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Book Review of Searching for God in America

Searching for God in America
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From Booklist

This accompaniment to a PBS TV series of the same name, which will first air in four parts in July, is a potpourri. It consists of transcripts of the eight interviews upon which the series is based, a treasury of (mostly) American writings on religion from the Mayflower to Muhammad Ali, and a little selection of Christian song texts. Los Angeles lawyer and broadcaster Hewitt chose the interview subjects because theirs are "models of faith-filled lives," and although he has them speak about their own traditions, Hewitt covers many of the same matters with all of them: the problem of evil, suffering, living the religious life, the purpose of prayer, the necessity of compassionate action, and so on. The interviewees are Prison Ministries founder Charles Colson; the conservative rabbi, Harold Kushner, who wrote the huge best-seller When Bad Things Happen to Good People (1985); the Presbyterian woman who chairs the largest Christian relief organization and presides over the Christian College Coalition; an Islamic scholar and philosopher; the senior pastor of L.A.'s community-activist First African Methodist Episcopal Church; an apostle of the Mormon Church; the Trappist monk who has led the largest effort to spread the practice of contemplative prayer; and the Dalai Lama. Each says stirring and ponderable things, to which the many voices represented in the treasury, which includes Native Americans and atheists in its wide-ranging span, add hundreds more. Ray Olson

Product Description

Based on the new PBS series of the same name, Searching for God in America offers a compilation of our nation's collective conversations about God. A guide to compelling faith journeys, from the signing of the Mayflower Compact in 1620 to the present, Searching for God in America provides first-person accounts of religious experiences which have empowered American history.