Abstract
Abby Hafer,
The Not-So-Intelligent Designer: Why Evolution Explains the Human Body and Intelligent Design Does Not
(Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 2016); 244 pp.: 9780718894207, £18.50/$37.00 (pbk)
Abby Hafer is a senior lecturer at Curry College with a doctorate in zoology from Oxford. She belongs to the very liberal American Unitarians and is clearly thoroughly fed up with her compatriot creationists. In this hilarious, tongue-in-cheek book she satirizes their efforts, arguing that their Intelligent Design God is just not up to the mark. She begins with human testicles (and almost included them within her title) arguing that the placing of frog’s testicles inside them suggests much greater intelligence than placing essential but vulnerable organs in a highly vulnerable external position on human males. She continues with contrasting humans who get scurvy when deprived of fruit and vegetables unfavourably with cats who don’t – accompanied with gory pictures of diseased human bottoms. I doubt if creationists will go anywhere near this book – they would be wise not to do so. With its scathing wit in both words and pictures, it wins hands down.
Andrew G. Walker,
Notes from a Wayward Son: A Miscellany
, edited by Andrew D. Kinsey (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2016); 322 pp.: 9781625641618, £28.00/$39.00 (pbk)
This book brings together the influential articles that Andrew Walker (now retired from Kings College London) has written over the years, covering Pentecostalism, C. S. Lewis, Eastern Orthodoxy and what he termed ‘harmful religion’. He has never been a prolific book writer, but he has achieved much through his articles, spotting ahead of others issues emerging in the sociology of religion. His editor, a former student, and William Abraham, who writes the Foreword, show just how much affection he has evoked from those whom he taught. A nice gathering of threads together.
Rico G. Monge, Kerry P. C. San Chirico and Rachel J. Smith (eds),
Hagiography and Religious Truth: Case Studies in the Abrahamic and Dharmic Traditions
(London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2016); 265 pp.: 9781474235778, £85.00/$114.00 (hbk)
The term ‘hagiography’ today is often used to denigrate an overly sycophantic account of someone’s life. In this interesting, but entirely American and sometimes quite technical, study it is used to compare accounts of the venerated lives of people across a wide variety of religious traditions. The editors explain: ‘For too long, hagiographies have been read either as mere myth or legend, or, alternatively, as literal accounts of “what really happened.” Fortunately, historians, academic theologians, and scholars of religion are now considering hagiographic modes of discourse as legitimate forms of historical writing and as sophisticated narrative technologies. Almost concurrently, religionists have begun examining sanctity as a category suitable for comparative study.’
Barrett W. McRay, Mark A. Yarhouse and Richard E. Butman,
Modern Psychopathologies: A Comprehensive Christian Appraisal
, second edition (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2016); 495 pp.: 9780830828500, $45.00 (hbk)
The first edition of this book was published in 2005 as an evangelical Christian take on the secular concepts of mental disorders published earlier by the American Psychiatric Association. In the meantime, the Association has changed some of its concepts so the three authors here, in turn, have changed their Christian appraisal. The first fifth of this new edition looks at various historical and contemporary categorizations in pastoral care, mental health, mental illness and psychopathology. The rest of the book looks at a range of ‘psychological problems’ in childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age – including anxiety, trauma, sexuality/gender, psychosis and addiction.
Kathleen A. Cahalan and Douglas J. Schuurman (eds),
Calling in Today’s World: Voices from Eight Faith Perspectives
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016); 238 pp.: 9780802873675, $25.00 (pbk)
The eight faith perspectives here are, in order and with different writers for each: Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian and Secular. It is interesting that even a once theologically conservative press such as Eerdmans is now prepared to encourage interfaith dialogue. The two editors are both Christians (Catholic and Lutheran respectively) and recognize that ‘Vocation and calling are Christian concepts. They do not appear in other religions’ (p. xi). However, what they invite other contributors to consider is whether their faith or non-faith tradition evokes anything similar. The results are fascinating, especially for those traditions such as Buddhism, Confucianism and modern secular humanism that have no concept of a personal God. Even Rabbi Amy Eilberg admits that many religiously active Jews in the United States today have no such concept. Edward Langerak, representing secular humanism, tellingly admits that ‘there is an important question whether secular humanists can feel something like the sense of calling that is such an important guiding and motivating feature of religious traditions, one that is often grounded not in fear of punishment or hope of reward but in gratitude for gifts given by God’ (p. 222). A very interesting dialogue.