Working on God

by Winifred Gallagher

Why do I exist? Is this all there is? What is my true nature? What is most important in life? How should I live? These are humanity's oldest spiritual questions. At the year 2000, however, many who ask them are profoundly estranged from religion. To some, religion is belief in the unbelievable--incom-patible with intelligence and learning. To others, it's just another bureaucratic institution--legalistic, hypo-critical, untrustworthy. Still others have been alienated by their birth traditions, while an increasing number lack any such grounding. What unites this diverse group of skeptical, ambivalent "neoagnostics" is a sense of something deep and vital that eludes the reach of their intellect and education and an inchoate desire for meaning.
        
A half-century of the great secular experiment of Einstein, Marx, and Freud has proved that if religion--the record of our struggle to understand existence and behave accordingly--has grave flaws, so do the materialistic "faiths" that were intended to replace it. After looking for answers in some obvious places, from relationships and accomplishment to art and science, Winifred Gallagher realized that she had not seriously considered religion since childhood's version of Chris-tianity collided with a college education. Asking the question "What if religion could be about something else?" she decided to explore her own heritage, as well as Buddhism, Judaism, and the New Age. She discovered a vast, quiet, "millennial" spiritual revolution that is transforming religion into a process of moving toward--and struggling with--the sacred. Transcending denom-inational boundaries, this new sensibility embraces modern realities from physics to psychiatry, addresses existential questions, values personal experience over institutional authority, draws insights from multiple traditions, welcomes women as clergy and teachers, and expands morality beyond the personal to the systemic, from economics to ecology.
        
A reporter of behavioral science, Winifred Gallagher began her investigation of postmodern religion with research and interviews, but watched it also become a very personal story of epektasis--straining toward mystery. Journalism and journey unfold over time spent in a Zen monastery and a cloistered convent, small-group discussions and healing rituals, a Conservative synagogue that shares a Christian church, and the birthplace of the New Age. Written with humor, empathy, and a rigorous curiosity, Working on God breaks new ground in depicting the broad-based spiritual move-ment that is transforming culture as well as religion.

Genres: Religion, Spirituality, Nonfiction

370 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Walter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a sneakily compelling book written by an accomplished author covering new and more personal terrain. What I have enjoyed most about the author's style is that even though her own experiences are a core component of the book, she includes them in a way that is complimentary to story line and helps to deepen one's appreciation for the other phenomena that she investigates.

Simply put, this is a parallel journey and journal: one the one hand, the author investigates the renewed interest in spirituality at the dawn of the millenium; on the other, she chronicles her own personal quest in this regard. Both stories are fascinating, as they evidence important developments in our societal evolution. For example, it is clear that there is a yearning for greater spiritual fulfillment in the polity at large, but the ways in which this is being sought are different than in the past. The development of a group of religious and spiritual skeptics, whom Gallagher calls "neoagnostics" is effectively both an indictment of organized religion and one of its largest future growth opportunities. Also, given the tendency of so many to change religious affiliations over the course of their lifetime, there is also a complimentary trend toward customization - the blending of denominational spiritual elements to create a more personally fulfilling spiritual belief set. In this regard, the author's recommitment to Christianity (though not necessarily to a belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ) along with the adoption of the practice of Zen meditation and of the Jewish approach to scriptural study and illumination is representative.

Although a generally strong effort throughout, there are some places that the book does seem to wander or even get off of its track, but these are relatively few and not particularly harmful diversions. Also, I believe that the author misses an important opportunity in recounting her personal spiritual evolution but not offering specific guidance or suggestions to readers on how to do the same (as the rest of us aren't in the position of a having a funded book project to allow us to explore freely as she does).

Other than these quibbles, though, this is a valuable contribution to understanding the renewed interest in spirituality in our society and a thought-provoking journey that can encourage readers' re-consideration of their own personal spirituality.

[Linda]

This is quite a good book. I relished every word that I read. But, I kept putting it back and reading something else. Every time I picked it up I began to feel like I was on the brink of some kind of wonderful and exciting breakthrough. I felt like I understood modern culture and why we are so aimless in our spirituality. Then, I would read something else. Go figure.