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TREASURES OF HEAVEN

Name: TREASURES OF HEAVEN
Author: Steven Sora
ISBN: 0-471-46232-2

RELICS FROM NOAH’S ARK TO THE SHROUD OF TURIN

by Steven Sora ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2005

Nonreligious, readable and occasionally fascinating.

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A handy compendium that covers major known but undiscovered Judeo-Christian religious relics, ranging from the bones of saints and prophets to artifacts associated with the Crucifixion.

With no real new ground to break here, Sora does a creditable job of enumerating relics that have had an impact on the faithful and on the religious establishment, assembling interesting apocrypha and updating their status. He’s forthright on the phenomenon the Catholic Church calls “multiplication,” otherwise known as fakery: enough pieces from the True Cross extant “to rebuild Noah’s Ark,” multiple heads of John the Baptist, etc. Yet records of miracles and paranormal events associated with numerous relics, replete with a host of unbiased witnesses, continue to persist and continue to resist debunking. When confronted with disproving the Shroud of Turin—supposedly the winding sheet of Christ’s corpse—several scientists of indisputable world repute, the author points out, have leaned toward authentification. In fact, three separate radiocarbon dating tests indicating origin in the medieval period constitute the principal negative data; whereas cloth type, pollen accrual, etc., point to timely origin in the Middle East as do the blood type and DNA extracted from the Shroud. Enduring controversies, however, continue to be associated with a wealth of fascinating historical and cultural material like. There’s the Ark of the Covenant, for instance, which leads Sora to plausible hiding places in Ireland, Scotland, France, and Ethiopia (where its supposed residence is celebrated annually), as well as Jerusalem. The once dormant relic trade itself may be energized again thanks to the Internet. While one smuggler simply FedExed saintly remains to the US not long ago, an opponent of spurious relic trading who is quoted by Sora finds eBay, despite its attempts to ban body parts of any nature, a “charnel house of holy bones,” with offerings often described in perfect churchly Latin and men of the cloth among alleged buyers.

Nonreligious, readable and occasionally fascinating.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2005

ISBN: 0-471-46232-2

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Wiley

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2004

Categories:

PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION

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WALKING A SACRED PATH

REDISCOVERING THE LABYRINTH AS A SPIRITUAL TOOL

by Lauren Artress ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1995

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An enthusiastic account of how the 12th-century labyrinth in Chartres' cathedral has become a tool for rediscovering the feminine in San Francisco. According to Artress, a therapist and the first woman canon of San Francisco's Episcopalian Grace Cathedral, the tyranny of the Age of Reason is losing its grip. Consequently, the Christian Church is faced with the challenge of people who are concerned more with spirituality, ``the inner growth that happens in each of us,'' than with the more outward forms of worship and doctrine. Artress suggests that the medieval labyrinth can give us the kind of integration of reason and imagination that we need today. Thousands of visitors at Grace Cathedral have walked a canvas reproduction of the Chartres labyrinth, and Artress quotes some of their testimonies to deep emotional and psychological healing. She tells us that, unlike a maze, which has many paths and calls on masculine powers of logic to choose the right one, a labyrinth offers only one profound choice and thus gives scope to our intuitive, feminine powers. She explains the effects in Jungian terms: integration of the Shadow and healing of the split between thought and feeling as we rediscover the need for ritual. Although Artress is eloquent in describing the spiritual impasse of many people today, she spoils her case for the labyrinth by basing it partly on a poorly researched view of the Middle Ages. She makes no real attempt to integrate her insights into the Church's tradition, which she caricatures as a kind of patriarchal Deism. Indeed, her credentials as a Christian theologian are undermined by her assertion that intercessory prayer to Mary only came with the 12th-century Cistercians and by equating Mary with the Holy Spirit or the ``feminine aspect of God.'' Sensitive in describing personal experiences but lacking in historical and theological depth—an illustration of how theology can become the handmaid of therapy.

Pub Date: May 1, 1995

ISBN: 1-57322-007-8

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Riverhead

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995

Categories:

PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION

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WRESTLING WITH THE ANGEL

FAITH AND RELIGION IN THE LIVES OF GAY MEN

edited by Brian Bouldrey ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 3, 1995

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Twenty-two brief and highly personal essays tell of an ongoing search for sexual and religious wholeness by American gay men. Because most religious authorities condemn homosexuality, or at least assume their adherents are heterosexual, the gay world has tended to be bitterly antireligious. Here Bouldrey (author of the novel The Genius of Desire, 1993) provides a forum in which gay writers of various religious backgrounds tell (illustrated with sometimes mildly salacious anecdotes) how they have, or have not, combined religion with an active gay lifestyle. We read how Antonio Feliz, as a Mormon bishop, was tormented at having to excommunicate an avowed homosexual and how a remarkable experience of God's love for him led to his own decision to come out. Gabriel Lampert tells how his Jewishness and homosexuality have both been areas for self- discovery and freedom. Over a third of the accounts are by ex- Catholics. David Plante explains how the Church's dogma at least taught him to value the face and the whole person of his lover, not just a part of his body, while Philip Gambone writes compellingly of his youthful Catholic fervor, his time as an Episcopalian, his pleasant but spiritually inadequate experience as a Unitarian, and his present, very cautious position on the sidelines of Catholicism. The Episcopalian and Reform Jewish authors have the least trouble in uniting their religion with their sex lives. For all the contributors, homosexuality has become the dominant force in their lives, in some cases taking the place of religion, and the experience of embracing the gay lifestyle is described in the born- again rhetoric of conversion. We do not, however, hear from any homosexual believer who finds meaning in the traditional teachings. A timely but far from definitive contribution to the neglected area of gay religious experience. (Book-of-the-Month Club/Quality Paperback Book Club selections)