MysteriousFaith

Top 10 Books of 2005

Flyboys: A Story of True Courage by James Bradley

This book is a stunning read about the Pacific theater in WWII as told through the eyes of aviators – bombers specifically – who fought in it. In setting the stage for what is ultimately a gruesome story filled with savagery, Bradley manages to remind Americans of their own atrocities in the Philippines under Teddy Roosevelt and then presents the heinous acts of the Japanese during WWII. This approach allows his populist approach towards the rightful sensibilities of most people concerning WWII history to commemorate something we need to be reminded of (the oft mentioned soldiers who sacrifice for our freedoms) with something we dislike being reminded of (our own mistakes as a country, typically those built on the backs of some noble concept of supposed freedom of an oppressed people). The majority of the book is the story of the aviators who crashed and were captured by the Japanese. They all died at the hands of the Japanese – beheaded, and many were eaten. This is a tragedy that Bradley manages to properly set in its historical context, including an understanding of how the Japanese culture developed to a point where these types of atrocities were possible.

Jesus and Buddha: the Parallel Sayings by Marcus Borg

For me, continuing to struggle with the implications of this book is part of me giving voice to deeper doubts about the both the uniqueness of the orthodoxy of Christianity and the reformation its adherents can uniquely claim. To take seriously the enormous parallels between the teachings of Buddha and of Christ in a single swipe belays the theological obstructions thrown up by those who would have us believe both religions argue for different things. To allow the religions to speak on their own, particularly those parts of each tradition that are mystical in nature, is to see the incredible similarities. I loved this book for its insights, its comparisons, but most importantly because I see in it my need to focus on the teachings of transcendent beauty and not the questions of orthodoxy. One holds the promise of incredible change, the other brittle dogmatism. I highly recommend this book, but most importantly I heartily recommend the change in perspective that comes from studiously engaging other belief systems and allowing them to speak on their own, not to speak for them based on our own presuppositions.

A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality by Ken Wilber

I see more truth illuminated in Wilber’s work than I have found in any attempt to make one faith tradition encompass all truth. The beginning statement that all of his work is predicated on is that some truth exists in any philosophy and tradition, and that when we realize this, we can take a significant step towards meaningful integration of any and all truth, regardless of the culture it comes from. What I absolutely love in Wilber’s writing is his belief that our objective should be to look for truth in whatever form it takes and from whatever tradition it comes from; the result of this is his famed “integral” approach. There are implications to this approach, namely that statements that can not be proven can not be incorporated into this framework (they are the myths he argues should have brackets put around them). I find his analysis able to incorporate truth on truth’s own stage, not on a manufactured stage of a particular belief system whose foundation is built on un-testable truth claims. Wilber’s integral model may be the compelling vision for humanity. Pick up this book and begin bathing in Wilber’s wisdom.

The Marriage of Sense and Soul: Integrating Religion and Science by Ken Wilber

Throughout the year, this book has become increasingly important to me as I have returned to it frequently to remind myself of his treatment of religious myth in particular. Wilber’s writing eloquently captures my thoughts on orthodoxy within all faith traditions. In this book he says that faith traditions, if they are ever to be integrated into the post-modern world, will have to “put brackets around their myths” … which he makes a point of saying does not mean they are not true, simply that they can not be integrated into a post-modern world with primacy (they only serve to differentiate between “us” and “them”) or can be separated from their past of being linked to power: ” … evidence undoes mythology … mythology hides from evidence … and mythology has been a source of oppression … because power, not truth, drives claims that hide from evidence …” This may be my favorite book from Wilber that I have read thus far.

Constantine’s Sword by James Carroll

This book is one of the most profound and eloquently well-written books I have read in the last year. Its emphasis is on the role the Church has played in the history of the Jews. Carroll’s argument is the Church’s theology, doctrine and politics inevitably led to much of the Jewish persecution over the centuries. Carroll’s personal story told through his own spiritual journey and family history makes the history approachable and intelligible. I will return to this book again in the future as its profound eloquence and depth is worthy of many additional readings.

The Closing of the Western Mind: the Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason by Charles Freeman

What are we to give primacy to, reason or faith? Where does the great hope of the world lie: in the life of reason or in the life of faith? Can it be both? If it can be, how are we to decide how far to allow faith to displace reason, or vice versa? Where faith requires us to accept something unethical or immoral as being of God, where do we accommodate the much more sensible idea that these things were simply not of God, and instead the creation of man? If religion can always appeal to the Divine yesterday instead of the human today, how are we to grapple with what is now of God and what is now of man? This is not a new struggle, and is perhaps a struggle seen most easily outside the charged questions posed by faith, and inside the more mundane questions of philosophy. Charles Freeman in his book The Closing of the Western Mind: the Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason begins his analysis with a comparison between Plato and Aristotle:

“In Raphael’s famous Vatican fresco the School of Athens, Aristotle and Plato are shown among the assembled philosophers. Plato’s hand points upwards to the heavens, Aristotle’s down towards the earth. They represent not only themselves but two contrasting approaches in the quest for certainty. For Aristotle, certainty has to be found in this world through the painstaking accumulation of empirical evidence and reasoned deduction from it. It is always subject to reason and challenge through the acquisition of new evidence accumulated by the senses. Outside the world of abstract mathematics and logical syllogisms, knowledge is always provisional. Plato, by contrast, rejects the world of the senses altogether. It holds no real value in comparison to the immaterial world of the Forms, where truth alone resides. The way that these two approaches to certainty were developed in the next centuries and woven into the fabric of Christianity will form a major theme of this book.” (Page 34) .

