World Book of Faith

For the past year or more I have been either translating or correcting some fifty or so texts for a ‘World Book of Faith’ to be published next year in English by a Belgian editor. It follows on an earlier World Book of Happiness and a World Book of Love. In my view it is better than either.

The texts come from Christian, Islam as well as Hindu and Buddhist and Confucian sources, with the odd Wicca thrown in for good measure, and include both big names (for Christianity: Metropolitan Hilarion Alfayev and Prior Enzo Bianchi) and smaller fry.

The great majority of texts express for me an honest attempt to come to terms with the ‘mysterium tremendum’ of that which is greater than ourselves and exercises a call on our lives. Most of the writing comes from the edge, rather than the centre of organized religion, which is probably a good thing. The two or three which gave me trouble were the Christian ones where I sense the Christian message of ‘love God and love your brother’ has elided into ‘love God in your brother’. The standing naked before one’s creator, and the readiness to be turned inside out by him have gone by the board. Instead of this deep conversion we have a ‘reframing’ of Christianity as ‘do good to your neighbour and feel guilty about living in a society that is richer than others’. I am not saying that Christianity does not command us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, but if it no more than that, it is no more than enlightened humanism, and there is no need to go to church or fight with God. Which is indeed what has happened, particular in northern European Protestantism. Put at its harshest: if you cannot feed people’s souls, and give them something to live for beyond themselves and their neighbours, it probably makes precious little sense feeding their stomachs.