Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Ecco (2020), Edition: Reprint, 256 pages
Description
New York Times bestseller One of PW's Best Books of the Year One of Amazon's Best Books of the Month Why is religion still around in the twenty-first century? Why do so many still believe? And how do various traditions still shape the way people experience everything from sexuality to politics, whether they are religious or not? In Why Religion? Elaine Pagels looks to her own life to help address these questions. These questions took on a new urgency for Pagels when dealing with unimaginable loss--the death of her young son, followed a year later by the shocking loss of her husband. Here she interweaves a personal story with the work that she loves, illuminating how, for better and worse, religious traditions have shaped how we understand ourselves; how we relate to one another; and, most importantly, how to get through the most difficult challenges we face. Drawing upon the perspectives of neurologists, anthropologists, and historians, as well as her own research, Pagels opens unexpected ways of understanding persistent religious aspects of our culture. A provocative and deeply moving account from one of the most compelling religious thinkers at work today, Why Religion? explores the spiritual dimension of human experience.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member akblanchard
Elaine Pagels's interest in religion began when, as a teenager, she attended a Billy Graham revival and went up for the altar call. She grew up to be an elite academic and popularizer known for her work on the gnostic gospels, and she even received a MacArthur "genius" grant. But her personal life
In this brief, thought-provoking, but rambling memoir, Pagels discusses her life and work, including her interpretations of controversial religious texts. She also offers glimpses into the privileged lives of academic superstars (she and her husband) at the top of their professions. Recommended, even though I didn't think Pagels really answered the question in the title.
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was marked by tragedy as her young son and her physicist husband died within a year of each other. Even though these life-altering events occurred over 30 years ago, her grief is still palpable. In this brief, thought-provoking, but rambling memoir, Pagels discusses her life and work, including her interpretations of controversial religious texts. She also offers glimpses into the privileged lives of academic superstars (she and her husband) at the top of their professions. Recommended, even though I didn't think Pagels really answered the question in the title.
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LibraryThing member gbelik
As books about religion go, this is a good one, both because the author is telling her own story and because she has a profound knowledge in the subject.
LibraryThing member lanewillson
It would be easy to get lost in theology, doctrine, and dogmas. But to do so, I believe, would mean missing an incredibly painful and poignant account of a mother and wife coping with nearly unfathomable loss. Pagels five-year-old son died of a rare condition, and a year later her husband died from
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a fall on a climbing outing. Ms. Pagels offers little in the way of answers, but a great deal in the tremendously honest and frantic grasping of a wounded soul. It is in that frightening struggle that strength, love, and hope are found. Show Less
LibraryThing member nmele
Elaine Pagels has occasionally been the center of controversies around the early beliefs of the faith community we call Christian, but this book explains how she got interested in early non-canonical Christian writings. For that alone it would be an excellent book but Pagels opens up about her own
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life and the consolations she finds in religion, consolation that is mixed with sorrow both because of the personal tragedies she experienced and because of the rigidity and cluelessness of some believers when she needed compassion. This is a brave book, and a moving one. Show Less
LibraryThing member brangwinn
After great personal tragedy, Pagels talks about why religion is still meaningful in the 21st century and her finding strength in her spiritual beliefs after the death of her husband.
LibraryThing member neurodrew
Elaine Pagels is the author, years ago, of The Gnostic Gospels, a book that was controversial for its assertion of an alternate gospel tradition that emphasizes the lost feminine aspects of Christianity. The Holy Spirit, in this imagining, may be femininine, and the Father is less the stern tyrant.
Page 31 - "Ever since the second century, Christian leaders [Irenaeus, a second century Syrian missionary, derided the gnostics, who sought knowledge in all Christian traditions] calling themselves orthodox ("straight thinking") have defined choice as heresy. The Greek term translated as "heresy"(hairesis) means exactly that: "choice"!
Page 33 - "What I love about sources like the Gospel of Thomas is that they open up far more than a single path. Instead of telling us what to believe, they engage both head and heart, challenging us to "love your brother as your own life" while deepening spiritual practice by discovering our own inner resources: "Knock upon yourself as on a door, and walk upon yourself as on a straight road. For if you walk on that road you cannot get lost; and what you open for yourself will open" ..."Recognize what is before your eyes, and the mysteries will be revealed to you"
Page 108 - "... Goya, who famously said that "the dreams of reason bring forth monsters""
Page 167 - "I was startled to realize that somehow I still wanted to believe that we live in a morally ordered universe, in which someone or something - God or nature? - would keep track of what's fair ... like those old Bible stories I'd heard, that suggest that doing good ensures well being, and doing wrong brings disaster? ... Now, working hard to stay steady, or seem to, I could no longer afford to look through a lens that heaps guilt upon grief"
Page 169 - passim - Mark's gospel originally ends at the grave site, where a "young man" tells the women who came to tend to the grave to find the body missing that they would see Jesus again, and the women flee, terrified. Among Mark's early readers, wanting the gospel to end on a more positive note, wrote a second ending, adding several episodes of Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene and others.
