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Chapter 6 -- which takes more than its fair share of space, almost half of the book -- is an extended detour from the point of the book, but it still serves to support the theme. He begins by saying, "In the previous chapter, you saw the seven choice things which accompany salvation. But for your further and fuller edification, satisfaction, confirmation, and consolation, it will be very necessary that I show you," these seven choice things. Which are: (1.) What knowledge that is, which accompanies salvation. James McBride has created a raucous world filled with energy, frustration and hope. He imagines quirky vibrant characters that cavort through the narrative while evoking a desire to know them more intimately.There is a pervasive aura of controlled chaos that holds the reader in thrall as one becomes immersed in McBride’s version of history, allegory and social vision. James McBride is a beautiful writer. I mean that sincerely. But all the beautiful writing in the world can't make up for the endless parade of side plots and random character introductions that take the place of an actual coherent story. Here we have a description of assurance, and then an expression of the assured heart. Brooks' Heaven on Earth is both an explanation of the doctrine and an exhortation to pursue it. Quotations like this are just a hint of that. Brooks is one of the best Puritans on this topic—and everything the Puritans wrote about the doctrine is head an shoulders above their Continental brethren. This is pure gospel gold. This book was very informative. It approaches a discussion of socialism from a unique perspective of focusing on the biographies of influential leaders, such as Robert Owns, Engels, Marx, Lenin, Mussolini, Attlee, and Mao, who were involved in promoting socialism. Muravchik traces the two hundred year history of socialism and shows that any leader or society who tried to implement full socialism in the government and economy fell into ruin and starvation.
It is beautifully illustrated, with a helpful ground plan at the beginning of each chapter. The premise is that Europe’s great cathedrals tell the story of Christianity. Specifically, in her introduction, Wells argues that “these great multifaceted buildings were attempts to make the spiritual concrete”, and “represent symbolic voyages between this world and the next”. Janet Gough is a writer and lecturer on cathedrals and church buildings. Her latest book is Cathedral Treasures of England and Wales: Deans’ Choice (Scala, 2022). And, no one, it turns out, is better at managing the two than the Prophet himself, now – once the Jews betray him – changing the direction of prayer away from Jerusalem to the pagan temple of the Ka'bah at Mecca, now producing a swift revelation to protect the honour of his young wife, Aisha. Even though the book is at times trying (with the author’s attempt at writing a poetic interpretation as the pinnacle), still very few are as informed and intuitively sensible as Clark. He is able to deliver an engaging read that evokes further intellectual and visual engagement. Richly illustrated, Clark’s every thought or reference can be followed via his descriptions and the many reproduced artworks. Asking of us what we might understand as heaven, how we shape (and yearn for) alternative worlds to the ones we know, and which heaven we are forming for ourselves at this very moment, Heaven on Earth provides Clark’s conceptions of heaven from which we may depart.
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The narrative pulls you here and there, up and down, and when you meet Dodo, the sweet and barely teenaged deaf kid, your protective instincts will wrap yourself around him and never want to let him go. And, when Dodo meets Monkey Pants—well, this right there—the heart of the novel that will break you in pieces. There are subplots, too, but in the end, they all weave their chords and come together. McBride may slow your roll at first, but it’s a winning bonanza of breadth and depth, from the smallest detail to the broadest design. Scenes that seem initially inconsequential become key notes later on. There's some good description, but McBride's Pottstown never cohered in my mind. And his limitations really drag down the climactic sequence of events, in which unfortunately much hinges on the very specific physical placement of plumbing pipes. Wells starts each chapter graphically, with a church builder and his motives for (re)building a great church, emphasising the ongoing challenge of raising funds. She sets out circumstances and obsessions, from building shrines for still-to-be-canonised local saints (key to revenue generation) to establishing cathedral status, ranking (York alongside Canterbury), and establishing Reims for French coronations. Town versus church, riots, structural weaknesses, fires, towers collapsing — we experience it all, including greedy and evil motives, and nasty, often legalised retribution. Dodo is a sweet boy and a fast learner. He is also wanted by the state of Pennsylvania, who is determined to shut him away in the most notorious institution around. Chona agrees to take in the boy and hide him in plain sight. But her love and compassion may not be enough.
McBride is in no hurry to unravel his story.He introduces a dazzling array of characters from all strata of the town and allows their voices to reveal the tensions of race, xenophobia and cupidity that plagued America in the thirties and still persist today. Profound, wise, insightful, inspiring. Jim (or James) Paul gives us a fresh and readable take on the great story-line of the Bible. Read this book and discover how we can start to experience the reality of heaven in the here and now. A fresh restatement of the deeply influential and compelling vision of L'Abri. - Professor John WyattWells tells the stories of the people and politics behind the often centuries-long building, extending, repairing, and reshaping of cathedrals, beginning with Emperor Justinian’s remarkable, ornate church of Hagia Sophia, in Istanbul, which became a mosque, a museum, and now a mosque again, and influenced many (including Christopher Wren). It ends with Brunelleschi’s 1435 cupola for Florence Cathedral, which “synthesized Gothic configuration and Neo-classical style”. Aesthetically, this is fantastic. The language sings -- the book begs to be read aloud (and I frequently did so, interrupting whatever anyone around me was doing). You can feel the passion, the fervor throughout. A few paragraphs from different chapters illustrate this: There are some moments that make me wonder about the editing process - for instance the town doctor/KKK member gets described two or three times in almost the same words a couple of chapters apart, and some of the discursive descriptive paragraphs feel forced. Also some internal consistency questions, esp about the date of death of one of the mother of one character. If the book is an homage to an oral storytelling tradition, fine, but if so it wasn't made clear.
At the opening of “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store,” Pennsylvania state troopers find a skeleton at the bottom of an old well. Such putrid circumstances promise a grim tale, but this is a book by James McBride. If anyone can make those moldy bones dance, it’s him.
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So, Emma Wells’s Heaven on Earth, combining an academic approach with captivating storytelling to describe 16 cathedrals, should find a receptive audience. Even though this chapter zeroes in on the kibbutz, Muravchik’s investigation of the rise and demise of the kibbutz leads him to zoom out to attempt to provide an answer to his two “central mysteries,” and, hardly surprising, it comes down to religion. Historians might quibble with his claims as too broad and vague, but nonetheless, I will let Muravchik speak for himself:
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