Bishop Books

Good book, but it was halfway over before the mystery began. The book did hold my interest, however.

I love this series. 2 sisters (Meg and Quill) run an Inn in upstate NY. A senator's daughter is to be married in the Inn. The Inn gets turned upside down when the wedding party arrives. After a murder in the Inn, Quill investigates.

I've read every book written to date and I'm anxiously awaiting the next one. This series is EXCELLENT. Claudia Bishop makes her readers salivate while anxiously awaiting the next installment. Thanks Claudia.

Claudia Bishop adds another good book to her Hemlock Falls Mystery series. In this episode former senator Alphonse Santini has come to the Inn for his wedding. His overbearing attitude aggravates Sarah Quilliam who runs the Inn, and her sister Meg, who is the chef. At the same time, the former members of the Hemlock Chamber of Commerce have split and formed two new groups which are organized by gender. The men take mysterious trips into the woods to play on drums and find their true nature while the women are beginning to have real feminist leanings. An inquisitive tv reporter named Nora Cahill comes to cover the proceedings. During the course of the book several murders occur and Sarah becomes a chief suspect. One of the delightful fringe benefits of reading Claudia Bishop is her extensive vocabulary which sends me scurrying to my dictionary a time or two during the reading of a book. The word this time was "tatterdemalion". I am looking forward to reading more of this author's work.

Compelling and unforgettable historical account of ancient Hawai`i from pre-Captain Cook up to the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, by prominent historian and Native Hawaiian Lilikala Kame`eleihiwa. Moving and detailed description of the devastating impact American imperialism exacts upon the minds, culture, and lives of the Native Hawaiian people. A must for those interested in a true history of Hawai`i.

In response to: "Then, in a display of conspicuous consumption well-grounded in traditional Polynesian culture, most of them splurged their new wealth and went bust." -- a reader

Actually, traditionally, splurging wealth is a much westernized approach to living life. Self-interest is a concept that does not even exist in the Hawaiian language. Don't forget that Native Hawaiians inhabited the islands for thousands of years before good ol' Cap'n Cook even set his stinky, white feet on the sand of Kealakekua. You cry conspiracy, I pronounce truth. Indeed, the land WAS STOLEN BY GUNPOINT (annexed) under President Benjamin Harrison, by, you guessed it, conspirators. Namely, Lorrin Thurston and John L. Stevens.

For you, maybe no grand conspiracy is relevant because the way you see life is just as you describe... "people act in their own self-interest." Sorry, that is not the Hawaiian way, but the haole way.

Prof. Kame`eleihiwa did a lot of donkey work in the archives but advances an implausible explanation of the privatization of land in Hawaii in the mid-19th century. Her thesis of a vast multi-generational conspiracy is no more plausible than any other conspiratorial explanation of complex historical events. Never explain by conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity. The theory that foreign conspirators "stole" Hawaiian land is not improved by combining it with the claim that hereditary aristocrats who had spent decades ruthlessly pursuing their self-interest suddenly and generously gave up wealth and power. The Hawaiian king and aristocracy decided to privatize the land of Hawaii because the old system based on forced peasant labor was collapsing as the peasants died or left the land to take better jobs. By privatizing and partitioning the land among themselves, the king and aristocrats made themselves rich: they converted undevelopable land into valuable private property in their own hands. Then, in a display of conspicuous consumption well-grounded in traditional Polynesian culture, most of them splurged their new wealth and went bust. On the other hand, people, including peasants, who wanted to invest in land could buy plenty of land cheap. Those who invested wisely for the long term generally did well. No grand conspiracy theory is needed to explain that people act in their own self-interest and that people who act in their long-run self-interest usually do better than those who seek immediate gratification.

native land and foreign desires is the best book i've ever read on hawaiian history and the history of the mahele. using hawaiian language sources, lilikala kame'eleihiwa opens the book with several chapters that introduce the reader to hawaiian cosmology. she clearly and eloquently explains how hawaiian society was politically, culturally, spiritually, economically, and socially structured by reciprocal relationships among the land, animals, plants, and people. given this understanding, she describes how that system was transformed by relationships with US colonizers, businessmen, and missionaries and analyzes its dramatic consequences. this book is one of the few books that offers history from a native hawaiian perspective. it is an absolute treasure and a brilliant contribution to critical historical scholarship.

Congressman Ron Paul stated in one of the early 2008 presidential debates that the most serious moral crisis facing America was the recent adoption by the Bush administration and the Congress of the evil doctrine of preemptive war and the abandonment of the centuries old Christian doctrine of Just War.

Read this excellent book to find out the reasons why this is such an important moral issue.

Is the war in Iraq a great idea? Oh, probably not. But these folks are hardly the ones to preach to us about it! Instead of seeing reasons why we ought to have handled Saddam Hussein's Iraq in some other way, we see outright apologies for Saddam Hussein's behavior! We're told that the case against him is bogus!

I'm against war. I think war is destructive and hurts everyone. And most folks who are against war get some sympathy from me. But not always! In 1945, when the German National Socialists were on the verge of defeat, the Allies could have simply quit fighting, claiming that they were ending the war early. Instead, they continued until they got an unconditional surrender. I think it was wise to do that, and in the long run, such a policy was of significant benefit to quite a few people.

Whenever there is a war, there will be some people who are genuinely for peace, and may be willing to help do things to defend attacked civilians but not willing to be aggressors. But there will also be those who simply side with the thugs: they are more than willing to help aggressors, they're just not willing to help the victims. When they advise the victims to refuse to defend themselves, they are simply part of the problem.