Page 176 - [at the end of the funeral for her son] "At that moment, I desperately longed to escape from this life, seeking either our lost child or oblivion. It was then that I seemed to that vision of a huge net made of ropes, surrounding all of us, with open spaces through which we might be propelled into infinity, yet bound with knots that held us to this world. Later, someone told me of the Hindu image of the God Indra's net, embracing the world, often pictured as blazing with jewels ... What drew me back to the Gospel of Thomas was a particular cluster of sayings that seemed to speak of what that vision meant ... For unlike the Gospel of Mark, which pictures Jesus announcing that that the "kingdom of God is coming soon", as a catastrophic event, the end of the world, the Gospel of Thomas suggests he was speaking in metaphor: "Jesus says: If those who lead you say to you, "The kingdom of God is in the sky" then the birds will get there first. If they say, "It is in the sea" then the fish will get there first. Rather, the kingdom of god is within you and outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then ... you will know you are the children of god."
Page 178-179 - [Text from Nag Hammadi] - Thunder, Complete Mind, for example, echoes how ... people have heard thunder as a divine voice ... this poem personifies thunder - bronte, a feminine word in Greek - as a feminine power. Speaking in paradox, her voice confounds those who expect clarity, and frustrates those who need certainty. Here she declares that the divine presence, often unseen, shines everywhere ... Thunder presses us to envision divine energy with our "complete mind" even in terms of negative experiences like foolishness, shame and fear
[Excerpt from the poem]:
I am the first and the last
I am the one honored and the one scorned
I am the whore and the holy one
I am the incomprehensible silence
and, the voice of many sounds, the word in many forms;
I am the utterance of my name
Do not cast anyone out or turn anyone away
I am the one who remains, and the one who dissolves;
I am she who exists in all fear,
and strength in all trembling"
Page 190 - [discussion of The Book of Revelation by St. John] "... that besides finding other gospels at Nag Hammadi, we'd also found many other books of revelation - not only Thunder, the Revelation of Zostrianos, and Allogenes, but also many Christian books of revelation."
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This book is written after she had come to terms with the loss of her young son, and, very unexpectedly, her husband, a year later. In her grief, she discovers that she too has a faith, and her faith is more compatible with the alternative gospels. History and philosopy are woven into the personal story, since Pagels is a profound scholar of ancient languages and religious history. She discusses most commonly the books found at Nag Hammadi (Egypt) in 1945, most famously, "The Gospel of Thomas". These were probably books hidden by monks in about 315 AD after the bishops declared them forbidden. Her husband was a physicist, and as usual, as academics, they lived a charmed life of summers in Colorado, and plenty of time off of onerous duties like teaching to settle affairs, grieve, and write books about the experience.Page 31 - "Ever since the second century, Christian leaders [Irenaeus, a second century Syrian missionary, derided the gnostics, who sought knowledge in all Christian traditions] calling themselves orthodox ("straight thinking") have defined choice as heresy. The Greek term translated as "heresy"(hairesis) means exactly that: "choice"!
Page 33 - "What I love about sources like the Gospel of Thomas is that they open up far more than a single path. Instead of telling us what to believe, they engage both head and heart, challenging us to "love your brother as your own life" while deepening spiritual practice by discovering our own inner resources: "Knock upon yourself as on a door, and walk upon yourself as on a straight road. For if you walk on that road you cannot get lost; and what you open for yourself will open" ..."Recognize what is before your eyes, and the mysteries will be revealed to you"
Page 108 - "... Goya, who famously said that "the dreams of reason bring forth monsters""
Page 167 - "I was startled to realize that somehow I still wanted to believe that we live in a morally ordered universe, in which someone or something - God or nature? - would keep track of what's fair ... like those old Bible stories I'd heard, that suggest that doing good ensures well being, and doing wrong brings disaster? ... Now, working hard to stay steady, or seem to, I could no longer afford to look through a lens that heaps guilt upon grief"
Page 169 - passim - Mark's gospel originally ends at the grave site, where a "young man" tells the women who came to tend to the grave to find the body missing that they would see Jesus again, and the women flee, terrified. Among Mark's early readers, wanting the gospel to end on a more positive note, wrote a second ending, adding several episodes of Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene and others.
