NCR Book Club Column

Sex, romance and religion on campus

NCR Book Club — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:21:52 -0400

NCR Book Club

By SHONA CRABTREE, Religion News Service

Sex & the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America's College Campuses
By Donna Freitas, Oxford University Press, 328 pages, $24.95

What began as Donna Freitas' class on dating turned into a book titled Sex & the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America's College Campuses.

Freitas, assistant professor of religion at Boston University, interviewed more than 100 students about their sexuality, romantic ideals and the prevalent "hookup" culture at seven colleges, including evangelical Christian, Catholic and public and private secular institutions.

Freitas found two radically opposed campus cultures of sexuality: one of extreme restraint at the evangelical schools, where virginity is prized; and a culture of extreme indulgence everywhere else, including the Catholic schools.

Despite these differences, students everywhere admitted to wanting more romance -- not sex -- in their lives. Freitas says religion and spirituality could play a larger role to help students navigate these issues.

Sierra Club reports on faith-groups doing their part on environment

NCR Book Club — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 04:42:48 -0400

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By Mark Pattison, Catholic News Service

Faith in Action: Communities of Faith Bring Hope for the Planet
Sierra Club, 36 pages

Don Conklin and Ellen Buelow are in good company -- and lots of it.

The two New Mexico Catholics are, like Catholics everywhere, doing their part to help the environment and to make others aware of potential ecological dangers that arise from wasteful habits.

Catholics, in fact, are prominently featured in nine chapters of a new Sierra Club book, Faith in Action, which highlights faith-led environmental action in each of the 50 states plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.

Conklin and Buelow, members of Holy Rosary Parish in Albuquerque, N.M., helped engineer a light-bulb swap -- incandescent bulbs for energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs, in March. Before the swap was over, 3,000 bulbs changed hands.

The Gospel according to the Boss

NCR Book Club — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 06:35:16 -0400

NCR Book Club

By RON CSILLAG, Religion News Service

The Gospel According to Bruce Springsteen: Rock and Redemption, from Asbury Park to Magic
by Jeffrey B. Symynkywicz
Westminster John Knox Press, 224 pages, $20.95

To millions of fans, he's "the Boss," the blue-jeaned troubadour of the American heartland who finds nobility in the grind of daily life.

Across 35 years in dozens of rock anthems, from "Born to Run" to "Glory Days" to "Born in the U.S.A.," Bruce Springsteen has chronicled lost souls, haunted war veterans, gritty factory workers, and highways jammed with broken heroes -- but also advanced themes of redemption, hope and keeping the faith.

It's been a rich vein of spiritual motifs, and the politically progressive 58-year-old singer/songwriter has given voice to society's dispossessed. His work of late has been bleak, brooding and introspective, even grieving.

But the Boss as spiritual guidepost?

Author sees 'redemptive violence' at work in JFK's death

NCR Book Club — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:15:52 -0400

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By GREG GARRISON, Religion News Service

JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters
by James W. Douglass
Orbis Books, 544 pages, $30

Catholic peace activist Jim Douglass of Birmingham, Ala., believes in conspiracy theories, including the Big Daddy of them all -- the conspiracy to kill President John F. Kennedy.

"There is no mystery as to how and why and by whom he was assassinated," Douglass said. And he's not referring to Lee Harvey Oswald, who he believes was framed as the assassin by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Kennedy's enemies were covert operatives in his own government, Douglass alleges.

"He was killed by a high-level national security state organized by the CIA," he said. "He was not carrying out what his national security state wanted."

That's not a groundbreaking theory; filmmaker Oliver Stone and others have covered that territory before. "Oliver Stone does not take a spiritual position," Douglass said.

Tales from around the world show goodness can provide a fun read

NCR Book Club — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 06:52:44 -0400

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Reviewed by Graham Yearley, Catholic News Service

SOLIDARITY WILL TRANSFORM THE WORLD: STORIES OF HOPE FROM CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICES by Jeffry O'Dell Korgen
Orbis Books, 176 pages, $16.

There is a widely held belief that evil makes more interesting reading than goodness. These two slim books show what a preposterous fallacy that belief is as they both entertain and show the workings of goodness in our world.

In Solidarity Will Transform the World, author Jeffry O'Dell Korgen takes the reader on a tour of five countries where Catholic Relief Services is transforming the way the First World relates to the Third World. CRS is the U.S. bishops' overseas relief and development agency.

We, the advantaged, traditionally think of charity as moving in one direction, from the privileged to the unprivileged; we feed, they eat. CRS projects work with one priority: to assist the poor in making their contribution to the common good.

Some spiritual alternatives to trashy beach reading

NCR Book Club — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:07:04 -0400

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Review by KRISTEN CAMPBELL, Religion News Service

It’s that time of year again when we hit the road and head to the beach, mountains, valleys or maybe just a comfortable chair in climate-controlled environs.

As sure as we are to slide sunglasses and stuff T-shirts into duffels, many of us are liable to pack those books we’ve meant to at least scan, along with a few we hope to really read.

There are the tomes intended to stretch our spirits, challenge our minds and comfort our souls. Some, we hope, will remove us from our realities for a little while. Others we procure precisely to gain tools we might apply to living each day.

These new releases might do all those things: