Title: Building on Solid Ground:  Authentic Values and How to Attain Them  Author: Thomas D. Williams, L.C.  ISBN: 0-8189-0749-5  Paperback: xiv + 193 pp.  Price: $5.95 + shipping  To Order call:  1 800-343-ALBA (2522)  Please have your Master, Visa  or American Express card ready To order online click here.

Beginning in 1972 with Sydney Simon's book on Values Clarification right up to William Bennett's Book of Virtues and beyond, we have seen a veritable flood of conflicting views on this subject which immediately and profoundly affects us all. Values commonly held contribute not only to personal growth and fulfillment but to the tranquility and stability of the communities in which we live. In a climate where a kind of "institutionalized relativism" reigns, this book argues that some values are really and truly preferable to others, and that some pursuits elevate while others degrade us as individuals and as a society. A practical guide to what authentically contributes to our dignity as human persons with an eternal destiny, this book addresses everything from the source of authentic values to the role of conscience in making moral decisions.

 

Thomas D. Williams, L.C. is a priest of the Legionaries of Christ, a relatively new Roman Catholic Religious Congregation active in family and youth work, schools and universities, the media and Christian charity. Currently the rector of the Legion's General Directorate in Rome, he holds degrees in business administration, philosophy and theology from the University of Michigan, the Pontifical Gregorian University, and the Pontifical Athanaeum Regina Apostolorum respectively.  Reviews "Fr. Williams' book strikes me as being an exceedingly important book. He is squarely in the moral tradition so powerfully articulated for us in our own time by John Paul II, and by C.S. Lewis and Dietrick von Hildebrand. Building on Solid Ground is well written (a rare quality nowadays), but more than that, it carefully opens up the crucial matter of values, step by step. It summons the reader with a bugle-call to authentic Christian living." --Thomas Howard, author of Chance or the Dance and Evangelical is Not Enough  "Building on Solid Ground is a lucid, practical introduction to the good life. It provides an articulate, well-reasoned answer to the bankruptcy of modern relativism and is the perfect antidote to Values Clarification. This very readable book should be especially useful for young people -- college, high school and CCD students." --Paul C. Vitz , New York University Professor of Psychology and author of Psychology as Religion  "Father Williams' style is easy reading, engaging, down-to-earth, practical, with a clarity and wide application to the moral, intellectual and cultural condition of today. I recommend it highly for pastors, parents, teachers and other professionals as the expose of the mentality of modern man. It is light with plenty of substance -- a book not to be overlooked but digested for the mental and personal adjustment of the young. It deserves wide circulation." --Rev. Peter T. MacCarthy in Homiletic and Pastoral Review  Top of Page