The last post was about a book
that combined worldwide nuclear war with faith among the few survivors. It was a bridge of sorts between the 15 books
I read about war and the books I read about faith. In this essay, I will discuss
seven the books I read in 2016 about faith and religion.
The first book on faith I read
this year was the novel Laurus about a Russian healer and mystic. We follow
Laurus from his apprenticeship to a healer near the end of his life, through
love and loss, to Laurus finding that he is now a healer himself, a greater
healer than his mentor. Then the story takes a long and funny detour. Two
thousand miles away, the son of an Italian merchant comes to believe he must
travel to rural Russia and find this Laurus in order to know when the end of
the world will be. The Italian goes to
Russia, takes Laurus on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and the tale takes even
stranger twists from there. Laurus is a great story, and a picture of the
harrowing reality of a truly spiritual life.
Which led me to re-read Letters toMalcolm: Chiefly on Prayer by C.S. Lewis.
Since I first read Mere Christianity in 1977 in Germany, I have read or
re-read at least one of Lewis’ 40 books every year. Reading Laurus made me feel
shallower than a pie plate spiritually and Malcolm pointed right at one of my
weaknesses.
In the fall I read four books for an
ancient Greek language class. They were (1) The Gospel of Mark in Greek in a
recent edition, The Gospel of Mark in English in Richmond Lattimore’s translation,
and two commentaries by Michel Focant and Mary Ann Beavis. In Greek, the words
of Jesus are at once more harsh and more clear than any English translation
could convey. Jesus turned down every
form of power and riches offered Him. He healed and fed the poor. He publically
condemned to rich and powerful.
While I read these unambiguous
words, millionaire TV preachers notably James Dobson and Jerry Falwell, Jr. endorsed
a candidate who brags of sexual conquest, of having riches, power, and fame,
and of having no need of forgiveness—the center of the Christian message. The health and wealth heresy is now
mainstream, the public religion of America.
But you can’t find a word of that in Gospels.
On Wednesday night, I help out
with an English as a Second Language (ESL) ministry at my Church. In one class I asked the students about
studying their Holy Books. One of the
students was from India, one from Ethiopia, one from Afghanistan. They each said it was strange that in America
you could “study” the Bible in translation.
In no other religion could someone be considered as studying a Holy Book
if they did not know the language of the Book.
I could tell the students the only
writer of the New Testament who was a native speaker of Greek was Luke. The other
half dozen were GSL (Greek as a Second Language) writers. And all of the words of Jesus were spoken in
Aramaic or Hebrew, so even the Greek New Testament is a translation of the His
words. By the time you read the words of
Jesus in English it has been translated twice: once by the Apostle who heard
Jesus speak and translated His words to Greek, then a second time when the
Greek was translated to English. I had a
co-worker who learned Aramaic before he learned Greek because he wanted to be
able to get a sense of what Jesus said in His language.
The last book in the faith group
is Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse.
This lovely book follows the life of two young men who are novices in a
monastery at the beginning of the story.
One leaves, one stays but their lives remain intertwined until the
prodigal comes home and dies in the arms of his life-long friend. The book really captures the devotion and
drive that leads to a life of faith and how that devotion and drive can be
turned to art. This book is in many ways
unlike Laurus, but alike in the intense, lifelong and sometimes funny spiritual
journey of the main character(s).
The next post will be books on
politics.
