Asked what she felt on meeting a believer, Grace Paley replied, "I respect his thinking and his belief, but at the same time I think he's deluded." Michael Cunningham sees God as a black woman, Derek Walcott as a wise old man with a beard.
Often beginning his interviews point-blank ("Do you believer in God?"), NYU professor and award-winning filmmaker Antonio Monda is at once a disarming and rigorous interviewer, asking provocative questions that lead to wide-ranging conversations. A believer himself, Monda talks both with believers and athiests. The subjects discussed range from personal images of God to religion's place in American culture, from the afterlife to the concepts of good and evil, from fundamentalism to the Bible. And almost without fail, the conversations turn to questions of art and literature. Toni Morrison discusses Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner; Richard Ford invokes Wallace Stevens; and David Lynch draws attention to the religious aspects of Bunuel, Fellini -- and Harold Ramis' Groundhog Day.
Informal, revealing, unexpected, Do You Believe? is a captivating and thought-provoking meditation on how faith, in all its facets, remains profoundly relevant for and in our culture.
Categories | MBS Featured Books 2008 | Brand New Stuff!! | Book Discussion Group Ideas | Books on the Edge | Progressive Christianity | Journalism | Essays | Comparative Religion