Believer, Beware: First-person Dispatches from the Margins of Faith

by Jeff Sharlet (Editor), Peter Manseau (Editor)

A Killing the Buddha Anthology

The second collection to spring from KillingTheBuddha.com, Believer, Beware presents true tales of sex ed in Catholic school, witches in Kansas, sects and the city, Buddhists in the barbershop, Sufis under your nose, an adolescent Jewish messiah in Queens, and more.

In a world riven by absolute convictions, these ambivalent confessions, skeptical testimonies, and personal revelations speak to the subtler and stranger dilemmas of faith and doubt-of religion lost and found and lost again.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, Essays, Memoir

280 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2009

About the author

Jeff Sharlet is the New York Times bestselling author and editor of eight books of creative nonfiction and photography, including The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, The Family—adapted into a Netflix documentary series of the same name hosted by Sharlet—and This Brilliant Darkness: A Book of Strangers. Sharlet is a contributing editor for Vanity Fair, Harper's, and Rolling Stone, and an editor-at-large for VQR. He has also written for The New York Times Magazine, GQ, Esquire, The Atlantic, The Nation, The New Republic, New York, Bookforum, and other publications. His writing on Russia’s anti-LGBTQIA+ crusade earned the National Magazine Award and his writing on anti-LGBTQIA+ campaigns in Uganda earned the Molly National Journalism Prize, the Outright International’s Outspoken Award, and the Americans United Person of the Year Award, among others. He has served as a Nonfiction Panel Chair for the National Book Award and received multiple fellowships from MacDowell. Sharlet is the Frederick Sessions Beebe ’35 Professor in the Art of Writing at Dartmouth College. He lives in Vermont, where he is trying to learn the names of plants.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I discovered this book in the middle of a quiet but profound spiritual crisis occurring in my life. This book is actually the offshot of a web-zine that I found around the height of that dark (but ultimately, I think, fruitful) night of the soul, "Killing the Buddha", which promised to be a sort of irreverant but sincere place for thoughtful young religious types. Like me! And I actually recommend Killing the Buddha very very highly; both in terms of content and form, the editors, Jeff Sharlet and Peter Manseu, consistently present compelling, difficult and thought provoking ideas and reflections and insights on the internal and external religious landscape of the United States and beyond.


As excited as I was about the website, and as eager as I was to support the work of these editors and thinkers with a financial contribution vis-a-vis buying their book, I found this book to be deeply disappointing. Well, not deeply disappointing- that's kind of the point. This book isn't deep at all, and it really, could have been.

As the title implies, this book is a collection of personal essays from people who have, one way or another, identified with a religion that they find themselves ambivelent about. The religions themselves range all over the theological and metaphysical map- Buddhism, Judiasm, various sects of Christianity, Hinduism all have their chapters, and there are elements of some of the stories that are really interesting in the details of expression of faith- the same kind of thing that makes This American Life so compelling, I think, the textuality of lived experience learned second hand.

But this is as far as the interest seems to go, at least for me. I found the stories themselves curiously flat and repetitive; apparently for me ambivalence is not a compelling narrative theme. Perhaps this is because I read this during a spiritual crisis which was nothing if not about ambivalence, and I read this the wrong way. Perhaps I should have found it comforting, reading all of these stories about people who try to move beyond their ambivalence; maybe I should have taken some refuge in the fact that I wasn't alone. And of course that wasn't what I was after at all- I wanted some beacon to help me move past that stuck place, so hearing about other stuck people did not exactly reassure me in the slightest.

But more than anything, my problem with this book was a problem of tone. The writers all seemed to approach their subject with an extreme trepidation- like they were all saying "Ok, ok, I know that we are educated liberals (more or less) and that religion and God and the Bible are for Red Staters, but I also had this experience one time and I want to try to examine it objectively, but maybe also it was real, but maybe....". In essence, fence sitting. I guess it's ok to fence sit when it comes to religion. Probably a lot of the world's misery could have been avoided if fence sitting and endless navel gazing and pontificating were a little more common, and zealotry a little less. And I'm sure I'd have been just as annoyed if the writers were ever claiming to have The One True Truth, Absolutely in their hearts and craniums and sacred texts.

But as much as I may prefer fence sitting in real life to zealotry, I want my religious reading to be about people who take risks for their faith, even if that risk solely consists in appearing slightly credulous or even delusional to your peers. It's strange- these essays reminded me strongly of dozens, probably hundreds, of conversations I've had with people over the years that I enjoyed, precisely because of the uncertainty and vaugeness and "but what does it all mean" ness and utter mystery. Apparently I only enjoy that in the give and take of conversation. In writing, their was simply no meat for me, nothing for me to grab onto.

