Saturday, May 24, 1997

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

The Dallas Morning News

"Who Do You Say That I Am?" by Vivettte Porges, Joshua Simon and Robert Sullivan ($14.95, MacMillan). This is another in a continuing series of religious quote books. The authors - more accurately, the compilers - are editors at Life "magazine. Their question: Who is Jesus? And they took it to a remarkable variety of folks. I can't remember the last time I've read John Cardinal O'Connor and singer Sinead O'Connor on the same topic. And we learn that former major league pitcher Don Quisenberry turned into a religious poet after he retired. The book is illustrated by prints of marvelous religious pictures and photos of interesting sculpture. Not that any of the quotes is anything like a definitive answer to the question, but the variety of approaches makes interesting reading. -Jeffrey Weiss

"Whoredom," by Raymond C. Ortlund Jr. (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, price not listed). Despite the racy title, this book is rated "TB" for highly Technical Biblical analysis. Ortlund examines the issue of fidelity through the Old and New Testaments. His thesis is that marital fidelity is ultimately only a metaphor for fidelity to God and eventually to Jesus. He tracks the use of the marriage metaphor through each section of the Bible, identifying passages (and supplying copious footnotes) to illuminate this theme. Whoredom, in this context, is far more than sexual indiscretions. And it is, Ortlund contends. And it is the very word used - particularly by some of the later prophets and in the New Testament - to rail against those who have fallen away from God. This would be a good bit of work for a pastor who wants to explore this theme in sermons or for someone who is deeply interested in the specifics of Christian theology. -Jeffrey Weiss

MAGAZINES

'Scientific American (May) steps into the euthanasia debate with "Seeking a Better Way to Die" by staff writer John Horgan. He focuses on developing better methods to bring peace to dying - such as expanding hospice care - with emphasis on "comfort rather than cure." The bottom line on the moral debate about physician-assisted suicide goes to Kathleen M. Foley, a pain specialist at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. "Doctors," she says, "don't know enough to kill." -Robert Plocheck

Esquire (May) has a cover story about how "Divorce is Good for You." Senior writer John Taylor asks, "Who has the right to moralize about these choices?" His wife (soon to be ex) counters with "Divorce is Bad for You." She ends her essay: "On the way to the synagogue ... , my daughter asked who had given me the necklace. 'Daddy,' I said. A forlorn expression swept across her face, perhaps at the reminder that we were not a whole family that day. I didn't know what to say. There are no painless solutions." Also in this issue is a profile of Arianna Huffington, who is showing up on "Firing Line" and "Politically Incorrect" as a proponent of traditional values and bringing humor to the discussions. The Rimes family (as in LeAnn) talks about the singing sensation as "a God-given child" in another feature. -Robert Plocheck

Charisma (May) mixes medicine and religion with a profile of Houston's Reginald Cherry, "The Doctor Who Prays." He and his wife, Linda, dispense advice on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Cherry advocates being "open to the fact that (God's) anointing may rest on natural substances. Or it may be on simply supernatural means." Another article considers "When God Doesn't Heal." -Robert Plocheck

REVIEWER'S CHOICE

"The Death of Death", by Neil Gillman (Jewish Lights, $23.95). The Jewish concept of the afterlife is a fuzzy part of most American Jews' theology. The teachings of Reform and Conservative denominations - to which most of them belong - are often vague on the subject. Rabbis preach about a return of the soul to God. And the idea of a Meshiach (literally "anointed one") who will usher in a New Age when the dead shall live again is alluded to. But there have been times in Jewish history, according to the former dean of the rabbinic school at Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary, when these themes were absolutely central to mainstream Jewish thought.

Gillman makes a major assumption: Neither the Torah nor the rest of the Bible nor the Talmud represents the revealed word of God. Instead, each represents humanity's best guesses about the will of God at particular points of history. That means one can study the evolution of Jewish thought by analyzing what was written when.

Biblical references to heaven, hell or an afterlife are pretty slim, Gillman says. Only three passages - in Isaiah and Daniel - explicitly affirm that God will return even some dead to life. He traces the introduction of immortality and resurrection as an important theme of Jewish teachings to about 2,300 years ago. Partly as a response to persecution and exile, sages began to view an afterlife - and resurrection - as the only way for God to mete out justice.

Gillman traces the two concepts - spiritual afterlife and physical resurrection - as they wind their way into the Talmud and later Jewish thought. Only in the modern era, starting in the 18th century, do these ideas fall out of the focus of Jewish thinking, he writes. The Enlightenment made the idea of physical resurrection seem, well, pagan and anti-rational, he writes. But in the most-modern world, that is, the past 50 years, Reform and Conservative scholars are once again bringing these mystical concepts - beyond reason by definition - back to a more central position. -Jeffrey Weiss

(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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