CROSSCURRENTS: Children, Families, and Religion

A chatty, sloppy survey of the trials--and unexpected joys--of interfaith marriage. Kaye, who has written two books on children's TV as well as The Family Guide to Cape Cod, has no particular competence in either sociology or religion. She simply took her tape recorder and traveled around the country, interviewing couples and noting how they fared. Among the various mixtures she looks into are Lutheran-Jewish, Catholic-Jewish, atheist-Jewish, Mormon-Catholic, Methodist-Catholic, and Episcopalian-Catholic. She also considers the problems that arise when both spouses belong to a faith far removed from the American mainstream: Buddhists, Hare Krishnas, an eclectic California group called Creative Initiative. Kaye herself is a Jew happily married to a Methodist, and approaches this complex question with a strong positive bias. She stresses the human and spiritual enrichment--not the confusion--kids can experience living with two traditions, She also insists that children be given something: even atheists and ex-believers can improvise some sort of ritual to express their humanist convictions. Religion, by and large, is good for you--except perhaps for the fanatical Krishna-consciousness people and strict Pentecostalists. Kaye has little interest in theology, and assumes her readers know practically nothing about it (she defines bar-mitzvah, Unitarianism, etc.). Pleasant, but feeble and amateurish.