Thursday, February 09, 2012
Paganism
by Joyce and River Higginbotham
This book is an intro to Paganism, geared towards those seekers who might be wanting to give one of the various practices a try. It's clearly written and well laid out. So well laid out, in fact, that I was able to see right away in the first chapter that I disagreed with paganism's two main themes. I didn't let that stop me from reading the rest of the book, of course. As a Christian, I found the experience to be interesting and, at times, irritating. Given the diversity in paganism, the Higginbothams had to be somewhat generic in their explanations. Even so, I was able to see the differing world view and could better understand the logic behind some pagan practices I had heard of or encountered in the past. The irritating parts were when they tried to touch on Christianity. Their tone is very polite and clement, but I got the sense that they have no use for it. They raised some good points, but there were also times when they were describing a religion other than my own. All in all, I sometimes felt like I was on the receiving end of a sales pitch. (Just toss out that old Christian doctrine and replace them with some bright, new, shiny pagan beliefs!)
Now the question is, how do I rate this book? In the past, I've up-rated some dreck because the book happened to mention that Jesus loves you. In this case, I have a well written book with a message I find quite disagreeable. I guess I'll be nice and tell you to check it out, with the understanding that, should you start to find paganism appealing, you contact me and let me tell you all the arguments I have with this book.
LibraryThing link
This book is an intro to Paganism, geared towards those seekers who might be wanting to give one of the various practices a try. It's clearly written and well laid out. So well laid out, in fact, that I was able to see right away in the first chapter that I disagreed with paganism's two main themes. I didn't let that stop me from reading the rest of the book, of course. As a Christian, I found the experience to be interesting and, at times, irritating. Given the diversity in paganism, the Higginbothams had to be somewhat generic in their explanations. Even so, I was able to see the differing world view and could better understand the logic behind some pagan practices I had heard of or encountered in the past. The irritating parts were when they tried to touch on Christianity. Their tone is very polite and clement, but I got the sense that they have no use for it. They raised some good points, but there were also times when they were describing a religion other than my own. All in all, I sometimes felt like I was on the receiving end of a sales pitch. (Just toss out that old Christian doctrine and replace them with some bright, new, shiny pagan beliefs!)
Now the question is, how do I rate this book? In the past, I've up-rated some dreck because the book happened to mention that Jesus loves you. In this case, I have a well written book with a message I find quite disagreeable. I guess I'll be nice and tell you to check it out, with the understanding that, should you start to find paganism appealing, you contact me and let me tell you all the arguments I have with this book.
LibraryThing link
Labels: CheckItOut
// posted by John @ 7:55 PM 
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