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Title: Long Journey Home: A Guide to Your Search for the Meaning of Life by Os Guinness ISBN: 1-57856-418-2 Publisher: WaterBrook Press Pub. Date: 18 September, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.57 (7 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Help for the seeker mixed in with Christian apologetics
Comment: Os Guinness states in the introductory chapters of this book that it is written "for those who are asking enduring questions" such as "How do we unriddle the mystery of life and make the most of it?" Or "What does it mean to find ourselves guests on a tiny, spinning blue ball in a vast universe?" He endeavors to guide the seeker through four stages in the quest for meaning: A Time For Questions, A Time For Answers, A Time For Evidence, and A Time For Commitment. These four stages also make up the four section of the book.
He does a decent job of telling how others have made the journey through skepticism to faith, and of explaining the process and the potential rewards and dangers. He is great at dropping the memorable quote or anecdote to illustrate a point. He is obviously quite widely read but I sometimes wondered how deep his knowledge goes.
Unfortunately, the book was not all that I had hoped it would be. I was looking forward to an objective look at the process of being a "seeker." While the book does explain that process it became quickly apparent that the author also had another objective--to steer the seeker towards a particular "meaning of life," that of the Christian faith.
At the beginning of Part Two, Guinness states that there are three leading families of faith in the modern world: the Eastern family (including Hinduism, Buddhism and New Age), the Western family (including naturalism, atheism and secular humanism), and the Biblical family (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). He then writes a chapter on each of the families in which he "endeavored to portray them straightforwardly and accurately."
I found the chapter on eastern faith (Buddhism & Hinduism) to be woefully inadequate. The author's childhood in China and his studies under a Hindu guru (length of time studying not mentioned) are trotted out as if they make him an authority on eastern religion. However, he only gives a cursory and in my opinion inaccurate picture of Buddhism and Hinduism today.
The same can be said for his chapter on secular humanism. He highlights two writers, Bertrand Russell and Albert Camus, as the archetypal secular humanists. Both Russell and Camus were relatively bleak about mankind's future, so Guinness paints secularism as a pessimistic philosophy. Apparently for him there is no such thing as an optimistic humanist.
He then writes of the biblical family as being that family of faith that most closely mirrors the truth. Note that in this chapter he excludes any discussion of Islam (the second-largest religion in the world behind Christianity). The rest of the book (Parts Three & Four) is basically Christian apologetics. Not that there is anything wrong with apologetics, but I feel that some people will be mislead into buying this book because they think it may be an impartial guide in their search for meaning. Nowhere on the jacket or in the introduction is it stated that this book is meant to be a guide towards Christianity.
That being said, "Long Journey Home" is still a good book that asks penetrating questions and offers some useful insights for the seeker who needs some direction for starting his or her quest.
Rating: 5
Summary: Thoughtful, Knowledgeable Guide To The Search
Comment: The search for the meaning of life--now talk about a topic for a book.
Guinness knows what he's writing about. Not just his search for the meaning to life, but in his search his reading of philosophy, literature, art and biography and other seekers is included herein.
This is profound and chock full of wonderful, deep statements of seekers.
He carefully, philosophically goes through each step of seeking. His background of being born in Buddhist China to his time with Hinduism, then his education under classical secular humanism at Oxford well qualify him as such a guide.
Just one salinet quote from this marvelous read is: "The secret of the search is not our 'great ascent' but 'the great descent'--of God toward us. Instead of the seeker finding love, love seeks out the seeker."
Highly recommended for thoughtful seekers, to be given ones we know and for those of us whom God has already sought out and now on the way to serve Him eternally.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Journey Worth Making
Comment: This book is a very fine distillation of wisdom applied to the "big questions" of life's meaning and purpose. Os Guinness takes the reader on a tour of how the world's major religions and some of its greatest thinkers have wrestled with questions of ultimate significance. How does death and human suffering affect our sense of hope and longing for purpose and meaning for our lives? What is the place of gratitude for life's goodness? What principles are worth living and dying for? There are no prepackaged answers to these questions, of course. But whether or not we are to believe there is an answer and what road we take to lead us there are crucial steps in the journey upon which we are all embarked. Whether we conscious of it or not, life is taking us somewhere. When we get to the end, will we look back on our journey with satisfaction and fulfillment or with a sense of shame and loss? For those who feel that an unexamined life is not worth living, this book is provides much to consider. Philosophy and Religion are not an intellectual game we can play with detachment and control over the outcome. The questions are bigger than we are and the Answer must be bigger still. The implications of the search for your life's meaning, if you follow it honestly enough, will end up handling you rather than you handling them. Are you ready? Then read on...
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Title: The Call : Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life by OS Guinness ISBN: 0849944376 Publisher: W Publishing Group Pub. Date: 09 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.99 |
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Title: Rising To The Call by OS Guinness ISBN: 0849917832 Publisher: W Publishing Group Pub. Date: 16 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $9.99 |
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Title: Time for Truth: Living Free in a World of Lies, Hype, and Spin by OS Guinness ISBN: 0801064031 Publisher: Baker Books Pub. Date: 01 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $10.99 |
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Title: Entrepreneurs of Life: Faith and the Venture of Purposeful Living (Trinity Forum Study Series) by OS Guinness, Ginger Koloszyc, Karen Lee-Thorp ISBN: 1576831639 Publisher: Navpress Publishing Group Pub. Date: 01 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Journey: Our Quest for Faith and Meaning (Trinity Forum Study Series) by OS Guinness, Ginger Koloszyc, Karen Lee-Thorp ISBN: 1576831604 Publisher: Navpress Publishing Group Pub. Date: 01 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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