The spinning man

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Roger Y. Clark

"In Stranger Gods Roger Clark offers a study of Salman Rushdie's seven published novels, with a special focus on his earliest, Grimus, and his most powerful and provocative, Midnight's Children, Shame, and The Satanic Verses. Clark shows how Rushdie employs cosmology, mythology, and mysticism to structure otherworldly dramas that are fascinating in their own right, as well as crucial to the more worldly points Rushdie makes about literary tradition, history, ethnicity, and the politics of religion."--BOOK JACKET.

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Michael Novak

Surveying the contemporary religious landscape, the division between atheist and believer seems stark. However, having long struggled to understand the purpose of life and the meaning of suffering, Michael Novak finds the reality of spiritual life far different from the rhetorical war presented by bestselling atheists and the defenders of the faith who oppose them.In No One Sees God, Novak brilliantly recasts the tired debate pitting faith against reason. Both the atheist and the believer experience the same "dark night" in which God's presence seems absent, he argues, and the conflict between faith and doubt stems not from objective differences, but from divergent attitudes toward the unknown. Drawing from his lifelong passion for philosophy and his personal struggles with belief, he shows that, far from being irrational, the spiritual perspective actually provides the most satisfying answers to the eternal questions of meaning. Faith is a challenge at times, but it nonetheless offers the only fully coherent response to the human experience.Ultimately, No One Sees God offers believers and unbelievers the opportunity to find common ground by acknowledging the complicated reality of the human struggle with doubt. Novak provides a stirring defense of the Christian worldview, while sidestepping the shrill tone that so often characterizes the discussion of faith, and given the challenges faced in the present age, all who value liberty will find hope in his new way of conversing.

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Dan Gallagher

Cloning sheep, cattle, and chimps is only the beginning. Using Fossil Gene Redemption (FGR), geneticist Kevin G. Harrigan experiments with genes from a frozen “Ice Man.” His work prompts Iraqi leader Ismail Mon to provide resources for exciting new research that enables Harrigan’s team to regenerate extinct animals and human sub-species from the Ice Ages. But when it is discovered that FGR is also the basis for genetic weapons of mass destruction, United States intelligence and defense leaders must act. The Pleistocene Redemption, radically different from Jurassic Park, deals with two new methods of species regeneration. Will FGR trigger the Resurrection of the Dead? The major religions’ prophecies portend the regeneration of humankind as both physical and spiritual. What physical mechanisms could manifest this new dawn? Might they instead herald the terrifying sunset of humanity? “... Thoroughly compelling. ...The climax, containing one of the finest action sequences in recent fiction, approaches apocalyptic dimensions… . While Michael Crichton’s Jurassic stories were interesting, Gallagher ups the ante dramatically and intellectually.” -- Richard J. Woods, OP, author of Mysticism and Prophecy and fiction works. “… Hard to put down… hauntingly close to real possibilities… terrifying. I truly enjoyed the action, excitement, politics, human drama, all mixed with enough science to make me think that perhaps this could really happen.” -- Scott R. Woodward, Ph.D., geneticist, Brigham Young University  See illustrations & more reviews inside, front pages!

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Daniel J. Harrington

In June 2000, five internationally renowned biblical scholars and one equally well known systematic theologian traveled to Israel with 60 non-academic pilgrims to share their insights on the Jesus of history and the meaning of the "historians' Jesus" for Christian faith. The result is a book that provides a succinct summary of what is currently known about Jesus and his times-his setting in Galilee, his relationship to the Qumran community, his sense of mission as an eschatological prophet and miracle worker, and, finally, the mechanics of how the memories of Jesus's words and deeds circulated among his followers and were passed on in oral performance to be enshrined eventually in the written Synoptic tradition. The book concludes with reflections by Elizabeth Johnson on the relevance of such scholarship for contemporary Christian faith. Rather than a challenge to faith, she sees it as a gift