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The Faith Between Us: A Jew and a Catholic Search for the Meaning of God
A religious "coming out" story by two young believers―one Catholic and one Jewish, with an introduction by Freakonomics coauthor Stephen J. Dubner.
Scott Korb and Peter Bebergal, two young progressives, share a They believe in God. One is a former wannabe Catholic priest, the other a failed Jewish mystic, and they formed a friendship that's shaped by their common belief. In The Faith Between Us, they engage in a dialogue that ranges widely, from the mundane to the divine. They discuss finding religious meaning in their secular worlds, the moral implications of decisions both personal and political, their different religious cultures, and how their lives have been shaped by the pursuit of an authentic, livable faith. Both a spiritual memoir and an examination of contemporary religion as it's played out in unconventional ways, The Faith Between Us offers an alternative vision of faith in America, one that is equally irreverent and devout, ironic and earnest. For everyone interested in a modern take on keeping faith―and in reclaiming religion from the fundamentalists and literalists who have co-opted it for the right and those on the left who dismiss its redemptive power― The Faith Between Us will be an engaging and thought-provoking read.
Scott Korb and Peter Bebergal, two young progressives, share a They believe in God. One is a former wannabe Catholic priest, the other a failed Jewish mystic, and they formed a friendship that's shaped by their common belief. In The Faith Between Us, they engage in a dialogue that ranges widely, from the mundane to the divine. They discuss finding religious meaning in their secular worlds, the moral implications of decisions both personal and political, their different religious cultures, and how their lives have been shaped by the pursuit of an authentic, livable faith. Both a spiritual memoir and an examination of contemporary religion as it's played out in unconventional ways, The Faith Between Us offers an alternative vision of faith in America, one that is equally irreverent and devout, ironic and earnest. For everyone interested in a modern take on keeping faith―and in reclaiming religion from the fundamentalists and literalists who have co-opted it for the right and those on the left who dismiss its redemptive power― The Faith Between Us will be an engaging and thought-provoking read.
- GenresReligionSpirituality
Hardcover
First published October 30, 2007
3 people are currently reading
87 people want to read
About the author
Peter Bebergal
9 books71 followersPeter Bebergal is the author of Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll, Too Much to Dream: A Psychedelic American Boyhood and The Faith between Us: A Jew and a Catholic Search for the Meaning of God (with Scott Korb). He writes widely on music and books, with special emphasis on the speculative and slightly fringe. His recent essays and reviews have appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, The Quietus, BoingBoing, and The Believer. Bebergal studied religion and culture at Harvard Divinity School, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 11, 2008
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)
As I've mentioned here before, one of the topics I find myself becoming more and more interested in these days is that of American religious thought, despite I myself being a long-time atheist with no plans to change my beliefs anytime soon; and that's because, with religious beliefs playing such a hugely important role in the US right now (a recent poll, for example, shows that a whopping 92 percent of all Americans believe in some form of "higher power"), when an American talks about religion they're actually talking about a number of other issues at the same time. An American is never just talking about God when they talk about God; they're also talking about the search for inner peace, the struggle to understand why evil exists, the process of both retribution and forgiveness. And ironically, they're also talking more and more about civil freedoms, political theory and personal responsibility when they talk about God; for example, one of the growing issues being talked about among the faithful here is that of neocon radical fundamentalists, of the religious hegemony they have so successfully created in the US over the last thirty years, this attitude that if you're not a Rapture-embracing, abortion-clinic-bombing political conservative then of course you're not really a Christian either.
And that brings us to the fairly new nonfiction book The Faith Between Us: A Jew and a Catholic Search for the Meaning of God, by a pair of young writers and personal friends named Peter Bebergal and Scott Korb; because their situation is very much like the one I'm describing, in that they are both literary hipsters who for a long time have hidden their deep traditional religious beliefs from their friends and peers, for fear of being mocked and ridiculed by this profoundly secular community of intellectuals. (And when I say "literary hipsters," I mean that collectively the two of them had already been published in places like Salon, The Believer and Harper's before the release of this book, and in fact originally met each other because of their shared love for indie press McSweeney's.) The book, then, basically addresses this situation, in ways both funny and melancholic; of what it's like to pursue a better understanding of faith through the atmosphere of rational, skeptical thought, of what unique challenges arise in the face of doing this while being a big-city hipster doofus, and of both the bad and good things that come from having to keep all this mostly a secret from most of the fellow hipsters you know.
