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The Money Cult By Chris Lehmann-A Review
Make room on your bookshelf next to Jeff Sharlet’s The Family and C Street and Kevin Kruse’s One Nation Under God. The Money Cult offers yet another look at the entwined history of American Christianity and capitalism. Rather than the Weberian analysis given by Kruse, Lehmann takes the stance that the underlying foundation of the American Protestant tradition is in fact a Gnostic one, which I found to be fascinating. He traces this back to Puritan times, then begins his history of economic Christianity. He does a very detailed job, including an explanation of Mormonism as the quintessential American religious experience. He does not neglect the modern evangelicals, and indeed the book begins with the popular Joel Osteen. If you are looking for a reason not to view Christianity with a jaundiced eye, this book is not for you. He casts it, at least the American Protestant version, as not so much a spiritual pursuit as a thinly veiled economic and financial system that revolves around profits, power, and the creation of wealth.
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River Road By Carol Goodman-A Review
Everyone has secrets, or so it seems in this novel by Carol Goodman. The main character, a professor who might or might not have a problem with alcohol, struggles to untangle both the web of deceit she finds herself caught up in and he rown knotty personal life. The book begins with a terrible accident, but Nan finds that nothing is what it appears to be. There are so many threads that could be followed in this plot that the novel loses its momentum and fails to follow any one of them successfully. It devolves into a college drug scenario (reefer madness, anyone?), pulls an unbelievable villain out of the blue, and throws in a town and gown romance for good measure. Don’t waste your time reading this one. I give it a firm thumbs down.
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River Road By Carol Goodman-A Review
Everyone has secrets, or so it seems in this novel by Carol Goodman. The main character, a professor who might or might not have a problem with alcohol, struggles to untangle both the web of deceit she finds herself caught up in and he rown knotty personal life. The book begins with a terrible accident, but Nan finds that nothing is what it appears to be. There are so many threads that could be followed in this plot that the novel loses its momentum and fails to follow any one of them successfully. It devolves into a college drug scenario (reefer madness, anyone?), pulls an unbelievable villain out of the blue, and throws in a town and gown romance for good measure. Don’t waste your time reading this one. I give it a firm thumbs down.
