Our Globalized, Multi-Faith World

Our Globalized, Multi-Faith World

It was the 1990s. Globalization was the buzz word. International trade, travel and cultural exchange were on the upswing, and it seemed that North Americans, Asians, Europeans, Africans, Pacific Islanders and Latin Americans would — like it or not — be getting to know each other. Fast.

In the process, they would also be getting to know each other’s dearly held religious traditions.

I was a reporter on the religion beat at the Contra Costa Times at the time, and I was finding that Contra Costa County — a mostly middle class San Francisco Bay Area suburb — was a microcosm of the globalized world we were now expected to live in.

The religion beat introduced me to Baháʼís, Muslims, Evangelical Christians, Mainline Christians, Christian Scientists, Native Americans.

New Places, New People

Every assignment took me to a new place — from the gloriously ornate and gilded Odiyan Buddhist center in northern Sonoma county to the simple sunlit patio of an Evangelical Christian who told me she talked with God every morning over coffee.

Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus — I met them all.

I talked with them. And I wanted them to talk with each other.

The people I was meeting were living within a few freeway stops of each other. They needed to know about each other, I thought. They needed to tolerate each other. No, not tolerate — befriend each other.

But how do I get these people talking, I wondered. How do I get them to hear — feel — each other’s stories?

I was a writer and a storyteller, so I decided to record some of those stories and put them together in a book where they could rub elbows and get to know each other.

I bought a tape recorder, some tapes and a mic. I interviewed dozens of people in Contra Costa County and beyond. I edited the interviews down to readable, first-person spiritual narratives. And a few years later, I had myself a book. “Wrestling with God: Stories of Doubt and Faith” was published in 2015.

A Multi-Faith Book for the Twentieth Century

But here we are now, a quarter of the way into the twenty-first century. Instead of respecting the cultures and people who are finding their way into our lives, people all over the world are polarizing themselves, digging into their convictions.

Which means I’m feeling that the book I originally set out to write is more consequential than ever. “Wrestling with God” asks the seekers, believers and doubters of the world to take a minute to listen to one another. That’s what’s needed right now.

Listening to one another, respecting and appreciating one another, does not require anyone to cede the truth of their dearly held convictions.

Muslim Scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr put it this way during my interview with him: “Every religion has a form, and no two religions have the same form. But there is only one Center,” he said. “Religious diversity is itself the will of Heaven.”

Will the Sun Rise Tomorrow?

We can learn from each other, while holding on to our convictions. I believe that.

Devout atheists, for example, could learn a thing or two from the Nobel laureate physicist Charles Townes. In my book, Townes speaks as a Christian who claims that science requires as much faith from its adherents as religion does.

“I’m religious and have great trust,” Townes said to me. “I’m not sure of anything, including scientific laws. I expect the sun will rise tomorrow morning, but can I prove that it will? I can’t.”

As for those of us who wonder how a good God can permit human suffering, they might learn something from the Shamanic Witch Cerridwen Fallingstar.

“Justice does not seem to be part of the grand scheme,” Fallingstar said as we talked about the deaths of her husband and unborn child. “Whatever God is, it’s something that doesn’t operate the way we do.”

The Music of the Spheres

As I researched “Wrestling with God,” I heard many disparate voices. It was my hope that, arranged together in a book, they would be a heavenly chorus, singing in harmony and echoing the music of the spheres.

And now, in the midst of the turmoil of 2024 as the winter holidays approach, when I listen to the people I interviewed for “Wrestling with God” I do hear that heavenly chorus. I hope that you do, too.

Re-launching ‘Wrestling with God’

“Wrestling with God” was originally released by Patheos Press in 2015 as a multi-faith book for a globalized, multi-faith world. This month, I am re-releasing it under my own imprint, Blackberry Canyon Press, so if you decide to order copies, be sure to look for the Blackberry Canyon Press release.

You can find the new release — as a paperback (and soon as an e-book) — wherever books are sold. You’ve got choices:

• A book benefits greatly when you buy it from one of the biggies — Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Their algorithms notice when someone buys a book, which brings the book to the attention of more and more readers.
• You can support independent bookstores by shopping at Bookshop.org.  There, you can choose an independent bookstore to receive the profit from your online, delivered purchase.
• Consider paying a visit to your local bookstore, chatting with the real people there, ordering the book — and talking about “Wrestling with God” while you’re at it.

More about capturing American voices at “I’m a Studs Terkel Wannabe.”  More about the origins of “Wrestling with God” at “Yea! A Book Contract for ‘Wrestling with God.'”