Review: The Teaching of Buddha

Title: The Teaching of Buddha

Author: Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai (Society for the Promotion of Buddhism)

Genre: Religion

Trigger Warnings: Death, drowning, fire, blood, discussions of suffering and poverty

Back Cover:

The Teaching of Buddha is a collection of writings on the essence of Buddhism, selected and edited from the vast Buddhist canon, presented in a concise, easy-to-read, and nonsectarian format. It also includes a brief history of Buddhism, a listing of the source texts, a glossary of Sanskrit terms, and an index.

Review:

I’ve heard many, many times about Buddhism that “it’s more a philosophy than a religion.” And what I found out about it from the internet was very much based on the philosophy. But reading this book – condensed by Buddhists from the Buddhist source texts – made it clear that Buddhism is very much a religion.

To be fair, this isn’t a comprehensive overview of anything, just a selection of the source texts, paraphrased and explained. This book is meant to be read by and make sense to people who don’t know anything about Buddhism and don’t have a Buddhist teacher to explain things. So I know it’s a simplified version and missing a lot of the nuance. But it does cover the basic principles and establishes the character of the Buddha, the Buddha’s teachings, how to practice Buddhism, and what the “brotherhood” (a.k.a. Buddhist community) should look like.

I had thought with Buddhism that anyone could become a Buddha by becoming enlightened, but it seems from this book that everyone’s goal is to reach Enlightenment, but there is only one Buddha, the Buddha, the central figure of the religion. (Or maybe a small number of “major” Buddhas that are the central figures? There’s several different Buddhas named but at least two of them are just different names for the original Buddha, so I’m not sure.)

Buddhism apparently also falls into what I see as the major drawback of many religions (at least Christianity, which is my main area of experience) – the essence of the religion is that humans are by nature bad/sinful/evil/whatever and need to follow this teaching to be good/get saved/reach Enlightenment/etc. Like a lot of religions, it demands that you put its teachings above everything else in your life. Buddhism especially demands you keep a tight control on your mind and thoughts and emotions, avoid feeling things in general (“when one no longer discriminates between happiness and sorrow, a good deed and a bad deed, one is able to realize freedom,” page 191), and even though doing good for others is important, a Buddhist should focus on Enlightenment and forgo any attachment to the material world.

I did find it interesting that Buddhism also seems to have a concept of a Heaven and a Hell – at least, a post-death place where people get punished and Buddha’s Land where everything is perfect and Buddhists (or maybe Enlightened people?) go when they die.

Buddhism also has one teaching that I vehemently disagree with – the idea that if you’re suffering abuse, you should just continue to suffer because religion. On pages 122-123 there is a story of Buddha and some disciples coming to a town where the people abused them and they had a hard time begging enough to eat. One of the disciples suggested they leave because, you know, they’re being abused, but Buddha said it was better for them to stay there and “bear the abuse patiently until it ceases,” and then they could leave.

That’s not to say all of it is bad. There’s a lot of genuinely interesting teachings here, and a lot of emphasis on compassion, caring for others and nature, and taking care of the poor and the sick. The parables and allegories were interesting, too, and I liked that they had explanations/interpretations along with them (some of them were obvious, but some of them I would have never figured out). I learned a lot about Buddhism and I’m glad I read this, but with as much as I’ve heard that Buddhism is more philosophy than religion, I was surprised by how religion-like it actually is.

Review: The Gospel of Judas

Title: The Gospel of Judas

Authors: Rodolphe Kasser, Marvin W. Meyer, and Gregor Wurst

Genre: Religion

Trigger Warnings: Death (mention)

Back Cover:

For 1600 years its message lay hidden. When the bound papyrus pages of this lost gospel finally reached scholars who could unlock its meaning, they were astounded. Here was a gospel that had not been seen since the early days of Christianity, and which few experts had even thought existed–a gospel told from the perspective of Judas Iscariot, history’s ultimate traitor. Far from being a villain, the Judas that emerges in its pages is a hero. In this radical reinterpretation, Jesus asks Judas to betray him. In contrast to the New Testament Gospels, Judas is presented as a role model for all those who wish to be disciples of Jesus. He’s the one apostle who truly understands Jesus.

This volume is the 1st publication of the remarkable gospel since it was condemned as heresy by early Church leaders, most notably by Irenaeus, in 180. Hidden away in a cavern in Middle Egypt, the codex containing the gospel was discovered by farmers in the 1970s. In the intervening years the papyrus codex was bought & sold by antiquities traders, hidden away & carried across three continents, all the while suffering damage that reduced much of it to fragments. In 2001, it finally found its way into the hands of a team of experts who would painstakingly reassemble and restore it. The Gospel of Judas has been translated from its original Coptic into clear prose. It’s accompanied by commentary that explains its history in the context of the early Church, offering a new way of understanding the message of Jesus.