And in general the two of them do a pretty good job, for reasons that I'll get into in a bit; but right off the bat, I feel the need to mention a pretty big fact about the book, one that heavily influences the way one even reads it, which is that the stories by Bebergal (the Jew of the twosome) are simply better than Korb's (the Catholic), and that in fact one half of the entire book ends up being quite better than the other half. Sorry, guys, but that's just how it is! And in fact, this brings up an interesting realization I've made in my life over the years concerning the differences between Christians and Jews writing about their religions, an understanding I never came to until finally starting to read more and more Jewish writing in my thirties; and that is that the adherents of those two religions are taught to look at their faiths in entirely different ways, ways that I'm convinced has a heavy influence over how such people even look at the world in general.
Because the fact is that Bebergal's stories are more analytical, more thoughtful, more full of original ideas; like the Jew that he is, he approaches the scriptures of his religion in an interpretative and metaphorical way, gleaning real-world wisdom from them and then forming his own original thoughts on the subject at hand. Korb, however, as the good Christian that he is, tends to tell much more literal tales with his half of the manuscript, literally quoting the scriptures from his religion word for word while also attributing them ("Matthew 4:16"), just like Christian intellectuals are taught to do when discussing Christianity. As a result, then, Korb's stories come off more as lectures, with a Big Point he is shooting for and with lots of referenced biblical evidence to prove it; but Bebergal's stories come off more as campfire tales, with him mostly discussing Judaic scripture in plain language instead of quoting it, and with a bigger emphasis on the conversation itself that the topics inspire. And this simply makes for better and more interesting reading, which is why I say that Bebergal's half is plainly better than Korb's, which makes reading this book a veritable exercise sometimes in start-and-stop frustration. (See, each guy writes every other chapter; and each chapter ends with a "postscript" by the other as well, in which they're allowed to jump in for a page or two and comment on what they just thought of the other's story.)
Now, maybe this is just my personal bias talking; maybe since I was raised as a Christian myself, in a city that was almost 100-percent Christian (within the American "Bible Belt" of the 1970s), of course I'm just naturally going to find the Jewish half of this book more exotic, and therefore "better." Or maybe this is just a natural limitation concerning the subject at hand, and doesn't reflect the writers themselves; maybe their creative skills are a lot more equal when both write on secular topics. Those are of course questions I can't answer -- you'll want to check out the opinions of others in very different positions in their lives for a more balanced look at those kinds of subjects, which thankfully in these Web 2.0 times you can easily do simply by jumping online. I can definitively state, though, that the book in general is above-average in quality, especially compared to the whiny Oprah-friendly pseudo-science New Age babble that constitutes so much these days of contemporary non-fundamentalist religious thought; this is definitely a book designed with intelligent urban hipsters in mind, with a brisk pace and a wry, smart style that is sure to engage, sure to provoke thought. It is bound to deeply resonate with a lot of you young spouses and parents out there, those struggling to balance a desire to go to church with their hatred for the radical right, those who want to live a more moral life but not be mocked by their coke-snorting artist friends over wanting to live a more moral life.
Like I said, when an American talks about religion, they're actually talking about a lot more than whether God exists or what the one true faith might be; they're also talking about society, politics, personal responsibility, the attempt to define an ethical code. They are talking about friends and lovers and children; of hopes versus dreams versus frustrations versus realities. Bebergal and Korb do a fine job in The Faith Between Us in addressing all of these issues and more, through the filter of a faith-based conversation that even I as a secular humanist found fascinating. It comes highly recommended today, even if you're not a particularly religious person yourself; and especially to all you Europeans who have a hard time understanding how America can be such a religious place, of how intellectuals can live within such an environment, and would like to hear about it from the standpoint of actual intellectuals.
Out of 10: 9.2
As I've mentioned here before, one of the topics I find myself becoming more and more interested in these days is that of American religious thought, despite I myself being a long-time atheist with no plans to change my beliefs anytime soon; and that's because, with religious beliefs playing such a hugely important role in the US right now (a recent poll, for example, shows that a whopping 92 percent of all Americans believe in some form of "higher power"), when an American talks about religion they're actually talking about a number of other issues at the same time. An American is never just talking about God when they talk about God; they're also talking about the search for inner peace, the struggle to understand why evil exists, the process of both retribution and forgiveness. And ironically, they're also talking more and more about civil freedoms, political theory and personal responsibility when they talk about God; for example, one of the growing issues being talked about among the faithful here is that of neocon radical fundamentalists, of the religious hegemony they have so successfully created in the US over the last thirty years, this attitude that if you're not a Rapture-embracing, abortion-clinic-bombing political conservative then of course you're not really a Christian either.
