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Interdisciplinary Journal of Reviews

A list of books and reviews presenting an atheistic perspective on the influence of religious beliefs, practices, experiences, and texts on human behavior.

CHRISTIAN COUNSELING & PSYCHOTHERAPY

When Christians seek mental health treatment, many prefer to see a Christian counselor or psychotherapist. This list contains books related to this approach to treatment.

FORGIVENESS and RECONCILIATION

The focus of this collection is on forgiveness and the related concepts of reconciliation and restoration. The reviews include scientific and clinical works, books for general audiences, and true stories that illustrate one or more of the concepts.

PENTECOSTAL STUDIES

Pentecostal and Charismatic types of Christianity represent a major area of growth. This list of reviews includes books authored by researchers studying Pentecostal or Charismatic Christians using quantitative or qualitative methods or discussing theories.

PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY

This list includes reviews of books which are part of a growing body of literature devoted to a way of being Christian that takes the Bible seriously but not literally.

SEX PSYCHOLOGY and RELIGION

This list of books and reviews present religious views on sexuality and sex-related topics, including morality. Different books address topics like abortion, birth control, marriage, same-sex relationships, sexual abuse and rape. Most of these books are from evangelical and progressive Christian perspectives.

Comments

Denial of Death and the Meaningful Life- Book Review

The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker A Review by Geoffrey W. Sutton The prospect of death, Dr. Johnson said, wonderfully concentrates the mind. The main thesis of this book is that it does much more than that: the idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity—activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny for man. — Ernest Becker, xvii I completed a recent reading of this old classic yesterday (13 December, 2015) because I was interested in Becker’s contribution to Terror Management Theory, which I find so helpful in understanding the ways U.S. leaders are publicly responding to terrorist activities. Becker’s ideas are more than forty years old and many have not withstood the test of time. However, his basic premise that we deny the reality of death in many ways remains valid

JESUS AND JOHN WAYNE - A book review

JESUS AND JOHN WAYNE How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation By Kristin Kobes Du Mez Reviewed by Geoffrey W. Sutton Kristin Kobes Du Mez begins and ends her assault on militaristic white American evangelical men with their contemporary sociopolitical leader, former president, Donald Trump. In the Introduction we learn the short doctrinal list of what it means to be a Bible-believing evangelical, but the author posits that American evangelicals are more than a set of theological statements. Instead, since the early 1900s they have embraced a John Wayne view of what it means to be a Christian man—a powerful warrior for country and God—a man who leads his troops into battle to uphold the values of God’s chosen people, the Americans. It was the title, Jesus and John Wayne , that was off-putting. I didn’t grow up with John Wayne films or a love of American westerns. I was after all British and even after living in America, we

WILLPOWER Setting & Reaching Goals- Book Review by Sutton

WILLPOWER Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength By Roy Baumeister & John Tierney Reviewed by Geoffrey W. Sutton I go to a gym, which is crowded in January. Regulars know the early Happy-New-Year commitments to fitness will weaken sometime in February. Roy Baumeister has spent a good part of his career studying self-control. His book, Willpower written with Tierney, entertains and informs us with an organized set of findings explaining factors that influence self-control. Two critical factors weaken our judgments: food and sleep. We need glucose and sleep to be at our best when it comes to making wise decisions and marking progress toward our goals. A pretty woman can loosen a man’s grip on his career--we hear these news stories from time to time as one political group takes aim at each other's leaders--men who failed at sexual self-control and sadly blame women for their lack of self-control. Fat shaming happens. T

Interdisciplinary Book and Film Reviews

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