HERETIC

I'm not a church goer, but I made my way to church this holiday season, the Episcopal church I was brought up in. When it came time to recite the Nicene Creed, the words spilled from my mouth as though it had been days, and not decades, since I had last recited them: I believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and of all things visible and invisible ...

But WAIT A MINUTE. One God? The Father? A man? He made the earth? You've got to be kidding! How could I have arrived at this disconnect between the doctrine of my childhood and the carefully considered beliefs that I hold as a mature adult? No way can I believe that God is a single being, much less a man!!

I haven't thought much about spiritual matters in recent years, though I feel a wave of it welling up inside me. One of the external reasons for this is a book I'm reading: A new religious America : how a Christian courtry has become the worlds' most religiously diverse nation, by Diana Eck. Dr. Eck is the founder of the Pluralism Project at Harvard University. In the book she proves the subtitle by giving example after example of how the, mostly invisible, religious diversity is slipping into this country's communities, not just in large cities but in smaller communities in every US state. The groups she profiles (unfortunately not comprehensive) -- Hindus, Sikhs, Moslems, and Buddhists -- have travelled a rough road here in the US, but many have triumphed, and that is what Eck concentrates on.

This is not a book about spiritual matters -- it is a work of sociology and qualitative research -- but there is enough in it about each religious doctrine to stimulate anyone's interest. It's one of the best books I read in 2005, and I'm going to close this posting now, so I can finish up the last few pages of this outstanding book.