Do the contributors in this volume really appear to me to be against war? Um, no. I think many of them might be rather willing to start a war, an aggressive war no less, in the Middle East, as long as that war were against Israel rather than against some other state. We see a one page introduction from Bishop Hilarion Capucci. And there are articles by Patrick Buchanan, Joseph Sobran, Charley Reese, and a bunch of others. I think the whole idea of these people trying to tell the rest of us about morality is silly.

Buchanan blames our misadventures in Iraq on folks who have a "passionate commitment" to Israel "that causes them to subordinate the interests of their own country." Really? I'm not so sure that American actions in Iraq were even that useful to Israel in the first place. And I think such a comment might apply even more to those whose passion to damage Israel causes them to subordinate the interests of their own country. Buchanan also makes fun of the idea that imposing "peace" on Israel might simply be a replay of Munich in 1938. He adds that "U. S. and Israeli interests are not identical. They often collide, and when they do, U. S. interests must prevail." Okay. That's fair. I would like to add that the interests of the United States and some extremist and racist Arab opponents of Israel are not identical. And when these interests collide, American interests must prevail!

Hilarion Capucci is both a thug and an archbishop of the Catholic Church. He used his status as a bigwig to smuggle weapons to terrorists. On August 18, 1974, he was finally arrested by Israeli security forces; his car was found stuffed with TNT and guns. Although Capucci was sentenced to twelve years in prison, the Pope pleaded for an earlier release, and he got out in 1977, with an understanding that he would stay out of politics. He hasn't exactly done that. I find it hard to believe that the Vatican would put up with such a misuse of an archbishop's status: does the Vatican really want the Catholic Church's leaders to have their limousines stopped and searched all the time for weapons? Or worse, have their churches inspected for weapons as well? All because it supports having an archbishop smuggle weapons to a terrorist group that's mostly Muslim and anti-Catholic in the first place?

I do not recommend this book, and I think it says a great deal that Capucci was chosen to write an introduction for it.

The right of war is hateful, and its punishment is most grave; therefore it is to be restricted as far as can be.
- Francisco Suarez, S.J.

All modern war is to be forbidden.
- Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani.

_Neo-Conned!: Just War Principles: A Condemnation of War in Iraq_, published in 2007 by Light in the Darkness Publications, an imprint of IHS Press, is a collection of essays and writings of various anti-war Catholic intellectuals and philosophers, paleo-conservative commentators, and others. The book maintains that it is "Asserting the traditional, Christian just war doctrine against the neoconservative caricature that masks violence and aggression." It is frequently maintained by those on the left that the war has been fought by the "far right wing"; however, as these essays show, not only are the categories of right and left no longer useful in our modern age, but the reasons given for fighting the War in Iraq were anything but conservative and not in keeping with Just War doctrine. The Catholic Church regards war as a great evil and prays that man may be delivered from war along with hunger and pestilence. The church has condemned radical pacifism (in the sense that one is unjustified to use force in direct self-defence); however the church maintains that a war may only be fought provided it has a just cause. As explained by Romano Amerio, a war is just if: it is declared by a competent authority, it is aimed at righting a wrong, there is reasonable hope of actually righting a wrong, and it is conducted with moderation. The just war doctrine goes back to St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas and was further developed by later scholars. The authors appearing in this volume maintain that the Iraq War (a pre-emptive war) does not meet these criteria and that further, as some maintain, no modern war may indeed meet these criteria. As such the war is to be condemned by Catholics and can be seen as an integral feature of the "culture of death", including abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty. Further, it should be noted that both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have condemned this war.

The book begins with a foreword by Bishop Hilarion Capucci and an introduction by Prof. George Lopez.

The first section of this book is entitled "The Statesmen Speak: A War Both Unnecessary and Vain". This includes essays by Jude Wanniski (explaining how he believes the case made against Sadaam to be bogus), Marc Bossuyt (explaining the issue of economic sanctions against Iraq - the callous remarks of Madeleine Albright that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children were worth the price should be noted here and certainly refute the claims made by some that "No one died while Clinton lied"), Joy Gordon (explaining the real "oil-for food" scandal), and Patrick Buchanan (explaining the role of the "War Party" and Jewish neoconservatives in fighting the war against Iraq to further Israeli interests).

The second section of this book is entitled "Conservative and Anti-War: Patriotism, Prudence, and the Moral Law". This section includes authors writing from the perspective of paleo-conservativism, showing the phoney nature of the neoconservative imposters. This section includes essays by Samuel Francis (arguing that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel", showing how a false patriotism has been used by the neoconservatives, and illustrating the fundamental difference between the goals of the neoconservatives and those of genuine conservatives and the "Old Right" particularly as they concern the State), Joseph Sobran (showing the immorality of the war and arguing that the war is murder), Charley Reese (arguing that "legal nonsense" has been used to justify the war), Thomas Fleming (showing the history of the Middle East and the role of American imperialism), Wendell Berry (arguing that war is ultimately a failure and that the importation of globalist culture is destroying traditional ways of life and the environment), and Paul Gottfried (showing how the neoconservatives are not genuine conservatives at all and that their zealous lust for global democracy is anything but a conservative program).

The third section of this book is entitled "The Venerable Tradition: Putting the Brakes on Aggression and Securing Justice for Iraq". This includes essays by the following: Fr. Juan Carlos Iscara (explaining that "might is not right" and arguing for the just war tradition), Thomas Ryba (explaining the role of epistemic adequacy in the just war criteria), David Gordon (exposing the fallacies used by neoconservative Catholics to defend the war in Iraq and their abuse of the just war theory for their own ends), and James Hanink (arguing for the role of Iraqi sovereignity and conscience).