Ultimately, I think my reading of the essays was too informed by my reading of the introduction, which I thoroughly do *not* recommend- for me, the introduction felt far too much like a person desperately trying to evade commitment to anything, and so lapsing into a kind of insufferable stance of "but no one can possibly understand me because I am too much of an individual", except that the author wasn't talking about himself, he was talking about the whole tribe of people who he happened to be talking about, which is essentially people who are religious, but they aren't that kind of religious, but they aren't that kind of *non-committal* religious, either, because you can't pin labels on them, man.

(Possibly also, the fact I was helping to raise a friends teenage sister at the time did not lend me to much patience with that train of thought. Every time I'd pick up the introduction, I felt the urge to scream at the author "Just do the damn dishes already! For the love of Christ!" So probably there was some transference going on here. This is probably actually the least fair review ever).

I'm setting aside the book for now. More than other kinds of books, writings on religion, and particularly on people's lived spiritual experience, tend to resonate with me differently at different points in my life, and who knows- maybe I simply read this out of season? I look forward to reading more of work collected and edited (and even written!) by Jeff Sharlet and all, and again, I recommend Killing the Buddha like mad.

[Anya Weber · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In the doldrums between the psyche and the world it inhabits, imagination exists like a creature in a zoo exhibit, deemed to be both quaint and a curiosity." - Bia Lowe, in "Seeing Things," an essay from Believer Beware

Imagination is alive and well in these essays on belief, religion, and loss thereof. The writers of this anthology all understand that faith is complex, and discarding it equally so. Their stories are wrenching, hilarious, and true (both literally and emotionally).

A Jewish girl from an Orthodox family makes the agonizing but inevitable decision to cut herself off from them (Naomi Seidman, "Raised By Jews"). A California teenager in the 1970s, "with the requisite slouch, Charlie Manson stare, and David Cassidy shag gone feral," becomes a fundamentalist Christian (Marc Dery, "Jesus is Just Alright"). A transgender kid finds kinky sex and the seeds of liberation at Jesus Camp (Quince Mountain, "Cowboy for Christ"). A meditation teacher and a convict agree on the benefits of breathing exercises to help insulate oneself against the stresses of prison - and New York City (Seth Castleman, "What's Past Jersey?").

This anthology was put together by the editors of the alternative-spirituality literary website "Killing the Buddha." While the quality of the essays is a bit hit-or-miss, the bravery of the writers' voices, and the many layers of pain and humor they uncover, makes this a fascinating compilation. Recommended for anyone exploring their faith, or interested in the intersection between skepticism and belief.

[Jim Razinha · Rating 2 out of 5]

If the intent of this book was to show me a surreal side of religious memories, then it succeeded. If it was something else, then I obviously got the wrong impression. Partially into it, I realized it was a collection culled from the Killing the Buddha website, but I am still at a loss as to explain the selection choices. Some of these stories were downright disturbing, some odd, and only a few neither of those two. Take that with a grain, of course, but I generally have a pretty catholic (lower case) perspective on religion.

[Colette! · Rating 3 out of 5]

A hit-and-miss collection of stories detailing how individuals navigate their beliefs in a sea of questioning and doubt.

Personally, I found the lack of explicitly uplifting content more in line with what (I'm guessing) most people feel during a religious experience. That said, some of the essays in here likely meant a lot to the author but are lost on the readers. I found this to be a good reminder about the fluidity of inspiration.

This particular edition has the creepiest cover I've seen in some time.

[Mel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh. The title is melodramatic and many of the stories were maudlin. This would have been more appropriately titled, "Believer Bemused: A Collection of Stories That Were Better on the Web." I kept asking myself why I was still reading, and I think it was mostly that I like chatty first-person narratives before bed. I did like "Barbershop Dharma" by Jeff Wilson (set in Carrboro, NC) and "Cowboy for Christ" by Quince Mountain.

[Lisa McKenzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am always curious about what others believe. I've held so many beliefs over the years, I've long since abandoned identifying closely with any of them. These essays covers a wide range of first person perspectives from all over the globe.The majority are intimate and honest enough to make for an overall worthwhile read.

[Aimee · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is a series of essays touching on religion. They are mostly autobiographical. Needless to say, some were a lot more interesting/better written than others. My favorite was one called The Mucus about learning natural family planning at an elite Catholic HS in California. It was hilarious, especially to someone who has practiced NFP.

[Diana · Rating 2 out of 5]

A series of essays reflecting the authors' beliefs largely from an extremely liberal perspective. This is a Beacon Press book published under the auspices of the Unitarian Universalist Association of of Congregations.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the essays in this book a lot. They were all different and very well written. I felt like it ended on a bit of a dud, but overall I thought the collection was interesting and thought provoking.

[Crystal Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let this be a lesson in not despairing about how long your to-read shelf is. This is the first book I added to my Goodreads bookshelf back in August of 2009.

Here's to finally reading it!

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting anthology; I particularly enjoyed "The Only Jew for Miles" by Gordon Haber.

[Peacegal · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with any collection of essays, there are some that are great, some that are mediocre, and some that are boring.

[Phil]

testimonies... they do work