And that brings us to the fairly new nonfiction book The Faith Between Us: A Jew and a Catholic Search for the Meaning of God, by a pair of young writers and personal friends named Peter Bebergal and Scott Korb; because their situation is very much like the one I'm describing, in that they are both literary hipsters who for a long time have hidden their deep traditional religious beliefs from their friends and peers, for fear of being mocked and ridiculed by this profoundly secular community of intellectuals. (And when I say "literary hipsters," I mean that collectively the two of them had already been published in places like Salon, The Believer and Harper's before the release of this book, and in fact originally met each other because of their shared love for indie press McSweeney's.) The book, then, basically addresses this situation, in ways both funny and melancholic; of what it's like to pursue a better understanding of faith through the atmosphere of rational, skeptical thought, of what unique challenges arise in the face of doing this while being a big-city hipster doofus, and of both the bad and good things that come from having to keep all this mostly a secret from most of the fellow hipsters you know.
And in general the two of them do a pretty good job, for reasons that I'll get into in a bit; but right off the bat, I feel the need to mention a pretty big fact about the book, one that heavily influences the way one even reads it, which is that the stories by Bebergal (the Jew of the twosome) are simply better than Korb's (the Catholic), and that in fact one half of the entire book ends up being quite better than the other half. Sorry, guys, but that's just how it is! And in fact, this brings up an interesting realization I've made in my life over the years concerning the differences between Christians and Jews writing about their religions, an understanding I never came to until finally starting to read more and more Jewish writing in my thirties; and that is that the adherents of those two religions are taught to look at their faiths in entirely different ways, ways that I'm convinced has a heavy influence over how such people even look at the world in general.
Because the fact is that Bebergal's stories are more analytical, more thoughtful, more full of original ideas; like the Jew that he is, he approaches the scriptures of his religion in an interpretative and metaphorical way, gleaning real-world wisdom from them and then forming his own original thoughts on the subject at hand. Korb, however, as the good Christian that he is, tends to tell much more literal tales with his half of the manuscript, literally quoting the scriptures from his religion word for word while also attributing them ("Matthew 4:16"), just like Christian intellectuals are taught to do when discussing Christianity. As a result, then, Korb's stories come off more as lectures, with a Big Point he is shooting for and with lots of referenced biblical evidence to prove it; but Bebergal's stories come off more as campfire tales, with him mostly discussing Judaic scripture in plain language instead of quoting it, and with a bigger emphasis on the conversation itself that the topics inspire. And this simply makes for better and more interesting reading, which is why I say that Bebergal's half is plainly better than Korb's, which makes reading this book a veritable exercise sometimes in start-and-stop frustration. (See, each guy writes every other chapter; and each chapter ends with a "postscript" by the other as well, in which they're allowed to jump in for a page or two and comment on what they just thought of the other's story.)
Now, maybe this is just my personal bias talking; maybe since I was raised as a Christian myself, in a city that was almost 100-percent Christian (within the American "Bible Belt" of the 1970s), of course I'm just naturally going to find the Jewish half of this book more exotic, and therefore "better." Or maybe this is just a natural limitation concerning the subject at hand, and doesn't reflect the writers themselves; maybe their creative skills are a lot more equal when both write on secular topics. Those are of course questions I can't answer -- you'll want to check out the opinions of others in very different positions in their lives for a more balanced look at those kinds of subjects, which thankfully in these Web 2.0 times you can easily do simply by jumping online. I can definitively state, though, that the book in general is above-average in quality, especially compared to the whiny Oprah-friendly pseudo-science New Age babble that constitutes so much these days of contemporary non-fundamentalist religious thought; this is definitely a book designed with intelligent urban hipsters in mind, with a brisk pace and a wry, smart style that is sure to engage, sure to provoke thought. It is bound to deeply resonate with a lot of you young spouses and parents out there, those struggling to balance a desire to go to church with their hatred for the radical right, those who want to live a more moral life but not be mocked by their coke-snorting artist friends over wanting to live a more moral life.
