LITERARY SPIRIT \ Religion in the media

"The Just War and Jihad," R. Joseph Hoffman, editor (Prometheus Books, 303 pages, $29) These essays arose from a 2004 meeting of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion. As in many such collections the quality is uneven. The best of the essays are thought-provoking and will challenge committed followers of any faith. All the essays regard religion as responsible directly or indirectly for violence, and to varying degrees they take religious leaders to task for promulgating stances that lead to violence. Most of the essays recognize religion as an inevitable part of human society, although some rather naively suggest that humanity without religion would be better off. Virtually all stress that aspects of religion, such as belief in abstract ideas and ideals, granting authority to ancient texts, or maintaining hierarchical power structures, lead inevitably to either initiating or rationalizing violence.
"The Courage the Heart Desires," Kathleen Fischer (Jossey-Bass, 192 pages, $19.95) She heard it time and again in conversations with clients in her Christian counseling practice and with family and friends: Joy over life's possibilities was being smothered by anxieties large and small. Kathleen Fischer's answer to all that angst was this book -- a look at how to find inner peace. She starts by showing how fear functions in our daily lives to keep us downtrodden and devoid of hope. Next, she offers different methods of prayer and meditation, and advice on ways to nurture love and hope.
"Kingdom Coming," Michelle Goldberg (Norton, 224 pages, $23.95) Michelle Goldberg, who is a fervid combatant on the progressive side in the culture war, is on a mission to defeat Christian nationalists. Goldberg serves up a secular version of the Apocalypse: Christian nationalists are like Nazis and like Iranian fundamentalists -- never mind the reductionism required to equate Nazis and mullahs -- and all that's needed to trigger the Christian takeover is a hurricane or terrorist event or economic crash. Goldberg's work is a superb specimen of culture war writing, replete with marching orders to dismantle the Electoral College, develop grass-roots organizations to fight Christian nationalists, and wage media campaigns to alert people to the nationalists' agenda.
"Secrets in the Dark" by Frederick Buechner (HarperSanFrancisco, 320 pages, $24.95) Frederick Buechner is a Presbyterian minister who has written more than 30 books of fiction and nonfiction. He has not served as a regular minister since 1967, but has been invited into pulpits across the English-speaking world. This book contains sermons culled from previous collections. It also includes several previously unpublished sermons, as well as five pieces that were originally talks for academic occasions or chapters in other books. For the uninitiated, this volume is the perfect entree to Buechner's writing. He eloquently explores the beauty of language, the joy and pain of being human, the darkness found in human experience and the Bible, and the hope of the Gospel. He has the rare gift of taking a familiar biblical text and helping us to see it and our own lives in a completely new way. His use of the Parable of the Talents from Matthew 25 is brilliant in "Adolescence and the Stewardship of Pain." Buechner understands and speaks to the ambivalence and paradox of living. We seek to go away but long for home. We wander and forget God. But God remembers us. We are incomplete until we remember God. This world lacks grace, but God's grace breaks forth in the most serendipitous of moments. Buechner helps us open our eyes, ears and hearts to see the world and God in it. He teaches us to delight in the mysteriousness of truth.
Parabola (Magazine; summer) Drawing back from the pursuit of distracting desires is necessary if we are to find "a life we could value and respect," says editor Lorraine Kisly, as she explains the theme of this issue: absence and longing. Among the articles is one from St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who writes about our grasping for new things and new experiences, which he reasons could actually work. "One would in this way eventually come to God, if only there were time to test all lesser goods in turn." However, the 12th-century monk says, "life is too short." Instead we must accept that "the soul can no more be satisfied by earthly treasures than the hunger of the body can be satisfied by air."
In "Loneliness and Presence," Thomas Berry asks us to ponder how lonely our existence would be without the other creatures of our environment. He quotes Dostoevsky from "The Brothers Karamazov"; "Love the animals. God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. ... Do not harm them, don't deprive them of their happiness, don't work against God's intent." By encountering the wild, Berry says, there is a "process of communion" that belongs to the realm of the spirit.
"The Collar," Jonathan Englert (Houghton Mifflin, 320 pages, $25.95) Balanced treatments of the church and Roman Catholicism in particular can be difficult to find. As sociologist Philip Jenkins observes, anti-Catholicism remains among the last acceptable prejudices in our society. Recent scandals in the priesthood have further exacerbated the situation. Jonathan Englert's deft and balanced treatment of life in a Catholic seminary is, for that reason, a welcome window into the world where the church's clergy are prepared. More story than analysis, Englert follows five men through their experience of enrolling in seminary and preparing for the priesthood. In this way Englert captures the lived details of the experience in a way that statistics never will.
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