Read more
Zusatztext Michael Medved! author/film critic/radio commentator Tell Me Why offers a priceless experience to discerning readers: listening in on an intimate but profound fatherdaughter conversation covering the most important issues of life and faith. All parents -- and children -- of every religious community can gain from this wise and eloquent book. Informationen zum Autor Michael and Jana Novak are the authors of Tell Me Why, a Simon & Schuster book. Klappentext A renowned theologian, author of "Belief and Unbelief, " and his twentysomething daughter explore the nature of faith, God, and religion. 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 "burea...
