A discussion of literature, philosophy, and important books, without including religious literature, misses out on vast amounts of thought about the human condition. Yet, that’s what seems to happen when you do a contemporary search for “important literature that reflects and influences society.” Although much literature includes religious themes, I found few if any books specifically about religion among the various contemporary lists of ‘important’ books.
In research for my novels, I have read a stack of books to learn more about the religious backgrounds of various themes. A History of God counts among them, written by Karen Armstrong, a British author and theologian. About religious literature, she says, “Too many believers and nonbelievers alike now read these sacred texts in a doggedly literal manner that is quite different from the inventive and mystical approach of premodern spirituality.”
Premodern people would have no problem believing in the plot line of my fourth novel, Beyond All That Matters, which has the main protagonist receiving text messages from a friend after the friend has died. No problem believing in the metaphysics, that is. Modern electronic and digital technology would find them completely baffled.
Religious words on paper, or parchment, or scrolls, or clay and stone tablets, delve into almost every aspect of humankind’s belief in and relation to a Supreme Being: God for Christians, Jews, and Muslims. (I do believe that God, Yahweh, and Allah are just different names for the same.) And almost as much of a concern to us than a relationship with God, we find our relationships with one another providing most of thematic energy for literature.
Religious literature includes almost every topic. The Bible includes history, legislation, poetry, letters, fables, myths, drama, genealogies, prophecy, visions, laments, martial songs. “The categories of modern literature are, fundamentally, religious,” says Russell Berman in Fiction Sets You Free – Literature, Liberty, and Western Culture; “…Literature is imbued with expectations of sacred transcendence, no matter how secular or seemingly irreligious its ostensible content may be.”
More quotes from Berman: “Heir to the axial religions of transcendence (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), autonomous literature has become, in effect, their greatest missionary, proclaiming to the world the urgency of creative originality and the redemptive promise of happiness…. The Book of Psalms is a foundational anthology for Western poetry.”
Research for my third novel, The Swineherd’s Angel, led me to peek into the Koran, or Quran. One of the novel’s main protagonists, Laleh, is a young woman from Iran and a graduate student at Iowa State University. To learn more background, I read several non-fiction books about Iran and its history. I went to ISU to interview three students from Iran. I was surprised to hear one of their urgent questions about my novel: Did or did she not wear a hijab? Sometimes, I said, depending on the circumstances, which they seemed to accept.
While I found passages in the Koran interesting but not inspiring, I respect devout Muslims who strive to live by it. Once at a work event I saw a man pacing and avoiding the lunch line. When I asked him if he was going to have lunch, he said, “I’m fasting.” He looked Middle Eastern, and it was during Ramadan, a month in Spring that celebrates the first revelation of The Prophet. In my hometown, now with a large Somali population, the elementary school I attended is now a mosque, which I’m glad to see it going to a good use, rather than crumbling in decay.
In the Christian west, Islam’s positive and noble messages are overshadowed by our biases against ‘Arabs’ and ‘Muslim terrorists’. If we are honest in comparing the extremes, put the latter up against the so-called ‘Christian nationalism’ that today is damaging genuine Christianity, or throughout history the conflicts fomented among different religions: The slaughter during the Crusades (1095-1291), or the horrific violence of the Thirty Years War (1618-48) between Catholics and Protestants.
The oldest religious works date back to 2000 BCE with the Avesta of Zoroastrianism. This monotheistic Middle Eastern religion is said to have helped lay the groundwork for Judaism and Christianity. The Vedas of Hinduism began as oral tradition recorded in writing from 1500 to 500 BCE. Christians are familiar with the Torah of Judaism primarily as the first five books of the Old Testament. The Quran contains 114 chapters of inspirations revealed to Muhammad and recorded by scribes. Muhammad is believed to have been illiterate.
Going back even farther in time, Paleoanthropologists theorize that early humans sought a spiritual connection to the universe, a supreme being. Cave paintings, large earthworks, stone monoliths express this drive. This could be interpreted as evidence of the idea of a Moral Law originating among the earliest humans. “The concept of right and wrong appears to universal among all members of the human species,” says Dr. Francis Collins in The Language of God.
In summer 1970 I visited Stonehenge in England, the circle of stone monoliths on the Salisbury plain about 90 miles west of London. Back then it was nearly void of visitors, almost forlorn. In 1800 BCE, it was the focus of life among the ancient Britons. Walking among the circle of stones I tried to imagine what that must have been like for the creators. I walked in a nearby woods imagining Druids practicing their rites. Being so long ago (my visit) I now fail to recall whatever feeling or inspiration that might have appeared. And my photos vanished along with my camera, stolen when I left it on a park bench in London. Perhaps the inspiration might reappear in future efforts to write about God, the universe, and the human condition.
Also to reappear, I would very much like to see the 1970 Triumph Bonneville 650 cc motorcycle that I bought in London, cruising to Stonehenge, and later around the Continent for most of the summer. (I sold it two years later and switched to motocross, buying a 250 cc Bultaco and racing the Spanish-made bike on winding dirt tracks.) And back then, the Triumph owner’s manual may have counted among my youthful perceptions of ‘religious’ literature. What would Socrates, Plato, or Jesus say about that?
Next up: What is art? Visual, dramatic, literary. Like painting, in literature every word is a brushstroke.
Thanks for your attention!
Forrest