The fourth section in this book is entitled "Judgment and Inspiration: The Church Still Speaks with Authority". This section includes essays by the following: William T. Cavanaugh (arguing that we must turn to the church for moral guidance and that further if not the church then we have nowhere to turn - this applies particularly to pro-war Catholics who claim that we should turn to the president for guidance first), Bishop John Michael Botean (a Lenten letter issued to Romanian Catholics arguing that participation in the war was a mortal sin), an explanation of this same letter by Bishop Botean, Edward Peters (a canonist comments on the letter from Bishop Botean), and Deacon Keith Fournier (arguing for peace).

The fifth section in this book is entitled "Higher Law: Conscience, Morality, and the Transcendent Vision". This section includes essays by the following: John Rao (showing the decadent nature of modern Western and American civilization and arguing that the spread of pluralism is behind this war), Robert Hickson (arguing that limits must be set on just war criteria as they apply to the modern world), Paul Likoudis (arguing that new weapons have made a new understanding of warfare necessary), Laurence M. Vance (showing the failure of nerve of Christians to oppose the war), Peter E. Chojnowski (arguing for conscientious objection), Army Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia (arguing for conscientious objection), and an appendix by Eric Gill (the distributist writer who opposed the Second World War). It should also be noted that many Catholics also opposed the Second World War including such figures as Catholic philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe.

The final section of this book is entitled "Speaking with Authority: The True Just-War Doctrine as a Light for Our Time". This includes essays by Fr. Franzisko Stratmann (explaining why wars are unnecessary, that warfare may be outgrown just as slavery has been despite man's fallen nature, and cannot be justified with reference to Old Testament wars - this essay is particularly interesting in this respect), Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani (an opponent to certain aspects of the Second Vatican Council notes that modern warfare cannot be just), and Romano Amerio (a chapter from the book _Iota Unum_ showing the Catholic position on just war and the need for a confederation of Christian nations).

These essays (along with the companion volume _Neo-CONNED! Again_) offer an excellent introduction to the social teachings of the Catholic church concerning warfare. As it turns out, the just war criteria are not met by those who have pushed for the Iraq War. As such, this war is to be condemned by Catholics. The fact that many Catholics retain allegiance to neoconservativism only shows how deeply in need of an understanding of church tradition they are. Further and finally it should be pointed out that much left wing opposition to war is not truly anti-war in that many of those on the left who opposed the War in Iraq did support the wars of Clinton or others.

I must simply quote Thomas Woods here: "I have never recommended a book as strongly as I am recommending "Neoconned" and "Neoconned Again", two new collections of essays that make just about every argument you can think of against the war in Iraq. Now if you're thinking that you've read enough about this subject already, or that such books just aren't your cup of tea, or that you have too much to read as it is, I urge you to abandon such thoughts right away. These books need to be purchased by everyone, right away, this minute, and need to be circulated just as far as possible.

I was asked early last year to contribute an essay to these volumes. At that time I was consumed by the task of writing The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, along with my usual dozen other projects, and unfortunately had to decline. All I can say is, they sure didn't need my essay. Light in the Darkness Publications has assembled one of the most impressive lineups of scholars and commentators I have ever seen on any subject. Many of the names will be familiar to LRC readers; see the list for volume 1 here and volume 2 here.

Worth the price of the two volumes alone is the very lengthy interview with the late, great Jude Wanniski, the supply-side theorist who had such influence on President Ronald Reagan (and who therefore cannot be dismissed so easily as a leftist peacenik). In recent years Wanniski had become - along with all too few other conservatives - skeptical not only of government intervention on the domestic front but of its foreign interventions as well. (Recall Joe Sobran's amusing dictum: if you want the government to intervene domestically you're a liberal, if you want the government to intervene abroad you're a conservative, if you want the government to intervene both domestically and abroad you're a moderate, and if you don't want the government to intervene either domestically or abroad you're an extremist.)

It may sound like an exaggeration to say that just about every major claim made about Iraq and Saddam by the U.S. government since the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait has been misleading or simply false, and that the mainstream media has bought into these distortions with nary a peep of opposition, but that's just about the only conclusion one can draw from Wanniski's case. If you think it's an open and shut case that Saddam "gassed his own people," not to mention countless other episodes routinely cited to work us into a frenzy for war, you need to read this. (Saddam did brutally suppress uprisings against his regime, but violence in the service of nationalism seems to disturb the neoconservative conscience only selectively - China and Iraq bad, Russia and the United States [under Lincoln] good.)

Although not every essay touches on the issue explicitly, the first of the two volumes is organized around Catholic just-war theory and what it has to say about the war in Iraq. Now hold on a minute before you say you're non-Catholic and just move along. The principles of Catholic just-war theory, long appropriated and developed by a great many non-Catholics, are widely regarded as useful tools for moral reflection, and you'll be surprised at just how satisfying it is to see how dramatically short the war in Iraq falls on the basis of every one of those principles.

