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Tell Me Why: A Father Answers His Daughter's Questions About God - Softcover

Novak, Michael And Jana

 
9780671018863: Tell Me Why: A Father Answers His Daughter's Questions About God
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0671018868 ISBN 13: 9780671018863
Verlag: Gallery Books, 1999

Inhaltsangabe

Hailed as a new classic in faith exploration, this remarkable book offers a rare chance to eavesdrop on a conversation between a believing father and a skeptical daughter about God, faith, and morals. World-renowned theologian Michael Novak accepts a unique challenge when his twentysomething daughter Jana sends him a long fax filled with practical questions about life and religion. His answers -- warm, wise, and unfaltering -- serve as guideposts to faith at a critical time in his daughter's life. For her part, Jana is not interested in a scholarly essay but in straight and honest replies; she challenges what she doesn't understand, and she never hesitates to bat back an answer she doesn't like.
The result is a lively, thought-provoking dialogue that addresses the concerns of Jana's generation while also taking on the questions of the ages -- from the purpose of religion in our lives, to how "good" must a Christian be, to the problems of suffering, compassion, and the existence of God. Enacting as it does the difficult passing on of a noble tradition, Tell Me Why offers an illuminating path for anyone searching to embrace or deepen their faith.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Michael and Jana Novak are the authors of Tell Me Why, a Simon & Schuster book.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1: Why Does Religion, Any Religion, Matter?

As at the entrance of the church on Sunday and on the feast days,

When we go to Mass,

Or at the funerals,

We give each other, we pass each other the holy water from hand to hand,

From neighbor to neighbor, one after the other,

Directly from hand to hand or from a blessed branch dipped into the holy water.

In order to make the sign of the cross either over ourselves, who are alive, or over the casket of the person who has died,

In such a way that the same sign of the cross is as if carried from neighbor to neighbor by the same water,

By the ministry, by the administering of the same water,

One after the other, over the same breasts and over the same hearts,

And the same foreheads too,

And even over the caskets of the same deceased bodies,

So from hand to hand, from finger to finger,

From fingertip to fingertip, the eternal generations,

Who are eternally going to Mass.

In the same breasts, in the same hearts up to the death of the world,

Like a relay,

In the same hope, the word of God is passed on.

-- Charles Péguy
(1873-1914)

JANA: For myself, and my generation as a whole (I believe), deciding to have faith, to believe in God, is not as hard to accept as it was for your generation. For this reason, Dad, I think we need to start at the concept of religion and then work backwards to God. I find making the leap from believer in God to practitioner of religion much harder. With my own experience, I realized this very quickly. After having spent many years not believing in anything or anyone, let alone some higher being that is all powerful and supremely good, the comfort that having faith in God provides was a welcome relief; at least someone out there is watching over you and caring what happens to you. Yet it is still possible to feel like something is missing, something concrete. Believing God is such a matter of faith that it would be nice to have something to touch, hear and smell. Logically, I would guess that something is religion. As in, "I've got religion." Well, I don't -- at least not right now. (Although I have very much enjoyed the times Mark, my boyfriend, has taken me to his Presbyterian Church with its very traditional minister and his wonderful, thick-as-molasses Scottish brogue.) Part of the reason I don't "have religion" is that I am not totally convinced that my lack of religion is the problem. Question one: Why is religion -- any religion -- important?

Organized religion superficially appears so contrived and so controlling. Its structure -- so bureaucratic with its layers of priests, ministers etc., and its large, imposing temples, cathedrals -- seems to physically reinforce the charge that religion works to put a greater distance between the individual and God, rather than to bring them closer. For example, organized religion often comes across like a gate keeper or bodyguard: unless one does this or bribes it with that on earth, it won't let you in, or recommend you, to see the celebrity that it's so possessively guarding -- that is, God. Psychologically, I have often felt this way -- that I could not hear God for the noise of his "bureaucrats."

I even wrote a poem years ago at a crisis point in my life when I wanted to turn to the church and to God, and yet felt alone and abandoned, like a little girl lost in the wide, cavernous darkness of an empty, cold cathedral.

Of course, I have always had hope -- hope that the alienation I felt from the church would be rectified when it awoke to its distance and tried to recapture its spirit.

I am still not completely clear about the purpose of religion per se. Question two: Why is it necessary to believe in a religion? Is religion just a means to an end? In other words, does religion merely act as a paved path to God (as opposed to forging through the jungle, perhaps even without a machete)? If so -- question three -- does the existence of many, many different religions only illustrate the variety of paths to God without specifying or implying that one is necessarily better than another -- that it is merely a matter of finding a good fit between you and the religion?

Finally, based on the fact that we are, after all, human and always want to know what's in it for us, my fourth question: What is religion supposed to offer or accomplish? Personal peace and fulfillment? I can understand that one certainly should not be asking for anything personal and superficial from God -- that would be audaciously presumptuous (although I do still turn to him and pray for assistance and favors anyway). But if one can believe in God without truly needing to believe in religion, then why bother believing in religion unless it offers you something?

DAD: Why, you ask, is religion, any religion, important? My simple answer is: Because it is true. If it isn't true, you shouldn't accept it. You wouldn't want to turn to religion merely for comfort, security, or peace of mind (although that's what atheists say religion is for). Because if religion isn't true, you wouldn't find peace of mind or comfort or security anyway.

Besides, if the religion you now accept isn't fully true, the longing for truth -- the longing to get reality right -- will drive you to pursue the evidence wherever it leads, however arduous that exploration (that "pilgrim's progress") may be.

If God is God, it cannot be impossible for him to have given us sufficient evidence to come to where he wants us to be. We have to took for it. That is the greatest detective story of all times. (All detective stories are parables for finding God.)

There is no other reason for counting yourself religious, except that it says something true about your place in the world.

There is no other purpose in joining a religious communion except that it is a communion bearing the truth about God, human destiny, and yourself. Keep your eye on the question of truth.

In some ways, a church or synagogue makes your way to God more difficult, not less. Every social institution is a clumsy thing. Some days, the preaching is not simply poor, but offensive. The music may be poor. (It may even be too beautiful: Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, says that paganism often begins just when the music soars -- just when your soul turns toward the bodily thrill of gorgeous sound. Music is lovely and good in itself, a gift of God, and yet it can quickly become a distraction from the presence of God. Kierkegaard believed in keeping first things first, with a fierce purity of purpose.)

A church group may be too cold and impersonal -- or too cozy, coy, and chummy. So I don't think a church "paves" your way to God; it may throw boulders in your path. I remember the English novelist Evelyn Waugh writing about the agonies he often endured attending public worship. Even some religious persons, left to themselves, prefer solitude and minimal involvement with others, especially institutions; they would prefer being hermits to enduring community.

In America especially, where "choice" reigns, many persons choose a congregation because they prefer its minister's preaching, the superior friendliness of its people, or the beauty of its worship services; or because they feel more "at home" in it than in some other. These are not unworthy motives. But neither are they religious motives.

To the extent that they are not rooted in conscience and a serious pursuit of the truth, such motives might be described as "social" motives, akin to those that might govern one's choice of a private club. Such motives eventually diminish the intellectual content of a religious body.

In fact, many American church groups might just as well join together...

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Verlag
Gallery Books
Erscheinungsdatum
1999
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0671018868
ISBN 13 
9780671018863
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
336
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
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