Page 176 - [at the end of the funeral for her son] "At that moment, I desperately longed to escape from this life, seeking either our lost child or oblivion. It was then that I seemed to that vision of a huge net made of ropes, surrounding all of us, with open spaces through which we might be propelled into infinity, yet bound with knots that held us to this world. Later, someone told me of the Hindu image of the God Indra's net, embracing the world, often pictured as blazing with jewels ... What drew me back to the Gospel of Thomas was a particular cluster of sayings that seemed to speak of what that vision meant ... For unlike the Gospel of Mark, which pictures Jesus announcing that that the "kingdom of God is coming soon", as a catastrophic event, the end of the world, the Gospel of Thomas suggests he was speaking in metaphor: "Jesus says: If those who lead you say to you, "The kingdom of God is in the sky" then the birds will get there first. If they say, "It is in the sea" then the fish will get there first. Rather, the kingdom of god is within you and outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then ... you will know you are the children of god."
Page 178-179 - [Text from Nag Hammadi] - Thunder, Complete Mind, for example, echoes how ... people have heard thunder as a divine voice ... this poem personifies thunder - bronte, a feminine word in Greek - as a feminine power. Speaking in paradox, her voice confounds those who expect clarity, and frustrates those who need certainty. Here she declares that the divine presence, often unseen, shines everywhere ... Thunder presses us to envision divine energy with our "complete mind" even in terms of negative experiences like foolishness, shame and fear
[Excerpt from the poem]:
I am the first and the last
I am the one honored and the one scorned
I am the whore and the holy one
I am the incomprehensible silence
and, the voice of many sounds, the word in many forms;
I am the utterance of my name
Do not cast anyone out or turn anyone away
I am the one who remains, and the one who dissolves;
I am she who exists in all fear,
and strength in all trembling"
Page 190 - [discussion of The Book of Revelation by St. John] "... that besides finding other gospels at Nag Hammadi, we'd also found many other books of revelation - not only Thunder, the Revelation of Zostrianos, and Allogenes, but also many Christian books of revelation."
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LibraryThing member Chris.Wolak
I was drawn to this title because years ago I read and admired Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels. This audio version, narrated by Lynde Houck, was a fantastic listening experience. Houck creates just the right tone for the content.
Pagels tells her life story from how she first became interested in
One of the things I admired about this memoir is how Pagels seamlessly weaves together her interest in religion and her love for Heinz and their children with her work. I can't recall reading a memoir that so deftly and relevantly entwines the writer's work, love, and life. Perhaps this is due to the nature of Pagels' work in religion. She also brings in anthropology, philosophy, and science to look at issues of emotional pain, loss, and mourning. Pagels' work in religion after these tragedies was an exploration of how others have dealt with death and grief. She blasts traditional Christian platitudes around pain and death (e.g., God doesn't give us more than we can handle).
An excellent read (and listen) for those interested in a scholar's journey, religious studies, and dealing with the pain of death.
Pagels tells her life story from how she first became interested in
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Christianity, to her graduate studies and early career, to the death of her son and a year later the unexpected death of her husband, physicist Heinz Pagels. These tragedies both compelled and shaped her scholarly interests. The relationship the Pagels shared seems like such a true partnership and a beautiful intertwining of their love and intellectual interests. One of the things I admired about this memoir is how Pagels seamlessly weaves together her interest in religion and her love for Heinz and their children with her work. I can't recall reading a memoir that so deftly and relevantly entwines the writer's work, love, and life. Perhaps this is due to the nature of Pagels' work in religion. She also brings in anthropology, philosophy, and science to look at issues of emotional pain, loss, and mourning. Pagels' work in religion after these tragedies was an exploration of how others have dealt with death and grief. She blasts traditional Christian platitudes around pain and death (e.g., God doesn't give us more than we can handle).
An excellent read (and listen) for those interested in a scholar's journey, religious studies, and dealing with the pain of death.
Show Less
LibraryThing member A.Godhelm
Let me preface this saying I'm not a biography reader in general. I read this because I've read a couple of her books for a course. The why religion question gets examined through the lens of Pagels incredibly tragic misfortunes, but it's butting heads with the personal story and feels tacked on at
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times, like this is what she's known for and this is how you have to sell a biographical account of someone so known. While the story is high on pathos, due to Pagels ambivalence toward religion there's no real driving conclusion, like a grand conversion or reimagining of life in the light of some religious passage; rather it's some pertinent examples and discussion from religious history that sometimes intersect what's going on in her life, and she thinks might be worth considering. Rather tepid. Show Less
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2018
Physical description
256 p.; 8 inches
ISBN
0062368540 / 9780062368546
Local notes
FB A moving memoir by a woman whose personal life was marked by several tragic events, and how she found meaning in the Gnostic Gospels (not conventional Christianity).