Wanniski also reminds us of the real history of the past 15 years. He recalls the destruction of the Iraqi infrastructure, including the deliberate targeting of water treatment facilities (followed by a sanctions regime that forbade the entry into Iraq of equipment needed to repair them) and other installations vital to civilian life. This was all necessary, say the shills, because Saddam was such a bad person. The sanctions, too, which led to half a million children dead - "worth it," according to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who did not question that figure - were routinely defended on the same grounds. (Wanniski also addresses the "if Saddam hadn't built so many palaces he could have fed his people" argument.) A prosperous, secular country that was liberal by regional standards, and which could boast one of the finest health care systems in the Middle East, was reduced to an economic basket case, and plagued by a nightmare of disease, malnourishment, and sick and deformed children - all as the result of a vain effort to dislodge its leader. If the "Saddam was bad" defense strikes you as insufficient to justify the infliction of this degree of suffering - of which this is the tip of the iceberg - welcome to the human race.

That people who describe themselves as Christians supported this policy is but the icing on the cake. As I recall, there was a Christian theologian of no small importance who condemned the idea that we should "do evil that good may come."

A surprising contributor to these volumes is Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, who headed what in his day was known as the Holy Office of the Catholic Church. Cardinal Ottaviani was known for his outspoken opposition to the new rite of Mass, which he considered an intolerable liberal innovation, so it would not be easy to accuse him of "liberalism." And yet the editors include for us a wonderful and compelling essay of his called "Modern War Is to Be Absolutely Forbidden." Let's see pro-war Catholics wiggle out of this one.

Professor Peter Chojnowski, another traditional Catholic, contributes a surprisingly radical essay on the right of conscientious objection. He reminds us of an important statement by the Ethics Committee of the Catholic Association for International Peace six decades ago. That committee included distinguished and orthodox scholars such as Msgr. Fulton Sheen (who wrote scholarly books early in his career) and Msgr. John A. Ryan. It concluded:

Practically speaking, the task of deciding the justice or injustice of any particular war devolves upon the conscience of the individual conscript or soldier. It is his conscientious duty to decide, as a matter of concrete fact, whether any particular war is aggressive or defensive, and, if defensive, whether it is justified or unjustified, and, in consequence, whether he is free or obliged or forbidden to participate formally in it, whether he is free or obliged or forbidden to be a conscientious objector.

That's another small taste of the hidden history that these books have made available.

Volume 2 is, if anything, more impressive still, and features a wider variety of ideological perspectives. No, I don't much care for some of what Noam Chomsky says, but I am prepared to give a respectful hearing to anyone with the intelligence and the strength of character to denounce wickedness and folly, especially this particular case of wickedness and folly. Featuring an introduction by former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, volume 2 includes dozens of essays by such authors as Claes Ryn, Kirkpatrick Sale, Alexander Cockburn, Gordon Prather, Mark and Louise Zwick, Justin Raimondo, Robert Fisk, and Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski.

Like many Americans, I've grown sad and frustrated at the triumph of neoconservative foreign policy. It was sold to Americans not merely on the basis of lies, but also by means of bumper-sticker slogans trotted out - and dutifully absorbed and repeated by shills determined to live down to every caricature of conservatism ever devised - by a White House that cynically exploited ordinary people's patriotic inclinations in order to prosecute a war whose aims remain obscure to this day.

These books, a small victory in themselves, actually lifted my spirits. It was a great pleasure to see how many serious, intelligent observers were keeping a watchful eye on the Bush administration well before criticism of the Iraq misadventure became fashionable, and to see their case against it laid out with such devastating precision. That case is so powerful and overwhelming that it will leave you more dumbfounded than ever that anyone ever fell for it, that anyone got away with denouncing skeptics of transparent White House propaganda as "unpatriotic," or that so many people believe conservatism involves no higher value than giving intellectual cover to a series of ever-changing, ad hoc rationalizations for war.

These books deserve to become bestsellers. To those who opposed the Iraq war, think of purchasing these books as casting a vote against the War Party, against the war-war choice of Bush/Kerry that we got in 2004, and against a cowardly, servile mainstream media whose mea culpas about pre-war intelligence came, well, rather too late.

If you have friends on the left or the right, or even in the center for that matter, please forward this column to them. The same supposedly "liberal" media that brazenly repeated White House fabrications that a simple Google search could have refuted are unlikely to showcase these books. (Can someone please remind the major conservative publications that the "liberal" media supported this war with a vengeance?) They belong not only in Americans' homes but also in classrooms, libraries (buy a set and donate it!), and wherever intelligent Americans may be found.

Ordinary Americans who were too busy with their own lives to investigate the administration's claims too closely may come to see they've been had, if they haven't realized it already. But the most outspoken of the war's supporters are all but impossible to persuade. Some of them are simply venal, eager to curry favor with the regime no matter how idiotic or intellectually insulting the line they are expected to tow. Others, whether they realize it or not, look at the world as a giant baseball game, with the U.S. government as our team. They'll rush out of the dugout to protest an obviously sound call at first base or a called strike that was in fact well within the strike zone. When in matters of foreign policy their team sets forth a barrage of propaganda they would have laughed at had it come from the Soviet Union in the 1980s or Syria today, they cannot defend it enthusiastically enough. Go, team.

Such a juvenile mentality would have been considered utterly beneath conservatism in, say, the 1940s. At that time, you could find major conservatives who were willing to hold their own government to the same moral standards they applied to others. Even a man known as "Mr. Republican," Senator Robert Taft, could cast a skeptical eye on the Truman administration's early Cold War foreign policy as - no, this isn't a misprint - gratuitously provocative.

Today, even to look for motivations behind 9/11 is to invite accusations of "blaming America" for the attacks, as if a detective seeking a killer's motive should be accused of blaming the victim for his fate. It is next to impossible to render serious judgments about foreign policy when public discourse is dominated by anti-intellectual hysterics calling themselves patriots. These two books do the best job yet.

