Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 The Kingdom of God Is Within You (Hardcover) February 8, 2008
This is a great book. Tolstoys brilliant analytical mind hammers home the true meaning of christianity. the hardback version has dozens of typo's though. in fact there is that many it can not have been proof read.
A Book Well Worth Reading June 30, 2006
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
This book is amazing. Tolstoy takes a critical look ant the hypocrisy of society, governments, the Church and the people. It makes you realise that Christianity can be a fantastic thing to believe in, just not the way it is used today. I am not a religious person and after reading this book I understand why.
What makes this book so amazing for me is that more than 100 years after the book was written it is still so relevant to our so called modern society. We have not advanced as people and nations in the past century. We still have the same hopes and fears and we still face wars and killing. Governments still fear their people and still control them with military force.
This book is a must. If people implemented the ideas discussed the world would be a better place.
Read it.
The heart of Tolstoy February 7, 2006
16 out of 16 found this review helpful
This is a book that could change your world. It is the core of Christianity, a faith stripped down to its essential truths - the Sermon on the Mount. This for Tolstoy is a way of life as far removed from 'Churchianity' as you can get, and dangerously radical just like Jesus himself. At its heart is Matthew V, verse 39, and Christ's words "Resist not evil", which led Tolstoy to a belief in absolute non-violence. This is where the Quakers are, as well as the Mennonites in America and the Doukhobors in Canada. This is what turned M K Gandhi's life upside down when he read it. It remains a powerful influence and holds a central place in the literature of pacifism. It is tough going, and this edition does contain the odd literal, but you won't be able to put it down. If more people read it and convert to its view, the world will be a more peaceful place. Order it now.
Philosophy and life, Tolstoy interprets Jesus teaching December 16, 2005
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Authors come and authors go, occasionally one will stick in the public conscience, influence humanity and be hailed as a genius. Tolstoy is obviously one of these giants. War and Peace has assumed a mythical place as the book most people have heard of and very few have read, or at least finished. Tolstoy himself turned his back on this novel but one of the books he counted as having great merit was this harmonisation of the Gospels. Evangelical it is not, even the humanist classics have published a translation, but Tolstoy endeavours to synthesise the ethical teaching of Jesus as presented by the evangelists. Many can argue over his success in achieving this, the exclusion of miracles and his decision to stick only to the ethical strand of the Gospels sticks in the gullet of many sincere Christians but the influence of this small book cannot be doubted.Wittgenstein is arguably the greatest philosopher of the 20th century but his discovery of Tolstoy's “Gospel in Brief” during the First World War had an immense influence on his philosophy so that he became an evangelist of sorts for Tolstoy even being know as “the man with the Gospel”. Here is just one example of the greatness of this small book. It is indeed an idiosyncratic rendition of the Gospels but it contains great wisdom, is beautifully written and deserves to be read over and over by anyone interested in philosophy or even life.
 Tolstoy's non-fiction masterpiece September 19, 2005
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Tolstoy was a devout Christian towards the end of his life, but had no belief in the miraculous. This book is his account of why Christianity is an excellent way of living even without all the miracles, which he says have been put into Christianity by powerful governments and other elites in order to dumb the people down; give them lies to believe in to distract them from what is really happening. Tolstoy was also a pacifist and hated the idea that God or Christ or any religious idea is used to take people into war. Christ was against violence, that is plain to see. Elites use religion to compel men to go to war. That, for Tolstoy is a terrible crime and he addresses these issues and more in this book. His central theme is sound, but as with many 19th century authors, he tends to grind on sometimes, particularly when he's making a point he feels is important. I think this book is a very valuable contribution to thinking about Christianity, even if I don't agree with it all. What is more, his anti-establishment sentiments and rejection of the miraculous events in Christianity as lies establish Tolstoy within the circle of 19th century anarchist thinkers, some claim. He never calls himself an anarchist, but certainly there are similar overtones to his work. This book is interesting from this perspective since 19th century anarchists are generally atheists. Tolstoy's political views coupled with his religious ones make for an interesting comparison.
|
