Book Descriptions:

A pursuit of the "quintessence of spirituality." It is in these terms that a foreword by prominent Barbadian historian Trevor Marshall describes this book by his compatriot Junior Campbell. The Bible: Beauty and Terror Reconciled TBBTR combines rigorous biblical and wider historical analysis and research with profound personal soul-searching. Written in the early 1990's, Campbell's critique of the doctrine of the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible certainly predicts the contemporary spiritual renaissance, enunciated by US President Bill Clinton in the 1990's. It also predates Newsweek and Time magazine feature stories on the Jesus Seminar and the Bible Code. Yet Campbell goes further, arguing that ideas he first circulated in the earliest manuscripts of this text may have made a catalytic contribution to these and other international developments in the sphere of religion. Among other things, he cites the submission of one early version of the TBBTR manuscript to American International Publishers (AIP) and the British publishers SCM Press, as possible ways in which his ideas may have triggered significant religious, political and other developments in the UK, US and other critical Christian arena's, well beyond Barbados' shores. The over-ambitious ranting of a delusional, or could this be a reasonable assessment? Readers will judge for themselves. What is clear is Campbell's belief that the ideas he presents in this small text have the capacity to shake the foundations of the Christian faith - or as he put it in one poem "bomb the Vatican." Campbell is no idle iconoclast though. Nor should his efforts be confused with the paranoia-powered arguments of DaVinci Code enthusiasts. Embracing an essentially christocentric faith and world view, what he presents here is a historically justifiable, organic basis for radical Christian reformation - at both the individual and institutional level. Denouncing the pedagogical paedophilia associated with priestcraft and time-wasting theological titillation, Campbell is consumed by his determination to share a vision of "the mystery of Godliness" that can be a part of every person's, everyday experience. Bolstered by precisely such an experience of the divine, for over a quarter of a century himself, above all else, Campbell writes with optimism. He likes to think that contemporary, critical interest in both the Bible's destructive and creative capacities - the beauty and terror within its pages - is a reflection of the success of his project.




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