Saturday, July 26, 1997

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

The Dallas Morning News

"Pharaohs and Kings: A Biblical Quest," by David M. Rohl (Crown, $24). After discovering discrepancies in published chronologies of the pharaohs, Rohl began a research expedition that led him to devise a new timeline for the ancient Egyptian kings. His redating of the dynasties has a bearing on our understanding of biblical history. Rohl's effort is a major turnabout amid a trend that seems always to pit the Bible against archeaology. His fascinating - and at times frustrating - book reaffirms biblical narratives as accurate history. By re-ordering conventional benchmark dates, Rohl has reconciled traditional stories about Joseph, Moses, David and Solomon with archeaological evidence already unearthed. His new timetable gives a fresh historical perspective to the Exodus and the conquest of the Promised Land. In Rohl's hands, the new chronology's explanation and justification is part first-person adventure story and part textbook - but it is never as dry as the desert he travels. The book is sometimes frustrating mainly because the Egyptologist/archaeologist has not made enough concessions for those of us who are not up to speed on his specialization - correlating undistinguished dynasties with those backward-counting B.C. centuries can leave a head spinning. Nevertheless, the book is riveting, and the photographs are wonderful. -Terry Kelly

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"Common Sense Christian Living," by Edith Schaeffer (Baker, $12.99). . Schaeffer shares her common-sense Christian approach to everyday situations, which stems from her belief that "we are not to live our lives in compartments labeled 'spiritual' and 'secular' " and that the wisdom found in the Scriptures holds the key to how we should approach every issue. This is the paperback publication of a 1983 book that came after the filming of a series of lectures and Q&A sessions with an audience. -Terry Kelly

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MAGAZINES

Tricycle (Summer) looks at "Buddha on the Rio Grande" in a 30-page special section. Writers from the Santa Fe-Taos area contribute articles on the emerging Buddhist interest on the Upper Rio Grande, where stupas (at)(shrines) now dot the landscape. One article profiles "A Native Son of Spanish New Mexico Zen Teacher Alfred Jitsudo Ancheta." He says he has encouraged reluctant Hispanic neighbors to consult a visiting Catholic priest from Amarillo who teaches Zen in Santa Fe. -Robert Plocheck

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Reason (July) does a cover story on creationism, asking "What's behind the neoconservative attack on Darwin?" Contributing editor Ronald Bailey says intellectuals of the traditionalist branch of U.S. conservativism have political reasons for aligning with religionists. His seven-page essay seems to suggest that these intellectuals are not believers but think that religion is a necessary opiate of the people required to achieve an ordered society. Bailey, a television producer in Washington, D.C., also brings into his argument the pope's recent statement that "fresh knowledge leads to recognition of the theory of evolution as more than just an hypothesis." -Robert Plocheck

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U.S. Catholic (July) wonders, "Did Jesus laugh?" Essayist Boyd Wright, a retired newspaper editor in New Jersey, asks readers to imagine children crowded around Jesus. "How the laughter must have pealed! Can we believe that our Lord's love did not shine forth to join in the merry tumult?" Another article examines the many recent books on simplifying our lives. Patrick McCormick, an assistant professor of ethics at Gonzaga University in Spokane, says we should have more of a motive than merely rest, than "a soothing cup of international coffee in front of a seaside sunset." He argues that curbing our consumption needs to be tied to solidarity with the poor of the world. -Robert Plocheck

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REVIEWER'S CHOICE

"Fools, Martyrs, Traitors: The Story of Martyrdom in the Western World," by Lacey Baldwin Smith (Knopf, $30). Who is a martyr? Most would say a person who dies for his religious faith, persecuted unto death by the state. But it's not so simple, argues Smith in his provocative new book.

He points out that Joan of Arc, whom surely most would list, was not canonized until 1920 by the Catholic Church, supposedly an authority on the issue, and even then the church sidestepped some key issues.

And in current times, what about Arab terrorists and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg? Few would think of the Rosenbergs as martyrs, but if you accept communism as their faith, their statements are reminiscent of any martyr canonized by the church.

Smith, known primarily as a Tudor historian, records and seeks to understand but refuses to judge any on the basis of his beliefs.

The people he studies in detail are Socrates, Jesus, the Maccabees, the early Christian martyrs, Thomas Becket, Sir Thomas More, the English Protestant martyrs of Queen Mary's time, Charles I of England, John Brown and Mahatma Gandhi.

His final chapter looks at the 20th-century martyr, "an endangered species." Ruthless nation-states destroy in secret now, giving few the publicity Smith feels is necessary and actually sought by martyrs. Even the concept of martyrdom is often entangled with the attempted overthrow of government.

As case studies of the 20th-century martyr, he uses the Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Rosenbergs. Executed for his part in a plot to assassinate Hitler, Bonhoeffer, facing death, found new depths in his faith that thrill the soul of any believer. But even one Lutheran bishop refused to attend a memorial service, saying Bonhoeffer was a political rebel.

"Who can say whether the martyrs' actions were good or bad in themselves or done for the right or wrong reasons?" Smith writes. He has given people, no matter what their faith, much to think about. -Robert Trimble

(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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