Review:

There’s three parts to this book, though they’re not labeled as such. First is an introduction with the history of the codex the Gospel of Judas was found it – how it was discovered, bought, sold, and damaged until it came into the hands of scholars who preserved and translated it. Second is a translation of the Gospel of Judas itself. Third is a series of essays about the gospel and its contents – what it could mean and what it likely did mean in the context of early Christian Gnosticism.

This was a really fascinating book. The gospel itself was interesting, but was also difficult to understand in parts. There are chunks of the text that are just missing due to the damage to the codex, ranging a few words to several lines. Having the essays there to interpret it helped a lot.

I learned a lot about gnosticism from this book, which really helped put the Gospel of Judas text in context. The explanations of what this gospel likely meant to the people who wrote and read it when it was first written were fascinating, as were the responses to it by proto-orthodox Christian thinkers who thought it was heretical. I learned a lot, and even though it was in pretty dense acacemic language, I enjoyed it. This is really a niche interest book, but I’m super interested in religion in general so I found it fascinating and an overall great read.

Review: Girl at the End of the World

Title: Girl at the End of the World: My Escape from Fundamentalism in Search of Faith with a Future

Author: Elizabeth Esther

Genre: Memoir/Religion

Trigger Warnings: Child abuse, spiritual abuse, fundamentalist Christianty

Back Cover:

Elizabeth Esther grew up in love with Jesus but in fear of daily spankings (to “break her will”). Trained in her family-run church to confess sins real and imagined, she knew her parents loved her and God probably hated her. Not until she was grown and married did she find the courage to attempt the unthinkable. To leave.

In her memoir, readers will recognize questions every believer faces: When is spiritual zeal a gift, and when is it a trap? What happens when a pastor holds unchecked sway over his followers? And how can we leave behind the harm inflicted in the name of God without losing God in the process?

By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Girl at the End of the World is a story of the lingering effects of spiritual abuse and the growing hope that God can still be good when His people fail.

Review:

This was so … traumatic to read.

I wanted to read this because I’ve also escaped fundamentalist Christianity. I’m not sure what I hoped for out of this book – a little more hope, maybe? – but it definitely wasn’t to viscerally relive all of my religious trauma along with watching Elizabeth experience hers.

Perhaps if I were a little further along in my dealing-with-religious-trauma journey I wouldn’t have had such a strong reaction to it, but I’m not and I did. It was painful, and yet I couldn’t look away because Elizabeth was describing familiar experiences – different names, slightly different situations, but the same feelings. Lots and lots of Trauma Feelings, which I was not particularly prepared for. (Also I read this at work. Mistakes were made.)

Uh, the book itself … it was solid. It had a coherent narrative of Elizabeth growing up indoctrinated, starting to think for herself a little, getting married, and eventually leaving the cult and finding peace with God through Catholicism. It’s interesting and well-done and Elizabeth tells her story well.

I was affected deeply by reading this because of my own background with fundamentalism. The description says “hilarious and heartbreaking,” but I saw none of the hilarious – it was all heartbreaking. It dug up traumas that I don’t think I’m quite ready to deal with yet.

But besides that, yeah. Good book. Definitely worth reading, as long as you’re prepared for it.

Review: Misquoting Jesus

Title: Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

Author: Bart D. Ehrman

Genre: Religion

Trigger Warnings: Discussion of Jesus’s death/suffering

Back Cover:

For almost 1,500 years, the New Testament manuscripts were copied by hand––and mistakes and intentional changes abound in the competing manuscript versions. Religious and biblical scholar Bart Ehrman makes the provocative case that many of our widely held beliefs concerning the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, and the divine origins of the Bible itself are the results of both intentional and accidental alterations by scribes.

In this compelling and fascinating book, Ehrman shows where and why changes were made in our earliest surviving manuscripts, explaining for the first time how the many variations of our cherished biblical stories came to be, and why only certain versions of the stories qualify for publication in the Bibles we read today. Ehrman frames his account with personal reflections on how his study of the Greek manuscripts made him abandon his once ultra–conservative views of the Bible.

Review:

I didn’t set out to review every single book I read this year, but I’m 9 for 9 so far so I might as well continue.

This is going to be a short review because I don’t have a whole lot of thoughts on it. It was very interesting, and I learned a lot. Bart talks about a lot of things I didn’t know about in the early history of the Christian church/Bible, including some of the controversies of the day and how the books and letters that make up the New Testament were copied and distributed.

He also brings up a lot of the differences in the manuscripts, and spends quite a bit of time talking about how textual analysts determine which variation is most likely to be the original text when none of the originals survived to be compared against. He talks about how scribal mistakes caused variations, as did intentional changes made by people who copied the documents and wanted to be sure there was no ambiguity that it should be interpreted the way they thought it should.

