Bookshelf

National Catholic Reporter, Feb 25, 2000 by William C. Graham

Did you hear about the young priest who asked his Sunday school class, "What's gray, furry, gathers nuts and runs up and down trees?"

The puzzled class sat in silence until one little boy said, "Well, I know the answer should be Jesus, but it sure sounds like a squirrel to me!"

Jim Wallis, who includes this tale in his Faith Works: Lessons from the Life of an Activist Preacher (Random House, 371 pages, $23.95 hardbound), offers reminders that there is not always an easy religious answer to every problem. He has been an interesting and important contributor to the national scene as an activist and as the editor of Sojourners magazine, and his book will be a beacon for those who believe, as he does, that we are on the verge of a new movement for economic justice, led in large part by communities of faith.

In Religion and the Common Good: Catholic Contributions to Building Community in a Liberal Society (Rowman and Littlefield, 201 pages, $63 hardbound, $23.95 paperback), Brian Stiltner argues that there can be a fit between liberal and religious accounts of what makes for a good society, even though that fit has come under attack in the modern era. He sees most liberal politics as officially neutral toward religion and notes that many critics consider liberal political philosophy to be hostile to religious belief or practice.

Stiltner focuses on the philosophy of liberalism and the correctives offered by a Catholic philosophy of the common good, discussing how religion might help in understanding and pursuing the common good in a liberal society. His work might be considered as a continuation of the discussion begun in Stephen Carter's 1993 book The Culture of Disbelief.

Public Voices: Catholics in the American Context, edited by Steven M. Avella and Elizabeth McKeown (one of nine volumes in the American Catholic Identities: A Documentary History series; Christopher J. Kauffman, general editor; Orbis, 375 pages, $30 paperback), is a rich and valuable source of letters and other documents relating to the political and social history of Catholics from colonial times to the present.

Another interesting volume in the same American Catholic Identities series is The Frontier and Catholic Identities (Orbis, 221 pages, $50 hardbound), edited by Anne M. Butler, Jesuit Fr. Michael E. Engh and Xaverian Br. Thomas W. Spalding, which shows how Catholic clergy, religious and laity were involved in American frontiers from Kentucky to Hawaii and Alaska. What an interesting and important series this is!

Catholicism Today: A Survey of Catholic Belief and Practice, third edition (Paulist Press, 243 pages, $10.95 paperback), by Marianist Fr. Matthew F. Kohmescher, is a helpful text for college classes, parish discussion groups and persons preparing to join the church. Discussion questions and suggested readings make the book even more valuable.

Fr. Andrew Greeley has long been famous for his exploration of the Catholic imagination in his fiction, seeing grace wondrously revealed in creation. In The Catholic Imagination (University of California Press, 231 pages, $22 hardbound), he considers what is unique in the Catholic worldview and culture (including sacrament, salvation, community and festival), and asks if values influence people's lives. Greeley's is a valuable and informed perspective on the role of religion in daily life. I've sent my copy of the page proofs off to a professor in American and Catholic studies who'll be glad, I'm sure, to have a read.

I'd like to build a college course around this text and have suggested it to colleagues who teach about religion and the arts.

Women and Faith: Catholic Religious Life in Italy from Late Antiquity to the Present, edited by Lucetta Scaraffia and Gabriella Zarri (Harvard University Press, 378 pages, $59.95 hardbound), is a collection of essays exploring the rewards, ambiguities and contradictions experienced by women in their spirituality and in their relationship to the church. This book will be of particular interest to those interested in the history of women and the history of religion. At issue is whether religion has principally oppressed women or provided access to culture, public life and power. The essays reflect and consider the conflict and tension.

The Biblical Jubilee and the Struggle for Life (Orbis, 170 pages, $17 paperback) is by Ross Kinsler and Gloria Kinsler, co-workers in mission for the Presbyterian church who have lived and worked among the peoples of Central America for the last 25 years. They know how difficult it is for relatively affluent Christians of the North, including themselves, to comprehend and practice the principles set forth in the Sabbath Year and Jubilee mandates of the Hebrew scriptures. They believe that these mandates speak to the primary predicaments of modern times. The mandates might provide fundamental guidelines for the current concerns.

Boredom and the Religious Imagination (University Press of Virginia, 199 pages, $13.95 paperback), according to author Michael L. Raposa, is the reflections of a philosopher in midlife who, having confronted the demon of noontide, thinks out loud about the encounter.