LITERARY SPIRIT | Religion in the media

"God's Mechanics" by Brother Guy Consolmagno (Jossey-Bass 233 pages, $24.95): The author is a Jesuit monk and an astronomer. In fact, he's an official Vatican astronomer. So he's a self-described techie who is also a devout Catholic. And he understands that some people might see the two as a conflict. This book is an attempt to explain a techie-specific religious worldview. He also tries to offer a techie-friendly argument in favor of God and Catholicism. The book is most successful when he lets us look at religion through a techie's eyes, an intellectual approach to faith that acknowledges where the intellect leaves off: "The whole 'literalist' mentality is actually a modern phenomenon of our technical age, an age that spends its days reading technical manuals and is no longer comfortable with the fact that some subtle truths can only be expressed in poetry and myth."

The author admits that he knows science better than he does theology.

Christianity's Dangerous Idea" by Alister McGrath (HarperOne, 552 pages, $29.95): That "dangerous idea" was that each individual had the right and responsibility to interpret the Bible. From that idea and its various manifestations in the 16th century, Alister McGrath, professor of historical theology at the University of Oxford, traces Protestantism to the present day. He argues that Protestantism's strength has always been its ability to change, to meet new worldly challenges with new ways of interpreting the Bible. After following the history of the various denominations, McGrath turns to different aspects of the church and traces them through the centuries: Biblical interpretation, church structure, preaching, music and the church's relationship to arts and sciences.

"Hours of Devotion" Edited and adapted by Dinah Berland (Schocken Books, 336 pages, $24): The poetry singing through these prayers is as beautifully compelling today as it was some 150 years ago, when they were written. But the back stories — two of them — are even more so. First: Writer Fanny Neuda, from a Moravian rabbinic dynasty, married a rabbi, and then at 35 was left a widow with three sons younger than 12. She began writing as a way to speak with God, not for publication, but later decided that sharing her words would honor her late husband's memory. The book first appeared in 1855; it remained in print through a 28th edition published during World War I. Second: Editor Dinah Berland discovered an old copy in a Los Angeles bookshop. Also a poet, she was impressed by it and inspired to adapt the prayers for a modern audience. From this effort came personal joy: a welcome reunion with her long-estranged son. Although Neuda was, and Berland is, Jewish, much of this book speaks to and for all women.

"Shattered Tablets" by David Klinghoffer (Doubleday, 243 pages, $24.95): David Klinghoffer is a conservative Jew living in Seattle. He takes his own city as the prime example of an American society that has discarded the Ten Commandments as a guide to morality, thus giving an old thesis an interesting twist. He adopts the standard Jewish division of the Commandments, with "I am the Lord your God" as the first and "Do not worship other gods" as the second, thus skipping the command not to make images. He divides the Decalogue into two parts, correlating Commandment No. 1 with No. 6, 2 with 7, and so on. It is an old rabbinic strategy, he says, but it does not come off too well. What does come off very clearly is his role as a spokesman for the religious right.

McClatchy Newspapers