Saturday, October 18, 1997

Religion in the media: a look at recent books and magazines

The Dallas Morning News

BOOKS

"Cracking the Bible Code," by Jeffrey Satinover (William Morrow and Co., $23). This book is not to be confused with the best-selling and much-critiqued book by Michael Drosnin, "The Bible Code." Satinover says he has written the "true and full account" of scientific research that claims to find clusters of words referring to world-shaking events encoded in the first five books of the Bible. He tells the story of how the work of scholars, scientists and religious leaders came together to produce the code - and a resulting furor. In sometimes overly dramatic but basically readable prose, the author guides readers through the "most important scientific research ever undertaken," describing the personalities and events that have shaped the Bible code story. -Deborah Kovach Caldwell

"The Book of Mechtilde," by Anna Ruth Henriques (Alfred A. Knopf, $35). With gorgeous golden paintings and a lovely text, the author weaves together the story of her mother's life and death from breast cancer. Henriques, a Jamaican artist, worked for seven years on the book to help her grieve, and also to celebrate her mother's life. Parts of the work are based on the text of the Book of Job. Other parts consist of original poems. The text is set off by paintings encircled with calligraphy and set in a gold border of flowers, fruit and symbolic creatures. The best parts are the beginning and the end. The beginning tells the story - simply - of how she came to start her book as she sat up late one night at her grandparents' house. The poetry at the end, some of it quite moving, focuses on her mother's death. The part of the book based on the Book of Job is less interesting and at times irritatingly formulaic. -Deborah Kovach Caldwell

MAGAZINES

Yoga Journal (October) interviews comparative religion scholar Huston Smith. At age 76, the son of Methodist missionaries recently returned to his religious roots: "I have been approaching Christianity this time as if it were a foreign religion like the others I encountered. ... I'm finding that in its depths - St. Augustine, Dionysius, Meister Eckhart, not the third-grade Christianity one hears from most pulpits - this new (to me) Christianity is more interesting that that of my childhood." -Robert Plocheck

Tricycle (fall), the Buddhist review, has a special issue on "The Great Matter of Life and Death." Contributing editor Rick Fields, who has lung cancer, says, "May this sickness I have help me to take on the sickness of all other people who are suffering in the same way so that they are free from their suffering." By doing this, he says, "You attack your self-pity and your egotism and that basic question that arises when we get sick: 'Why me?' " In another feature, several Buddhists are asked how they want to die. A common thread is: "I would like to die knowing I am dying." -Robert Plocheck

Civil War Times (October) recounts the service of Roman Catholic nuns as nurses. The article begins at the 1863 battle over Galveston where a Confederate soldier recounts his amazement: "Look at those women. What are they doing down there? They'll get killed." Writer Michael F. Fitzpatrick says such courage was respected on both sides of the struggle as "Sisters of Mercy" passed back and forth across battle lines. But not without opposition. Many of the nuns were Irish and German, and nativist prejudice is noted in a quotation from Walt Whitman. The poet, a volunteer nurse himself, said the nuns would not make good nurses "among these home-born American young men." -Robert Plocheck

REVIEWER'S CHOICE

"Transformed by Truth," by Joseph Tkach (Multnomah Publishers Inc. $19.99). This new book tells the story of the transformation in the past few years of the Worldwide Church of God, from an idiosyncratic sect to a mainstream evangelical Christian church. The group, which has never had more than 127,000 members, has been well-known since the 1930s to Americans.

Many have heard of The Plain Truth magazine and "The World Tomorrow" radio and television programs broadcast by father and son founders Herbert and Garner Ted Armstrong. After Herbert Armstrong died in 1986, the group's leadership was turned over to the author's father, Joseph Tkach Sr., who began reviewing church teachings. He was increasingly uncomfortable with many of the sect's teachings: denouncing Roman Catholics as "the whore of Babylon" and Protestants as her harlot daughters; requiring a 30 percent tithe; prohibiting Easter and Christmas celebrations; and obsession with end-times prophecy.

On Christmas 1994, he preached a sermon detailing sweeping changes. Soon after, he died. His son took over the church two years ago and has continued its progression to evangelical Christianity.

His book describes his own spiritual transformation and the painful price of change: His mother's health problems were exacerbated by a nervous breakdown at a time when the church taught that physicians were agents of Satan; stress contributed to his father's death from cancer; his sister has joined one of the splinter groups.

Meanwhile, the church's flagship college, Ambassador University in Big Sandy, Texas, closed last summer, in large part because church membership dropped by more than half and finances dropped by even more.

Tkach has written an absorbing, honest story about a fascinating chapter in Christian history. -Deborah Kovach Caldwell

(Writers are staff members of The Dallas Morning News. Write to them in care of: the Religion Section, Dallas Morning News, Communications Center, P.O. Box 655237, Dallas, Texas 75265.)

(c) 1997, The Dallas Morning News.

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