June 2001
Habits of the Mind: Intellectual Life as a Christian Calling
By James W. Sire
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Pages: 263
Price: No price given.
All Christians, Sire maintains, are called by God to be intellectuals in accord with their abilities, circumstances, and states of life. That is, Christians, insofar as they are able, are called by God to think well about matters, especially ultimate matters, to the glory of God. Some Christians, however, are called in a particular way to the intellectual life. These Christian intellectuals are those whom God calls not only to spend their lives thinking well about matters for the glory of God but also for the sake of the intellectual well-being of their fellow Christians. In describing the intellectual vocation, Sire lists and explains some of the virtues and disciplines necessary for the intellectual life. He also discusses those tasks which uniquely belong to the Christian intellectual.
Although Sire’s work is helpful and interesting, it is too eclectic. Sire brings together many citations from intellectuals whom he respects and judges to be wise. The reader, barraged with variegated quotations, will likely put this book down feeling bewildered. For another work on the intellectual life which does not suffer from this impediment, the reader is invited to consult The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, and Methods by Fr. A.G. Sertillanges.
Joyce Kilmer: A Literary Biography
By John Covell
Publisher: Write-Fit Communications
Pages: 163
Price:
This work is both a significant contribution to the area of Kilmer research and an illuminating biography. It is, indeed, the first thorough biography of Joyce Kilmer. Covell does an excellent job in tightly weaving together his informative and detailed text with many selections from Kilmer’s poetry and other works, painting a portrait of Kilmer as a “humorist, historian, playwright — even, fisherman and ditch-digger — but most importantly, a son, husband, and father…and a Catholic.” One might add that Kilmer was a Catholic whose love for the Blessed Sacrament was especially strong, so strong that it was wont to spill over into his conversations and writings.
You May Also Enjoy
A Dull Plodder... Plowing the Sea... Clarifying the "Clarification"... On the Origin of Virtues... Reasonable Grounds... Freighted with Meaning... A Farce of Monumental Proportions... The Endgame... Not Above Informed Criticism... Social Justice: A Trojan Horse
In the state of Baden-Wurttemberg in southern Germany, Muslims who request citizenship must affirm their loyalty to gay rights and topless beaches.
Atheism is a recent and distinctively Western phenomenon; no other culture has manifested such a widespread public rejection of the divine.