Like I said, when an American talks about religion, they're actually talking about a lot more than whether God exists or what the one true faith might be; they're also talking about society, politics, personal responsibility, the attempt to define an ethical code. They are talking about friends and lovers and children; of hopes versus dreams versus frustrations versus realities. Bebergal and Korb do a fine job in The Faith Between Us in addressing all of these issues and more, through the filter of a faith-based conversation that even I as a secular humanist found fascinating. It comes highly recommended today, even if you're not a particularly religious person yourself; and especially to all you Europeans who have a hard time understanding how America can be such a religious place, of how intellectuals can live within such an environment, and would like to hear about it from the standpoint of actual intellectuals.
Out of 10: 9.2
March 6, 2008
I cannot give an unbiased review of this book, nor comment objectively on the writing style of the clarity of ideas. For me, it was far too personal of a read. Although neither of the two authors believes quite what I do (my faith is more literal than Scott's and more disciplined than Peter's) their struggles, their embarrassment, doubt, exhilaration, and yearning are incredibly familiar. This is a book of how religious faith (both discovery and loss of it) shaped two individuals. It is also a story of how the search for God bound two men from different backgrounds together in a lasting friendship. In each chapter, one author takes an idea or occurrence in his life and examines it from a religious angle. The second author then gives an outsiders perspective of the event and his view of the religious idea. Put together, the book becomes part autobiography and part discussion with the different approaches of the two authors balancing each other out. For supposed answers, look elsewhere, for a glimpse at how two individuals sought God within a secular world, this is the book.
March 21, 2008
I am not overly religious and consider myself agnostic, so I was surprised as anyone when I picked out this book at the library. Sometimes I feel like book titles just jump out at me and I am meant to take them home. I am however very interested in memoir and very interested in cross-cultural understanding.
It's one of the most innovative memoirs in that two authors contributed to the book, each alternating chapters, while the second author provided an epilogue to each chapter. It's basically about each of their searches for God and the friendship they forged in the process. The topics in the book are wide ranging and include such things as: drug abuse, bird watching, death of a parent, veganism, and September 11 to name a few. These guys are not "holier than thou" types who have never done anything bad. They are human and relatable. Although I did skip several paragraph when it got too religious, I really learned a lot from the two authors.
PS One of the authors lives in Boston and there is a lot of Boston imagery in it for all of those Bostonians out there.
It's one of the most innovative memoirs in that two authors contributed to the book, each alternating chapters, while the second author provided an epilogue to each chapter. It's basically about each of their searches for God and the friendship they forged in the process. The topics in the book are wide ranging and include such things as: drug abuse, bird watching, death of a parent, veganism, and September 11 to name a few. These guys are not "holier than thou" types who have never done anything bad. They are human and relatable. Although I did skip several paragraph when it got too religious, I really learned a lot from the two authors.
PS One of the authors lives in Boston and there is a lot of Boston imagery in it for all of those Bostonians out there.
September 21, 2018
A really interesting conversation around faith and god and meaning and practice told through a series of stories.
March 8, 2008
I've had four books on my bedstand that I was alternating between for the past three months, and this is the one that I finished first, so that must be saying something. It is quite topical, and easy to read, and there is a subtle narrative to a book that is, in essence, a dialogue between two friends, one Catholic and one Jewish, that takes the form of a series of essays on their personal faiths. It is an intimate story of two people, both near my age, and both of whom have both spent most of the post-pubescent lives wrestling with the idea of God. In the end, the Catholic decides he is an athiest while the Jewish guy ends up embracing the liturgy of his faith, so don't expect a balanced approach to the two religious traditions. It's basically one chapter on how the Catholic guy has a problem with the beliefs that he grew up with, followed by one where the Jewish guy talks about the joys of his religious rituals. Then repeat. Once I accepted that basic slant, I settled in to what turned out to be an enjoyable read. The friendship bewteen Scott and Peter added some tenderness to what could have been a bumpy topic, and, if nothing else, it was good to listen to two liberal urbanites discuss their intense, if often ambivalent, search for God.
January 5, 2008
wow! I really enjoyed this book.
July 31, 2011
I really wanted to like this book and it WAS interesting. But I was not captivated; in the end, I skimmed some of the chapters before returning it to the library by the due date!
September 17, 2012
For a book that is meant to be read objectively, I think, I enjoyed this volume as a pair of interesting memoirs.
November 4, 2011
An honest, beautifully written story of faith and of friendship. Recommended.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews