Five Summer Beach Reads . . .In Religion?

When I was at the beach last week (wonderful!), I did a taped radio interview with Interfaith Voices on religion beach reads.  Not sure there really is such a thing, but I tried to choose five spring and summer religion books that were entertaining as well as informative.  The interview was carried on radio stations this past week but apparently can still be heard at the show's website.   (My own beach reads last week were 2 YA novels, lots of home improvement magazines, and Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union, but I haven't gotten very far with that yet. I guess I go on vacation to get away from religion books.)

The lone novel was Anne Rice's Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, which as I've blogged before marks a huge step up from the debut novel in this series.  It's as though she is now able to step away from the extensive research she has done on the life of Jesus, and can let her imagination take flight.  The story does what the best historical fiction aims to accomplish: to make the people of the past just as complex, just as frail and human, as anyone we know today.  All writers of historical fiction seem to believe they do this, but so few actually manage it that sometimes I despair of the whole genre.  Biblical fiction is especially susceptible to wooden and stilted characterizations, as authors bend over backwards not to offend.  Kudos to Rice for breaking the mold.  I am looking forward to her fall memoir Called Out of Darkness about her reconversion to Catholicism, which should give some background to her decision to write only religious novels.  (Although anyone who thinks her earlier horror novels weren't also deeply religious is not reading them very carefully.)

I also recommended a funny and surprisingly engaging biblical studies book The Uncensored Bible: The Bawdy and Naughty Bits of the Good Book.  I never thought I would see a book successfully cross biblical studies with bathroom humor.  Scatology meets eschatology?  Whatever it is, it's quirky and unusual and actually very well-reasoned.  These chapters delve into both 1) the stories your Sunday School teacher hastily glossed over or liked to pretend weren't there, or 2) the stories you spent quite a bit of time on but never looked at in quiiiiiiite this way.  (The first chapter, which makes a linguistic argument for Eve being created from . . . wait for it! . . .Adam's missing penis bone is just the opening salvo.)  This book concentrates on the OT, so here's hoping for an NT sequel in the future.  I can only imagine what these authors will do with Paul's declaration that he counts everything as skubala save knowing Jesus as Lord.

Summer at the beach is often a time when people are thinking more consciously (or self-consciously) about bodies and sexuality. So pick 3 is Donna Freitas's new Oxford book Sex and the Soul, which looks at the disconnect between college students' spiritual beliefs and their sexual behavior, and the loneliness that often accompanies their choices.  I am moderating a panel at Sunstone in August where Donna is speaking, and we are so thrilled to have her coming.  The book is based on extensive, fascinating interviews.  (On a personal note --after reading it, I decided that the medieval chastity belt needs to be revived pretty soon here, as my 9-year-old is coming up on those scary puberty years.  Apparently these can now be purchased at lockmeup.com.  Awesome! Or, uh, bizarre  Who ARE these people?)

The other body-related book is Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: Body, a collection of essays on different aspects of the body.  I was especially interested in the tattoo section.  There are so many strong feelings about tattoos in the Jewish community, partly based on levitical proscriptions, partly based on Holocaust memories, and of course partly based in cultural and social norms.

And finally, I very much liked Tony Jones's book The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier.  In my mind it is the best introduction so far to the Emergent movement, mostly because it is written by an insider who has been with the movement since the beginning. Here's a link to the PW review, which I did not write, but with which I wholeheartedly agree.   One of the best aspects of the book is that it is grounded not just in theological discussions (which are generally very well argued -- check out his startling and wonderful idea of the church as a wiki!) but also in concrete Emergent communities.  I read this book on a plane to Kansas City, and was intrigued to learn of a vibrant Emergent church there.  I wish I had had time to visit it.  (Incidentally, Martin Marty was also on my flight, just by coincidence, and while we were riding together from the airport into town I told him a little bit about the book.  He seemed very interested in some of the questions raised by Emergent folks.  Please, someone, when I am eighty, will you make sure that I am still as intellectually curious and excited about new ideas as Martin Marty?!  Wow. Love him.) 

Back to The New Christians.  My only real complaint about it is one I've lodged at other Emergent fare, most notably Brian McLaren's A Generous Orthodoxy: these guys have got to stop shadowboxing so much.  At times they come out swinging, and at other times (like in the first 30 or so pages of McLaren!) they apologize all over themselves for not being sufficient experts in theological questions.  I know the Emergent folks receive an obscene amount of criticism--Emergent has even been added to some cult watch organizations as a dangerous religious movement that's out to snatch the bread of life from our children's very mouths, etc.  But I don't read books by Emergent folks to watch them fence their opponents; I read them because I love their new wine in old wineskins.  As Jones says, the gospel is simply too beautiful not to be true.  Let's have more of that.

Incidentally, Tony Jones has a terrific blog here. I am amazed by these folks who blog so often.  How do they find the time?  He is a very talented writer.