians and churches. Yet it is an emotionally heated and complex topic, one often informed more by ideological and economic commitments than by biblical values.
Christians at the Border seeks to remedy that situation by drawing on the ethical resources of both the Old and New Testaments to provide a biblical perspective on the immigration debate. The author is of mixed Hispanic and Anglo parentage and cultural experience, so he is uniquely qualified to address the issue. He does so in a balanced, accessible, and informative manner. Besides plumbing Scripture for insights, he outlines a history of Hispanic immigration to the United States and addresses a largely overlooked issue--the impact that the large influx of Hispanic immigrants is having and will continue to have on the American church. Beyond its wide appeal, this book will prove a helpful supplemental text in courses in ethics, contemporary culture and Christian faith, and missiology.
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O Clap Your Hands: A Musical Tour of Sacred Choral Works
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Publisher: Paraclete Press
Details: 150 pages, hardcover, includes full-length CD featuring Gloriæ Dei Cantores, c. 2008, $26.95
Description: Western sacred music is filled with extraordinary individuals who have submitted their talents to God. From Monteverdi to Vaughan Williams, Rachmaninoff to Virgil Thomson, and from Renaissance Italy to contemporary America, Gordon Giles takes you on a musical journey of discovery, exploring the spiritual and historical meaning of thirty of the most important anthems in Christian tradition.
Accompanied by a full-length CD by the acclaimed choir, Gloriæ Dei Cantores, Gordon Giles’ O Clap Your Hands unlocks thirty of the great anthems of the church for their hidden meanings, offering spiritual reflections and prayers, and enabling you to fully engage with the musical theology and history of beloved choral works.
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Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet
Publisher: Penguin Press
Details: 386 pages, hardcover, c. 2008, $27.95
Description: The central theme of Jeffrey Sachs's new book is that we need a new economic paradigm-global, inclusive, cooperative, environmentally aware, science based- because we are running up against the realities of a crowded planet. The alternative is a worldwide economic collapse of unprecedented severity. Prosperity will have to be sustained through more cooperative processes, relying as much on public policy as on market forces to spread technology, address the needs of the poor, and to husband threatened resources of water, air, energy, land, and biodiversity. The "soft issues" of the environment, public health, and population will become the hard issues of geopolitics. New forms of global politics will in important ways replace capital-city-dominated national diplomacy and intrigue. National governments, even the United States, will become much weaker actors as scientific networks and socially responsible investors and foundations become the more powerful actors.
If we do the right things, there is room for all on the planet. We can achieve the four key goals of a global society: prosperity for all, the end of extreme poverty, stabilization of the global population, and environmental sustainability. These are not utopian goals or pipe dreams, yet they are far from automatic. Indeed, we are not on a successful trajectory now to achieve these goals. Common Wealth points the way to the course correction we must embrace for the sake of our common future.
"Common Wealth explains the most basic economic reckoning that the world faces. We can address poverty, climate change, and environmental destruction at a very modest cost today with huge benefits for shared and sustainable prosperity and peace in the future, or we can duck the issues today and risk a potentially costly reckoning in later years. Despite the rearguard opposition of some vested interests, policies to help the world's poor and the global environment are in fact the vest best economic bargains on the planet." --Al Gore, winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize and former vice president of the United States
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Folk Mass
Publisher: Paraclete Press
Details: CD, c. 2006, $18.95
Description: The complete choral works of Grammy Award-winning composer and violinist Mark O'Connor. This CD features his Folk Mass, commissioned by Gloriæ Dei Cantores, and written as a response to the events of September 11, 2001; and Let Us Move for a cappella choir and violin obligato.
Track list:
1. Let Us Move
2. Folk Mass
3. For You Are A People Holy To The Lord
4. Land of Canaan
5. Edification
6. Battle
7. Recompence
8. Affirmation
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Forgotten Ellis Island: The Extraordinary Story of America's Immigrant Hospital
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Details: 185 pages, hardcover, c. 2007, $26.95
Description: A century ago, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, one of the world's greatest public hospitals was built. Massive and modern, the hospital's twenty-two state-of-the-art buildings were crammed onto two small islands, man-made from the rock and dirt excavated during the building of the New York subway. As America's first line of defense against immigrant-borne disease, the hospital was where the germs of the world converged.
The Ellis Island hospital was at once welcoming and foreboding—a fateful crossroad for hundreds of thousands of hopeful immigrants. Those nursed to health were allowed entry to America. Those deemed feeble of body or mind were deported.
Three short decades after it opened, the Ellis Island hospital was all but abandoned. As America after World War I began shutting its border to all but a favored few, the hospital fell into disuse and decay, its medical wards left open only to the salt air of the New York Harbor.
With many never-before-published photographs and compelling, sometimes heartbreaking stories of patients (a few of whom are still alive today) and medical staff, Forgotten Ellis Island is the first book about this extraordinary institution. It is a powerful tribute to the best and worst of America's dealings with its new citizens-to-be.
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The Power of Stories: A Guide for Leading Multi-Cultural Congregations
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Details: 154 pages, paperback, c. 2008, $14
Description: Most congregational leaders find it difficult to resist the dominant cultural expectation that different cultural and ethnic groups should stick to themselves–especially when it comes to church. But some congregational leaders have learned the secrets of breaking out of these expectations to bring together communities of faith that model God's radical inclusiveness. What makes the difference?
Jacqui Lewis explains that it resides in the stories these leaders tell: stories about who they themselves are, and what the communities they lead are about. These leaders are able to embrace the multiple, complex stories within these diverse communities, hearing in the many voices a particular echo of the living voice of the gospel. In this book, Lewis shares with the reader examples of congregational leaders who have successfully overcome the challenges of leading multicultural congregations, and the lessons that can be learned from them.
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The Epidemic: A Global History of AIDS
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Details: 388 pages, hardcover, c. 2006, $28.95
Description: From the Castro bath houses to AZT and the denial of AIDS in South Africa, this sweeping look at AIDS cover the epidemic from all angles and across the world. The story of AIDS is one of the most compelling human dramas of our time, both in its profound tragedy and in the extraordinary scientific efforts made in order to find treatments and a cure. For gay Americans it has been the story of the past generation, redefining the community and the community's sexuality. For the third world, AIDS has created endless devastion, with the worst yet to come; AIDS is expanding quickly into India, Russia, China, and elsewhere while still ragin in sub-Saharan Africa. Writing with vivid immediacy, Engel allows us to relive the short but tumultuous history of a modern scourge.
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2007
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