14 - Book Review: "The Undead and Theology"

The Undead and Theology

Pickwick Publications, 2012, 298 pp.

Edited by Kim Paffenroth and John W. Morehead

The academy and pop culture alike recognize the great symbolic and teaching value of the undead, whether vampires, zombies, or other undead or living-dead creatures. This has been explored variously from critiques of consumerism and racism, through explorations of gender and sexuality, to consideration of the breakdown of the nuclear family. Most academic examinations of the undead have been undertaken from the perspectives of philosophy and political theory, but another important avenue of exploration comes through theology. Through the vampire, the zombie, the Golem, and Cenobites, contributors address a variety of theological issues by way of critical reflection on the divine and the sacred in popular culture through film, television, graphic novels, and literature.

13 - Book Review: "Our Necessary Shadow: The Nature and Meaning of Psychiatry" by Tom Burns

Our Necessary Shadow: The Nature and Meaning of Psychiatry

By Tom Burns

Review by Marianne Szegedy-Maszak

Washington Post

The halcyon days of psychiatry — when this medical expertise had status, when the most intelligent interns and residents chose the mind over the body, when popular culture regarded the discipline with fascination rather than contempt — are long gone. In its place is a field that has been eclipsed by the glamour of neuroscience, the juggernaut of Big Pharma, and a general confusion about its place in both medicine and the crowded field of mental health professionals.

To use an expression that appears neither in the glossary nor the index of Tom Burns’s fascinating analysis of the scientific and medical exploration of the mind, psychiatry is suffering an identity crisis. But Burns is not one of the renegades, condemning from within. At the outset of “Our Necessary Shadow,” he marks his territory: Psychiatry is a “legitimate medical specialty” and a genuine and increasingly important “power for good.”

12 - Book Review: "Jesus Fallen?" by Emmanuel Hatzidakis

Jesus Fallen? 

The Human Nature of Christ Examined From An Eastern Orthodox Perspective

By Emmanuel Hatzidakis

Reviewed by John Sanidopoulos

This is a beautifully bound and printed publication by Orthodox Witness, and includes detailed Topic, Author, and Scriptural Indexes, as well as 8 pages of full-color illustrations. It is a detailed critique of post-lapsarian Christology in 684 pages, but it is not presented as dry theology; rather it is enriched with deep and authentic patristic truth with an abundance of sources that clearly show Christ was not born with a fallen human nature, but a pre-lapsarian (pre-fallen) human nature just as Adam had in Paradise. It begins by offering an overview of the issue among both Orthodox and non-Orthodox, then it continues by analyzing the nature of man before and after the fall, and after a thorough examination of the details of Orthodox Christology, the author begins to address the issue. Key questions are asked, such as: Are the blameless passions of Christ inherited or voluntarily assumed? Was Christ's humanity necessarily corruptible and mortal? Would Christ have died of "natural" causes? How do the two natures exist in Christ? What is the impact of Perichoresis and Antidosis? And after an entire chapter is dedicated to the sinlessness of Christ, he addresses the objections of those who submit to the post-lapsarian thesis, which I thought was most valuable. This is followed by a chapter in which the author ties everything together with the Orthodox patristic theology of Soteriology and Christology.

11- Book Review: "Prodigal Daughter: A Journey to Byzantium" by Myrna Kostash

Prodigal Daughter: A Journey to Byzantium

By Myrna Kostash

Review by Cheryl Purdey

January 9, 2011

Edmonton Journal

With the simple but provocative declaration, "I'm Greek," Myrna Kostash embarks on a unique journey. It was something she said as a Grade 4 student growing up in Edmonton when she was ashamed and confused about her Ukrainian background.

As an adult, she is still fascinated with the Greek or Byzantine origins of her heritage, and her curiosity motivates this book. Part spiritual quest, part scholarly inquiry, part travel memoir, Prodigal Daughter is as richly layered as the civilization she explores. A self-described secular humanist, Kostash nevertheless has a deep interest in the Orthodox Church, and the result is an intellectually vigorous study.

10 - Book Review: "The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom" by Candida Moss

The Myth of Persecution:
How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom

By Candida Moss

HarperOne, 320 pages, $25.99

A Review by Ephraim Radner

(Christianity Today, May 2013)

The tedium of repeated déjà vu in this sad little volume did at least send me back to Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. It is as if a publisher came to Candida Moss, a professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Notre Dame, with a proposal for a quick buck, relying on the political twitter of the times: “You’re an expert: Reframe Gibbon’s notorious chapter on the Romans and the Christians with some contemporary scholarship and cultural fillips, and we can put out a nifty pamphlet that’ll sell.”