Personally, I found the arguments and translations set forth in this book very compelling – but I’m already predisposed to accept them. I don’t think they’d be nearly as compelling to my biblical literalist family, who would want a lot more authority than “I went to college” to take Bart’s word for this.

However, whatever your beliefs, this is best read with a Bible on hand to cross-reference some of the verses Bart mentions. And if you happen to have access to translations of the Greek texts mentioned, even better. The book can absolutely be enjoyed without supporting materials, but having them on hand will enrich the experience.

Review: Quiverfull

Image from Kathryn Joyce

Title: Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement

Author: Kathryn Joyce

Genre: Current Issues/Society

Trigger Warnings: Spousal abuse, fundamentalist Christianity, patriarchy, institutional violence, male power over women

Back Cover:

Kathryn Joyce’s fascinating introduction to the world of the patriarchy movement and Quiverfull families examines the twenty-first-century women and men who proclaim self-sacrifice and submission as model virtues of womanhood—and as modes of warfare on behalf of Christ. Here, women live within stringently enforced doctrines of wifely submission and male headship, and live by the Quiverfull philosophy of letting God give them as many children as possible so as to win the religion and culture wars through demographic means.

Review:

For someone who is an outsider to this kind of ideology – a mainstream or liberal Christian, an atheist or agnostic, anyone from a non-Abrahamic faith – this book will be a point of curiosity, interest, and possibly anger. For someone who grew up with it, it will be profound.

If you’re not interested in reading about my past and my personal emotional reaction to the book, go to the next section.

I came from this background – sort of. My family was conservative, my parents homeschooled my siblings and I, we had modesty rules and a purity obsession and the expectation that my sisters and I would marry (specifically, marry men), have children, and be stay-at-home mothers and homemakers. But we were also allowed to wear shorts and tank tops, expected to go to college, and told that we would probably have to work outside the house before we had children because of the economy. It was in college that I bought into the extreme beliefs that Quiverfull explores, spending a solid month forcing myself to accept that I had to forget my career ambitions and content myself with raising children.

I normally wouldn’t talk so much about myself, but this background is important to understand my reaction to Quiverfull. Because I don’t believe this anymore. I am no longer a patriarchy-believing Christian. And reading this book was a strange experience for me.

Quiverfull was an in-depth, unemotional look at this culture from the perspective of an outsider. There was no passion and no condemnation, just anthropological curiosity. Which made it strange. On one hand, it was an engaging read about a fascinating subculture and while reading, I had nothing but unemotional curiosity. But it stuck with me.

I have a lot of pain that stems from being raised in this culture, and this book brought some of it back. (I actually had to take a break from writing this review to process some feelings about it.) But more than anything, it made me miss the community. Sure, Quiverfull spent a lot of time on community gone wrong, women attacked and ostracized for refusing to assist in their own subjugation. But it also brought back memories of a community of like-minded people, who all believed the same things and at least acted like they cared about one another. Though I am no longer Christian and do not wish to go back to it, it made me miss when I had a “church family” that seemed like they cared about me.

If you’re skipping my personal story, read from here on.

There’s a lot in Quiverfull. It covers a lot of different topics, from church discipline to the outbreeding-the-competition mindset to individual experiences of people who have left and interviews with people who haven’t. There are some very powerful stories, such as a woman who was not only excommunicated but harassed, attacked, and sabotaged for years by her church for daring to divorce her abusive husband. There are histories of how influential figures in the Quiverfull movement came to power. And there are also stories of women who seem perfectly content and believe in this ideology wholeheartedly.

Overall, though, this book is a look at the Quiverfull ideology through examples. These people believe that their brand of Christianity is the only true religion. They believe that they are in a literal war with the forces of Satan, that feminism and abortion are tools Satan is using to turn America away from God and their way to win is demographically, by outbreeding the secular people. (Their ideology’s name comes from the metaphor that children are like arrows in a quiver for fighting the spiritual war.) They believe that a woman must always be under the power of (in some interpretations, owned by) a man, whether that’s her father or her husband. They believe that the sole purpose of every woman’s life is to be a mother and homemaker.

Quiverfull tries its best to be neutral and not condemn these beliefs, but anyone who isn’t entrenched in it will find a lot to condemn.

This is a very informative and in-depth book. If you’re looking for a quick overview or something light, Wikipedia might be your better bet. Quiverfull is engaging, yes, and you won’t get bored reading it, but you really need to have a lot of curiosity or a desire to know all the details to be interested (or have left that ideology and want an unemotional look at it).

Quiverfull is an excellent book, but you have to be in a specific audience to read it. If you’re interested in religions in general, want to know more about fundamentalist Christianity, or want an uncritical, unpassionate, and/or super in-depth look at Christian fundamentalism, this is your book. If not, you’ll probably be very bored.