It may be worth noting, if only in order to underscore the intensity of my feelings about these volumes, that not only do I have no relationship to Light in the Darkness Publications, an imprint of IHS Press (no relation to the Institute for Humane Studies), but I have actually had some public and contentious exchanges with J. Forrest Sharpe, one of the editors of Neoconned, on unrelated matters. I am happy to let bygones be bygones. Sharpe has done his country and the cause of truth a valuable service and deserves only the most enthusiastic support.

It is not possible to do these books justice in a single column. All I can say is that they are of the utmost importance. I cannot urge readers of this column strongly enough: put aside any inclination you may have to let these volumes pass you by, or even to put off buying them until a later date. Buy them right now. You will not regret it."

This text is more of a chapter by chapter commentary on the confessions than an introduction to Augustine's thought in general. There is very little mention of his other great works. Cooper pretty much tells Augustine's personal story rather than produce an accessible intro to his works. But reviewing the book for what it is rather than what I thought it would be: This is an accessible commentary on the confessions that does a very good job highlighting the major themes and unpacking how Augustine theological assertions emerge from the telling of his story. He is obviously very familiar with the text and selects numerous and appropriate, poetically translated excerpts that convey a sense of Augustine's accessible and conversational style.

As for the illustrations: I found them to be well done, humorous, and have used a couple of them in presentations on Augustine. This distinguishes the `Armchair Theologian' series from the `For Beginner's' series, whose illustrations are almost always disappointing. I do have one critique. The illustrator had no qualms about portraying God in flippant, somewhat irreverent cartoon form which I think Augustine (along with much of the Judea-Islamic-Christian tradition with their great discomfort regarding images of God) would be pretty uncomfortable with. I found them just a little disconcerting myself.

Stephen Cooper, associate professor of religious studies at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania, has produced a very readable and practical guide to Augustine in this text, 'Augustine for the Armchair Theologians'. At first glance, one might think that the text is not a serious text (not always a bad thing to assume, mind you), as there are line-art drawing of a cartoon-ish nature throughout, but this is no book for dummies (although it is very accessible). Cooper does not dishonour the text of Augustine's 'Confessions', instead following very closely the autobiographical portion of the 'Confessions', deviating only to bring in outside material (from Augustine or from other sources) to further enlighten the reader.

Augustine remains a pivotal figure, both in church history, and history of the world generally. A man of great passion and great intellect, he combined these in fascinating ways, producing what many call the first real autobiography (in his 'Confessions') and putting together a mammoth collection of practical and philosophical theological writings, such that the scholar Isidore of Seville wrote that 'he who claims to have mastered all of Augustine is a liar'.

Augustine lived at the time of the fall of Rome and the initial breakdown of Roman society, a time when the primary surviving institution was the church, and the world longed for stability of 'the good old days'. Augustine himself was a man of great passion who had in his youth no problem of acting out of that passion; he had deep, powerful relationships and a keen intellect and personality that attracted people to him. It is perhaps this social aspect, Cooper states, that is the primary aspect of Augustine, both in his relationship in the world and his desiring a relationship with a God who also desires to be in relationship.

Cooper follows the first nine books (chapters) of 'Confessions' closely, and gives a brief overview of the rest of the 'Confessions', to some extent doing in some regard what he criticises others for doing - Cooper mentions that often when 'Confessions' are assigned as reading in college, only the first nine books are required. The tenth book is a remarkable piece of psychological self-study (centuries before psychological study was born), and the rest give insights into the way Augustine read scripture (a vitally important piece in understanding Augustine's overall thought development) as well as the kinds of unanswered questions that followed Augustine throughout the rest of his career.

Cooper's concludes with an overview of Augustine's life as a bishop (after the death of his mother, his best friend, and his son) and some of his actions, particularly with regard to controversial issues such as the dealing with the Donatists (an officially heretical group still in vogue in northern Africa). Cooper gives some discussion of major issues and writings in Augustine's life post-'Confessions', but given the massive amount of work Augustine produced, this could be in Cooper's book little more than a sampler and outline.

One might wish for a few more chapters to give depth to the issues in Augustine's later works, including some of his sermons, biblical studies, and his work in the massive 'City of God'. Hopefully the easy and energetic writing of this text will inspire readers to further study in Augustine's works, and to that end, Cooper provides suggestions for further reading, which includes brief pieces (Chadwick's 'Augustine: A Very Short Introduction') and magisterial works (Fitzgerald's 'Augustine through the Ages'), as well as the scholarly standards (Brown's 'Augustine of Hippo: A Biography'). There is a brief index as well.

The illustrations by Ron Hill give to a certain extent the same kind of comedic pause in the drama that a short scene by a fool would give in a Shakespearean play - never detracting from the text, they highlight certain points while relieving the reader in key spots of any monotony of text-on-page that might be developing. Hill has also illustrated other 'Armchair Theologian' volumes.

This book essentially just goes though Augustine's early life, following the outline in Augustine's Confessions. It uses the Confessions as an window to Augustine, assuming that readers would start with that book and graduate to others---not a bad idea.

It does really help make the Confessions even more accessible to readers unfamiliar with Augustine or his work.

The only downside is because this book focuses so heavily on his life as described in Confessions it fails to really wrestle with any of the issues that Augustine was so influential on later in his life (for example, the problem of grace and free will).

I'd like to give the book four stars, but am unable to change my star rating.

This book opened my eyes to the background of the existing conflict in the middle east, particularly the Holy Land, like none I had ever read before. I am so grateful for Rev. Abo El-Assal for taking the time to write this book. The Palestinian Christians are in my constant prayer as well as the other peoples residing in that area. If you are living in the west and think that the affairs in that area of the world are not your business, please take time to read this quick and very informative book.

Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal combines a personal biography with an inside look at living as an Arab Christian in Palestine over the turbulent history of the past 55 years. The Bishop's experience as the Vicar of Christ Church in Nazareth gives an inside look at the lives of the Arab people and provides a fresh perspective on the issues of Palestine.

If Riah Abu El-Assal is a peaceful Palestinian Arab leader, we are in serious trouble.

Here is a man who claims to abhor violence, laudable to be sure. He also states, at the end of chapter 10, "The road to peace lies in recognition of the realities, including the reality that is Israel, and I will do nothing to harm the cause of peace." Equally praiseworthy.

Yet this book is full of contradictions.

Born in 1937 in Nazareth, Bishop Abu El-Assal fled with his family at age 11 in 1948 to Beirut, where his father refused to register the family as refugees. They fled of their own accord, not as the result of any battle or threat thereof, or the author would have made great use of the details.

Yet with neither firsthand experience of being forced off the family's land, nor reputable sources, El-Assal describes Al Nakba, the Catastrophe, as "expulsion of the Palestinians from their lands by the victorious Zionist forces...." (p. 51)

Here is a man whose wife's family had in the 1930s emigrated from Lebanon INTO Palestine, where Jewish development had created strong demand for labor. El -Assal himself returned to Nazareth from Beirut in 1949 with his sister Suad, who was then 13. Some time later, his father also returned. He took Israeli citizenship in 1959. He successfully reclaimed and repossessed his family's home.

In other words, neither the Bishop of Jerusalem nor his wife's family has any basis to claim that anything was stolen from them. Yet he does. In fact, throughout the book he claims that the entire land of Israel was "stolen" from Palestinian Arabs, without references to back up this claim. The 151-page volume contains only 15 footnotes, not one of them citing legitimate scholarly material to prove the claim.

(I tend to believe no such scholarly material exists, for I have looked and found none. On the other hand, several books seem to prove just the opposite. These include H.B. Tristram's Land of Israel (1865); Arieh Avneri's Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land Settlement 1878-1948 (1984); Kenneth W. Stein's The Land Question in Palestine, 1917-1939 (1984); Samuel Katz' Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine (1972) and Joan Peters' From Time Immemorial (1984).)

Abu Al-Assal also attempts to deflate the importance and severity of the 1948 invasion of Israel by seven Arab armies by claiming that most of the fighting was done in Palestinian areas. This is misleading at best. For had not those armies swept into the area, there would have been no fighting at all. Much of the fiercest fighting, moreover, was in the Negev, which the partition plan had designated for Israel. As it was, the war took substantially more Jewish lives, a total of 6,373--nearly 1% of the entire Jewish population. Jewish casualties, moreover, included 600 kidnap victims whom Arab forces mutilated beyond recognition.

Though a citizen of Israel, El-Assal cheered on Gamel Nasser in 1956. He has repeatedly broken Israeli laws and has quite negative feelings for the state. He traveled many times on a Vatican passport to enemy states, including Lebanon and Jordan (before the peace). He twice traveled to Tunisia to meet with Yasser Arafat, before Israel had relations with the PLO. Afterwards, he resented being detained from international travel. He dislikes Israel, its Jewish symbols, and its internal policy of accepting any Jewish person as a citizen of the Jewish homeland. While he admires the beauty of the Israeli national anthem HaTikva (The Hope), he writes that the Zionist movement's hymn, expressing a Jewish desire for a homeland, "is not mine, and never can be."

He claims to be for two separate states, Israel and Palestine, but argues for an Israel that is secular and bi-national. In other words, he considers Jewish desire to nurture a Jewish homeland a bad thing.

Given that El-Assal is an Anglican Bishop, one would expect to find in his book some evidence of closeness with God. Abu El-Assal mentions his "calling," of course. Yet I was surprised to find no real expression of spiritual awareness, love for God, Christ, or mankind. Perhaps I missed it but I don't think so.

In fact, the author actually makes statements I would have thought un-Christian. In a discussion of the different Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Easters, for example, he recounts the story of a father who tells his son on the first that people are crying "because Jesus was crucified." When the son asks who did it, the father says, "The Jews and the Romans were responsible. Damn the Romans." The boy replies, "Damn the Jews." At the second service, when the people weep again, the boy asks, "Dad, Dad, do you mean the Jews and the Romans have done it again?" No, the father tells him, it was the Greek Orthodox. (pp. 59-60)

Granted, this tasteless story is supposed to be a joke. But no person of Jewish faith would find it funny. Neither should an Anglican Bishop. The Roman Catholic Pope and Church, at least, have apologized to the Jewish people for centuries of teaching that the Jewish people were responsible for the death of Jesus. So should all churches.

There are many other weaknesses in this book, not least of all its complete failure to denounce anti-Semitic Arab propaganda taught to each new generation, making meaningful dialogue between the Jewish state and Arab Palestinian people all but impossible. Like too many people, Al-Assal is willing to completely overlook institutionalized Arab hatred of Jews and the Jewish state, meanwhile making blanket condemnations of Israel's supposed evils--which he cannot and does not prove.

One hopes for true and honest Palestinian Arab peace partners to emerge from the ongoing 53-year conflict. But like many other supposed Arab men of peace floated in the last nine years, Abu Al-Assal in this book seems hoisted on his own petard. He herein contradicts his own seemingly peaceful pronouncements with words of deceit and hate. Alyssa A. Lappen

Meg and Andy are about to be married, and Quill is working hard at making sure that happens. Meg seems determined to mess it up. Plus Jerry Grimsby seems to be mucking things up. He's supposed to be filling in as chef at the Inn at Hemlock Falls while Meg is on her honeymoon.

In the midst of all this, there's a fire at the old MacAvoy barn and a body is found. Then it is announced that Leo "Boom-Boom" Maltby and his business partner Norwood Ferguson will be opening Lovejoy's Nudie Bar and Grill in Hemlock Falls. Many of the women of the village protest it.

Quill has her own problems at the Inn. Doreen steps in to help, only does it really help? Quill ends up giving some promotions that provide their own challenges.

Can Quill find the murderer while making sure Meg and Andy get married in a few days? And can she do it without putting herself in danger?

I always devour the books in this series. I would love to spend a week at the Inn at Hemlock Falls. Quill and Meg are great characters and have really grown with the series. I love all the peripheral characters and the roles that they play. They really add to the story, especially all the town folks and the Chamber of Commerce members.

I highly recommend this book and the whole series.

Claudia Bishop is on a roll with her story line about two sisters who own an Inn in mid-state New York. Both are a bit wacky, funny, and like to get into other people's business. The is always a murder or two to solve and this edition is no different. If you like light bed cozy type mysteries, then this will be a new favorite of yours.

These are individually pleasant, competent mysteries. There is a fairly large continuing cast of characters that are well differentiated from one another and a fair amount of humor. Given the length of this series, obviously a lot of people like it; I think that a fan of the series will be very happy with it.

I find them extremely repetitious - if you've read one, you've pretty much read them all except for plot details. I don't find the two main characters, Sarah (Quill) and Meg particularly endearing. Sarah is a fool and Meg is an explosive tantrum thrower, which I find a little wearisome. An exemplar of what I don't like about this series is Max the dog. For five or six books at least, Max has been running wild, infuriating the other townspeople, and causing various kinds of damage. Get a dog chain! Get kennel fencing! Get a leash! This might be amusing if I didn't have to carry a large stick to ward off other dogs when I walk my own.

I'm also not terribly fond of "gourmet" food - I wouldn't care to even taste most of the dishes that this celebrated chef prepares, but clearly that does interest a lot of people, so take that into consideration when deciding. There is usually at least one recipe in each book.

Another point is that if I'm going to read farce, I want it completely off the wall, not mixed with reality. I know that some people will be extremely amused by things that leave me rolling my eyes.

If you're looking for something to read, you could do a lot worse, and indivudually they can be cute and charming.

As head of my parish's evangelization committee, I was very interested in reading this book to find new ideas for effective Catholic evangelization. Any book that is about the need for Catholics to evangelize is a noble undertaking. Since so many Catholics don't recognize the urgency of our call to evangelize, anyone trying to foster that effort, like Fr. Rivers, should be commended. However, this book falls quite short in its ability to actually help Catholics bring people the Good News about Jesus Christ.

There are two major problems with "From Maintenance to Mission":

1) It ostensibly attempts to take a "non-partisan" view of the divide within the Church today, yet ends up equating positions that reject the Church's teachings with those that support it. Fr. Rivers tries so hard to appear non-partisan about the divide , but it is clear where his sympathies lie. For example, in the first chapter he uses the tired and inaccurate terms "conservative" and "liberal" to explain the divide within the post-Vatican II Catholic Church, which often ends up equating heretical and orthodox beliefs. In his example of this divide, he speaks of a "Midwestern diocese" in which the "conservative bishop had staked out a clear ideological path". This led to people feeling "alienated, angry, and betrayed". He does not give a similar example of such problems in the other direction. This in spite of the fact that there have been entire dioceses decimated by bishops rejecting the Church's teachings and attempting to become just like the culture around them.

2) It does not sufficiently prioritize an encounter with the person of Jesus Christ as the central focus of evangelization, instead often emphasizing structural and social justice themes. I am personally familiar with one of the parishes he lauds as an evangelizing parish in the book, and this parish is consumed with activities and social justice work, while diminishing the importance of embracing Church teaching in one's life and being personally transformed by Jesus Christ.

Recent history has shown that watering down the Gospel does nothing to further its reach. It is only through dynamic orthodoxy that the Church's message of salvation is powerfully preached, and people are evangelized. Fr. Rivers' attempts to diminish the important of preaching the whole Gospel - even those aspects that are difficult for moderns to accept or even understand - does not help in the work of evangelization. I would recommend passing on this book if you are serious about evangelization in the Church and the world.

This book helped me to define all the mistakes we make in ministry and how to keep the staff and parish community focused and positive as it reaches out to fulfill its mission.
Great book.

Terrific book which tells it like it is in a non-judgemental style. It gives parishes a goal to work toward so that the routine "irritations" become secondary to the real mission of the Church.

There is very little in print about Jansenism in the English language. This book probably serves as a tentative introduction to the subject. St. Augustine, the foremost doctor of the Catholic church, has always vexed the Catholic church with his more extreme views on the fallenness of the human will and predestination. Jansenism could be seen as a reappropriation of some of Augustine's "unorthodox" views in the 16 and 1700s. The Jansenists are portrayed here as having a gloomy religion for the select few. Therefore the Catholic church and the Jesuits, in particular, had to crush them. To the point of razing their most famous monastery to the ground.
If you believe the Church has remained faithful to Augustine then read Henri de Lubac as he goes to great lengths in "Modern Augustinianism" to debunk the notion that Jansenius was a faithful interpreter of Augustine.

After reading G. Stucco "mr. Guido"'s excellent review, I will only add that, in my opinion, this work (or more precisely, its first part) achieves something pretty difficult : to provide a sociological explanation of the reasons why a theological doctrine (augustinism/calvinism/jansenism) was dropped in favour of another one (semi-pelagianism). Its second part is a lucid sketch of Pascal's thought. And all that without being dry but interesting. To some extent, it reminds me of "The fear of freedom" by Erich Fromm and "The social thought of Bernard Mandeville" by Thomas Horne. Therefore, my rating is between 5 (content) and 4 (pleasure, sometimes falling to 3, sometimes raising to 5).

Besides, I think that anyone looking for a critique from a theological point of view will fruitfully read an article available in [...] which was written by the end of 1995 by Avery Dulles (elevated to cardinal of the Catholic church in 2001, author of "A History of Apologetics").

The title refers to the Augustinian-Jansenist view according to which human beings are absolutely incapable, through their efforts unaided by grace, to please God and to rightfully expect his mercy. The book consists of two parts: the first part focuses on the five Jansenist propositions that were condemned by the Church; the second part deals with Pascal's "sad religion," and its overly theocentric mentality (to shed tears for the death of on'e loved ones and to laugh are unorthy of a Christian).
The main points the author makes are:
* Jansenius correctly interpreted Augustine's theology of grace. Anybody who says otherwise is in bad faith. (Has anybody gotten a chance to peruse Jansenius's opus magnus, Augustinus? I have! There are HUNDREDS of quotations from Augustine's work: anybody who rejects Jansenius' understanding of Augustine OWES a major production of eveidence to that effect!)
* The Church rightly condemned Jansenius. It had to, in order to survive and avoid holing itself up or to go out of the socio-cultural scene as an obsolete phenomenon. The alternative would have been to turn into a little sect of saints (a la Amish), unable to influence the world at large and to become a cultural oddity. The author concludes that the Church loses out when it lives with a besieged fortress mentality. The all-or nothing mentality is a recipe for disaster.
* The Church therefore rightly condemned some Augustinian theological views.
* The Church began to de-Augustinize itself. "It was a momentous event in the history of the Church when it exploited this occasion, adopting practically the Jesuit (or semi-Pelagian) doctrine in the crucial questions of original sin, grace and predestination, and thereby breaking -tacitly, needless to say - with a very important part of its theological heritage and shaping its teaching accordingly." (p. 31)

I found Bishop Foster's book while searching Las Vegas wedding sites. Her unique frame of reference of her many weddings performed in Las Vegas was as touching as it was humorous. My fiance and I planned our wedding using some of the information from the wedding ceremonies in the back of the book. It was a most beautiful day! I highly recommend Bishop Foster's unique "Chicken soup" type of book to those who think that Las Vegas is only "smoke and mirrors."

while performing a wedding, then get this book. I thought it would be a sort of guidebook to wedding chapels in Las Vegas. I skimmed thru the book only to find that it is merly just a diary of a Las Vegas officiant. Information on 'Getting married in Las Vegas' is buried somewhere within the stories of the various weddings that Bishop Foster has performed. I have never been to Las Vegas, and am planning a wedding there, I did *not* find this book of any help whatsoever.
There are 8 scripts for wedding ceremonies, all 8 have references to 'god', and since I was not blessed with the belief in 'god' I found the scripts to be of no use. Even the 'Ceremony of Union' had references to 'god'...a bit hypocritical in my opinion.
I suppose if you had married long ago in Las Vegas, or are a sentimental type you would like this book. For me, with a busy schedule, I don't have time to actually sit down and 'read' a book thoroughly to search out the tips that are included. If I was given the book as a gift I would probably read it....then sell it here.

This is a wonderful book that you will find yourself chuckling through. One is transported to all the little inside ways and wonders of Vegas wedding Chapels. From the hilarious to the unbelievable right up to incredibly beautiful ceremonies listed in the back,this book covers it all. A real treat ! I can't wait to read more of this author!

As the book title implies, the text is truly geared toward the small business. I found that the ideas were most applicable to the more common small businesses (e.g. restaurants, insurance agencies, etc.) than mine (engineering consulting). However, the book still had some unique suggestions that I had not thought of. Overall, worth reading.

I just opened a business and this is the third book I've bought on how to market my business. The other two had a few good ideas, but nothing like this one. This book has a wide range of ideas on how to market your business and some of them you can even make money while you're doing it. I'm recommending this book to a couple of friend who are going into business together after the first of the year.

I have reviewed a lot of books over the last several years and considering that I also own a small business, I am always interested in new marketing books that come out and promise new strategies. Most of them just make me yawn. They usually rehash old material from other books and don't have any thing new. This book promises unique ideas and it delivers!

The stories at the beginning of each chapter are very entertaining and I could relate to several of them, but what really impressed me is the amount of material about ideas I have never heard of or read about any where before.

Who would have thought that you can get free yellow page ads, or get paid to promote a business on TV or radio, get free ads in national magazines, license a celebrity to promote a business, get labor unions to send their members to a business, start a 3rd party association that will refer business or send out direct mail for free. These are all ideas I have never seen in any other marketing book.

Then to top it off, the Bishop's are giving away a free small business. WOW!! Do they know how to promote or what? They get my vote for marketers of the year.