Arjan Plaisier believes audiences who view Shakespeare performances and readers who study the plays deserve better than some of the recent interpretations of the Bards work. In their attempt to be ""modern,"" these interpreters commit historical amnesia by slighting the Christian ethos of the early Renaissance period in which Shakespeare wrote and by riding roughshod over the religious underpinnings of his plays. This neglect skews the playwrights intentions, confuses the audience, and diminishes the full effect of the play. Plaisier, too, is modern--and in a more profound sense. He sets...

As a pastor and Secretary General of the Protestant Church of the Netherlands, Arjan Plaisier has a good observation point to observe the growing secularism of the Western world, including the widespread disenchantment with the church. Whatever the reason for this malaise, the individual without true religion is really standing on the edge of a spiritual abyss; such a life is one without purpose beyond the day-by-day episodes that constitute an amoral jaunt through the world. Thus, the church is the one institution everyone needs to take seriously. It is the institution that most effectively...