Godlust: Facing the Demonic, Embracing the Divine

Rating:
Summary: It helps
Review: Basically, I've been trying to read books these past two weeks that can help me understand what makes us so willing to kill others. I'm referring, of course, to what happened on September 11th, but also to mankind's history of war and murder and cruelty. Godlust goes a long way explaining why we do the things we do. Even better, it offers strategies for breaking out of the cycle of violence.

Rating:
Summary: Marvelous expose on truth, goodness, and beauty
Review: Finally someone has written the book that brings the Bible alive by explaining through the life of King Herod the age-old struggle of good and evil, truth and lie, beauty (wholeness) and our shattered, fallen nature. This book is for the intellectual seeker who longs to see the face of God and understand why the world is what it is. As an author, I've perused its pages more than once, recommended it to fellow writers, and even quoted it in a book on loss (Dare to Trust, Dare to Hope Again--Living With Losses of the Heart--Fall 2001 release) that I just finished writing. Godlust deserves to be on the bookshelf of every pastor, priest, and theology professor and in the hands of all who seek the Truth. It gave me a clearer view not only of the Creator but of life's losses and why people do what they do.

Rating:
Summary: Clean up your life
Review: When I first read the subtitle, I thought this was going to be another one of those crazy fundamentalist books about demons and exorcism. Wrong. The "demonic" is our own psychological drive to imagine that we're God, totally in control of our lives and the final authorities on everything under the sun. Old-fashioned idolatry is the fundamental human sin that holds us back from finding God and finding ourselves. Reading this book helped me see the different ways that I act like God. It's frightening to realize just how infected we all are with "godlust." PS--another reviewer said the book was hard to read in places. Yeah, it is. The author doesn't act like we're morons.