www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall What are you reading now?

I'm reading:

The Face of God by Archbishop Joseph Raya

I am reading The Five Books of Moses, a new translation by Robert Alter. It's very good. The footnotes are lengthy.

Three books I picked up today from the library.

1.The Mechanism Of Catastrophe:The Turkish Pogrom Of September 6-7 1955, And The Destruction Of The Greek Community Of Istanbul. By Speros Vryonis Jr (2005)

2.Lebanon:A House Divided. By Sandra Mackey

3.Victory Of The West:The Great Christian-Muslim Clash At The Battle Of Lepanto. By Niccolo Capponi

Right now I'm reading St. Chrysostom's Homilies on Matthew, Don Quijote, and various Icelandic Sagas.

Terry

Dear John, I stopped the reading at the start, but the book is very recommended.

The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham are the current house favorites.

I tend to read a few books at once:

The Synaxarion: The Lives of the Saints of the Orthodox Church. by Hieromonk Makarios of Simonos Petra; translated by Christopher Hookway. Volume 2: November and December

Wounded by Love: The Life and the Wisdom of Elder Porphyrios edited by The Sisters of the Holy Convent of Chrysopis

Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz

I Love Mormons: A New Way to Share Christ with Latter-day Saints by David L. Rowe

Fr David Straut

I have been reading Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great. I am almost done, but it is a chore to finish.

On the one hand: Hitchens is, as usual, a skilled, even masterful writer and a delightful wordsmith.

On the other hand: this book is one, long diatribe. It is against God and religion, especially Christianity and Islam.

It is not very accurate. The book concentrates on the worst in religion, ignoring the best, and skipping over the fact that "God" is beyond human intelligence but not incompatible with human intelligence, either.

However, it can be illuminating about the mindset and emotions of some modern atheists. Reading it is like stumbling into a lecture hall of someone (Hitchens) giving a speech on why he is an anti-religious atheist -- to an audience of happy, enthusiastic supporters who, heretofore, thought they were the only ones who felt like that too. It's not so much of an argument against religion as it is a rant. It appeals, I suspect, to those who already feel this way and who are looking for someone to give voice to their beliefs and frustrations.

In brief, here are their views. They think that God is a myth (because they treat Him as an idea or substance that cannot be proven by logic or evidence). They think religion is primitive and crude (because it was a pre-modern attempt by mankind at science, psychology and sociology). They think that religion is boorish at best and often maniacally evil at worst (because of all the evil that has been done in religion's name.). They are also mightily fed up with Christianity in particular but also Islam (because, in their view, the one is hypocritically violent and corrupt, and the other is avowedly violent). They are fed up with being told that they must be religious in order to be moral. Finally, they yearn for a new rationalistic enlightenment to sweep clean the minds of mankind of all this religious stuff, and to inaugurate an age of secular reason in human society. And when it is pointed out that there have been attempts to do just that in recent history -- such as fascism and communism -- which had disastrous results, they respond that, no, those were simply religions too. Et Cetera.

What's truly mind-boggling throughout this book is the sheer absence of any views that oppose or that are merely different. The writings, sayings and examples of the saints --those who best epitomize religion -- are barely mentioned. This is like writing an essay on art with barely any mention of Michelangelo or Rembrandt or Picasso. Also, there isn't much of any mention of the scholarly, often secular work on religion as a human phenomenon; I mean the work of scholars of comparative religion (or, religious studies). This is like writing an essay on science without any mention of Newton or Einstein. It's mind-boggling because Hitchens is clearly highly intelligent and very well read. He just chose not to discuss views that opposed or differed with his own except as making them into straw men to knock down. And thus, again: this book is a diatribe, not an argument.

In sum, God Is Not Great is a very useful read. If you want to get an idea of what some (many?) modern Western atheists are thinking and feeling, this book will give you insight. And, it will give you insight into the only way that I can think of to overcome this mindset: selfless, genuine, moral compassion.

-- John

Unseen Warfare by Theophan the Recluse...

I'm drawn to monastics...

james

I am reading:

The Greek Fathers by Adrian Fortescue;
Lost Christianities, by Bart Ehrman;
Crazy about God, by Franky Schaeffer...

Lance

I anybody else reading Parabola magazine? It's a quarterly journal on myth and meaning and religion. I had never heard of it before, but I picked up a copy a couple of months ago, and I was really impressed.

-- John

The Life and Miracles of Blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg, printed at the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, NY.

This may sound dumb but my best friend just sent my kids a book called Silent as a Stone by Jim Forest. It is put out by St Vladimir's Press. It is the story of St Maria of Paris. This is a great story of a saint who helped save Jewish kids during WWII. This would make a great gift for the kids in your life.

I'm a couple of chapters into The Orthodox Liturgy by Hugh Wybrew.

-- John

Doesn't sound dumb to me at all; Jim Forest is a great writer, and Mother Maria is a great Saint. Sounds like your friend sent you a wonderful book.