Customer Reviews

Keeping Faith: A Skeptic's Journey

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As the author moves into history and doctrine in the second and third sections of this book, I was often tempted to quibble. His comments about sexuality and religion ignored the Buddhist tantric tradition of Tibet, his discussion of St. Augustine ignored Augustine's "God became man that man might become God," he accepts the questional premise of the feminine goddess preceding the masculine god as universal ... However, this "imprecision" is a strength in this book. The book is a personal account of an individual's working through of issues regarding religious institutions, spirituality and dogma through his exploration of monasticism in the Zen Buddhist and Latin Rite Catholic traditions. It is not the work of a religious scholar - historian, theologian or spiritual director.

The issues for Fenton Johnson revolve most strongly around the issues of sexuality, sexual abuse, discrimination by gender or sexual preference ... What is most impressive about his account, is the gradual change in his questions - as his questions become better formulated, tentative answers begin to form. In these questions and answers, the author recognizes the similarity of the religious journey as experienced through different paths. He learns to question and address his anger towards the institutional Catholic Church.

The end of the journey as reported at the end of this volume implies significant room for and capacity to further modifications of his view. I would readily recommend this book to individual's seeking a role for faith in their lives. Fenton Johnson's account of his personal search should encourage others to recognize that in their struggle and skepticism they are not alone, that there are at least partial answers available if they learn to frame their questions appropriately.

This is a fantastic book. As someone who has been working hard to understand religion and its influence on western culture, I have to say this book is a great first step. I found Johnson asked many of the same questions that I was asking. He then did the legwork to answer those questions, always including plenty of support for his points. Often, I would read a paragraph and write a thought about it in my reading journal only to reach the end of the page and find the exact thought I had just written right there in the book. This was like reading a book about myself...and yet it would seem johnson (a middle aged gay man who lives in san francisco) and I who am an 18 year old female and have rarely been out of my sheltered hometown in Idaho would have little in common. This is a fantastic book and has provided guidance for where to go next on this journey which will no doubt be quite long indeed. I recommend this book to anyone who is ready to begin a spiritual quest.

After Reading Scissors, Paper, Rock, I was anxious to read more of Fenton Johnson's work. Keeping faith is a very different book in that it is non-fiction, deeply spiritual and very personal. The book basically consists of three parts, although the boundaries between the sections are not altogether precise. The first and longest part discusses Mr. Johnson's journey of searching for what faith means to him as a lapsed and disenfranchised Roman Catholic. The second part discusses the historical background of monasticism, shedding new light on church history (at least for me). The third part deals with Mr. Johnson's integration of his understanding of church history and personal experience to find a way to reclaim his personal faith. He very strongly emphasizes that searching for faith is a journey that never ends.

For me, as a gay man, the most interesting part of Keeping Faith is the understanding of the juxtapositioning of Christian materialism (the incarnate Christ) with the emphasis on celibacy, as seen through a Buddhist lens. This discussion opened new vistas of understanding that help me integrate sexuality with faith.

The journey, being very personal, sometimes makes for strange sequencing in the text. I really had to work at following Mr. Johnson's train of thought at times. But the writing itself is very clear and precise, much like in Scissors, Paper, Rock.

Fenton Johnson, who was born in 1953 and raised as a Roman Catholic, lost his faith in the church at a very early age. This book is an account of his search for a new or renewed faith, which began in earnest after the death of his partner from AIDS in 1990.

As Johnson's partner lay in the intensive care unit of the American Hospital in Paris, dying alone, Johnson, under threat of police action, was forced to wait outside in the hall, because he wasn't considered a member of his partner's family. Suffering in this way because of his otherness was a great gift, worth exactly what it cost, Johnson concluded later.

"My homosexuality provided my particular doorway to the place where Jesus hangs in agony on the cross," he writes, "a place that I might otherwise have managed to avoid: the place of the outsider, the world of suffering."

Johnson's search for faith took him to the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani, in Kentucky, and to the San Francisco Zen Center. In addition to spending significant amounts of time with the monks at these locations, he independently researched the origins and development of Christian and Buddhist thought.

Where Johnson's search ended is less important than the manner in which he conducted and recorded it. He is a careful thinker and a fine writer, and his account of his search rewards the reader who savors finely crafted sentences such as this one:

"The audience chuckled, and the Dalai Lama chuckled, but with this difference: we were laughing at what we took to be a joke; he was smiling at our refusal to take him seriously."

Some of Johnson's sentences echo essayist and master prose stylist E. B. White.

Johnson writes: "I was possessed by anger -- the pit in the gut, the quickening pulse; I recognized the signs."

E. B. White wrote: "I was saddened by your letter -- the sagging spirit, the moistened finger in the wind, the examination of entrails, and the fear of little men."

Read this book for the same reason that the writer Edward Abbey might have read it: "... not the development of character or the unraveling of plot or the structure of an argument but simply the quality of the author's mind."

Fenton Johnson writes so well about issues of faith, and the struggles that, in my opinion, most faithful and believing persons experience. This is a refreshing and rewarding read I would recommend. His writing is introspective in a most intimate manner of expression and sincerity. The book's title really says it all...he writes with integrity and commitment to that title...and made me want to shake his hand someday to say thank you.

I probably would not have bought this book by browsing. My daughter gave it to me for Christmas (she didn't really know what it was about) because she knows I read a lot of early Christian stuff and I'm particularly interested in monasticism. Johnson has a beautiful, flowing style of writing that is filled with imagery. He writes with thoroughness and passion. I really enjoyed the conversations with the monks and others who contributed. There was much to be gleaned from their wisdom.

I felt like much of his history of Christianity was tainted with bias and had implications that supported his skepticism. For example, that Christianity was formed of myths combined from Jewish and Greek culture. Where I would see the same history and attribute the outcome to a strong Creator whose hands on approach to His creation utilized every part of civilization to lovingly restore man to Himself. In other words, Plato (like Cyrus in the Old Testament) was, perhaps unknowingly, used to prepare the world for the incarnation of God through Jesus and the coming Kingdom of God that He brought with Him.

Johnson was very transparent about himself and that helped me understand his particular problems with the church. It is hard to combine the two faiths (Buddhism and Christianity): one is of earth the other of heaven. I think this book should be read by Christians who are complacent to expose them to other things that are out there. Thank-you, Fenton for writing this book.

Fenton Johnson opens the door to eastern and western religious thought in ways that are both illuminating and touching. Johnson, maybe one of the best writers on the market today, takes us into worlds we should experience, and somehow keeps it fascinating.