Freeman is attempting to illustrate that Western Christianity would struggle to balance between its fixation on what its brightest minds held as unknowable ideas in opposition to what the secular world was arguing on the basis of empiricism, reductionism and Enlightenment rationalism. Thomas Aquinas’ comments on the unknowable nature of the Trinity seemed in his day and now to set too few Christian apologists in their place as they attempted in full confidence to argue for the absolute centrality of an idea their best thinkers did not then nor now understand. Can we live a life entirely based on reason? Do we already? If we are honest, do we not base our every decision in life on what reason suggests we should do? Or are we sacrificing too much here? Should we rather embrace faith, believing that only within the mystery of religious teaching can we find those truths that will remake our world and reshape human hearts?

The End of Faith by Sam Harris

I have not resonated with an author as much as Sam Harris for quite some time. A year ago I would have found Sam’s thesis and conclusions deeply troubling. While I need more time spent searching and struggling to digest all of his arguments, I would have to say that he is the first author who fully captures my questions about organized religion and Christianity specifically. Where I love Brian McLaren for his heart, I do not appreciate the logical cliffs he leaves me at. Harris is willing to build bridges to cross those cliffs; regardless of the beliefs we must divest ourselves of in order to do so. Harris argues that religion is at the heart of many of man’s problems and that unless we properly put religion in its place we face a future of suffering and destruction at the hands of religious zealots. I was particularly mentally ready for an author to argue what I have been thinking recently, that religious moderates need to recognize their religious beliefs are not hospitable to pluralism or building a society that can project itself into the future. I can not say that all of Harris’ conclusions or his somewhat one-dimensional view of religion through its extremist groups is the best perspective from which to look; however, Harris’ logic is undeniably critical as it unflinchingly looks at not only the problems of religious literalism, but the intellectually problematic issues with religious moderates.

Also, take the time to read this article by Sam Harris on secular spirituality. It is an important contribution to potential common ground that could be shared between people of religious and secular persuasions.

Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht

Faith and doubt are often seen as antagonists, and certainly in many ways they are; however, the story of doubters through history is a story very similar to that of faith; it is a story of people sacrificing, being reformed, challenging themselves and their world, and even of martyrs. I was personally very intellectually challenged by this book, not so much because of the depth of the arguments presented in the book but more because I see the scope shift between religion and reason across history suggesting that my newly found sense of truth is worth developing further. I was profoundly touched by learning more about the various doubters across time that led important social changes, and used their doubt as a means of doing so.

Thomas Jefferson: Author of America by Christopher Hitchens

As much as I continue to be taken up by the life of Thomas Jefferson, this book was my second exposure to Hitchens’ writing which I find to be eloquent in a form rare in general, but especially to works of historical biography. Coming in at under 200 pages, this biography necessarily limits its analysis of Jefferson’s times to those moments Hitchens believes illustrate the most important parts of his life. These include three activities of Jefferson as President (the Lewis and Clark expedition, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Barbary Wars (the much forgotten negotiation when Jefferson refused to follow the pattern of European powers of the day and engage in blackmail with the Muslim Barbary pirates who took hostages for the slave trade or ransom). Of those parts of Jefferson’s person that Hitchens covers, he returns consistently to three that are worthy of such an eloquent, if brief, treatise: the inner demon that was Jefferson’s position on slavery, the emphasis he put on personal and communal education, and Jefferson’s secularism.

It would do us all well to remember the actual words of our Founding Fathers whose beliefs are attempting to be maligned by the Religious community in America today. Among those words committed to writing that leave little brook for compromise as to Jefferson’s beliefs is a passage from his The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, Extracted Textually from the Gospels (also known as “the Jefferson Bible”):

“While this syllabus is meant to place the character of Jesus in its true and high light, as no imposter himself, but a great reformer of the Hebrew code of religion, it is not to be understood that I am with Him in all His doctrines. I am a Materialist; He takes the side of Spiritualism. He preaches the efficacy of repentance towards forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good words to redeem it … Among the sayings and discourses imputed to Him by His biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality and of the most lovely benevolence; and others, again, of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should proceed from the same Being. I separate, therefore, the gold from the dross; restore to Him the former, and leave the latter to the stupidity of some, and roguery of others of His disciples.” (Pages 181-182)

As Hitchens says, we would do well to remember that public figures many times adopt language not entirely reflective of their personal beliefs out of political expediency and public respect for the beliefs of others, particularly those for whom you hold the responsibility of governing.

Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland

Holland’s book is a really fun to read history of the time when most historians believe the stage was set for the Roman Republic began to fall apart – memorialized in the title of his book and in our collective social mind in the phrase “crossing the Rubicon.” Holland argues that this stage involved citizens having to put their trust in leaders who tore down forms of republican government in order to attain a level of safety and a lack of corruption. Holland articulates why Caesar’s decision to cross the Rubicon was so important and what it represented to the Roman society as a general chose to defy what were essentially his standing orders in the interests of what he thought the right thing to do was. In the hands of certain capable leaders who could be trusted (Caesar, Pompey or Sulla) the loss of certain republican ideals was tolerated in the name of peace and stability.

This is a complication to certain political ideals which hold that power and momentous change should always come at the hands of the people and not one man; however, history often shows that it takes a man who, when measured in the moment, may seem to take liberties with liberty but who, when measured against his ultimate aims and final results, restores that which he rightfully knew was already gone when he ascended to power. We see a very similar situation as Rome saw with Sulla when we look at Vladimir Putin in Russia. Putin is either centralizing power for all the right reasons (he knows his countrymen are not ready for the society to be structured as it was post the fall of Communism), or he is to be very much feared. America may very well face a similar moment when it decides to set aside certain of its ideals in the name of a man who promises safety, security and prosperity but who, in order to deliver these things, fundamentally alters the landscape of freedoms we have enjoyed that far into our collective journey.

previous post: Anne Rice’s Journey Towards Faith
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• December 24, 2005

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