If the best-seller charts are any indication, it’s become popular to condemn religion. Books such as Sam Harris’ “Letter To a Christian Nation” and “The End of Faith,” Richard Dawson’s “The God Delusion,” Christopher Hitchens’ “God is Not Great” and Bill Maher’s recently released film “Religulous” would have us see faith as antiquated, illogical and dangerous.
The arguments they make are not without merit: In the shadow of 9/11, religion seems at the root of much hatred and violence the world over. And in this country, as in others, it seems as if religion is increasingly seeking to take on public and political dimensions, reaching into education, medicine, science and social programs.
In a world where religion is the cause of so much folly, it becomes harder to defend faith, which makes David Wolpe’s new book, “Why Faith Matters,” all the more important.
“Why Faith Matters” is not a book that will convince anyone to believe in God if they don’t already — nor is it meant to. Yet believer and non-believer alike should find “Why Faith Matters” thought-provoking and challenging.
What the book does, in short, succinct chapters, is address some of the more popularly held charges leveled against religion, such as “religion causes violence” or “science and religion are at odds.”
It makes the case for the seldom-acknowledged benefits of faith, such as community and charity, and elucidates how religion and religious practice can enhance the lives even of those who don’t and will never believe in God.
Wolpe also hopes the book will give comfort to those who have faith. “It’s not only written for those who doubt,” Wolpe said in a recent interview, “but to settle the souls of people who believe.”
Wolpe has been the rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles for the past 11 years. “Why Faith Matters” is his sixth book, and he wrote it not as a polemic response to the “New Atheists,” but as a personal book about his own journey.
In “Why Faith Matters,” Wolpe explains that as a teenager, after seeing the vivid documentary footage about the Holocaust in Alain Resnais’ “Night and Fog,” he became an atheist, embracing Bertrand Russell as one of his sages. In this book, Wolpe said, he is attempting to speak to his younger self.
His central argument boils down to a rejection of the notion that “the only thing that is real is what you see or measure.” Faith, he argues, adds another dimension to our experience of the world.
For Wolpe, the notion that religious ritual is primitive or some form of magical thinking misses the point.
“Ancient can be venerable and cherished,” he said. “Religious practice can’t always be explained in a utilitarian fashion. Some-times, religious practice is its own reward.”
As to the charge that religion causes violence, Wolpe answers that “the feeling of certain groups that they are better or exempt is … an ugly side of human nature. It’s not specific to religion.”
To that end, Wolpe asks us to consider the historical record that demonstrates that the toll of war has been great or greater in those periods when religion was suppressed. We need only consider the millions of victims of the anti-religious regimes of the 20th century: Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.
What Wolpe feels are lost in the discussion of religion by “the New Atheists” are the positive benefits of religion, such as community, a sense of social responsibility and believing that there is something larger than oneself.
By contrast, faith, Wolpe said, can also make a “disturbance” of life, making life more difficult. As Wolpe put it, the sense that you are put on this earth for a reason carries with it responsibilities and challenges to meet a higher standard.
In addition to being a rejoinder to the recent spate of atheism books, “Why Faith Matters” is also meant to “settle the soul” of Wolpe himself.
Wolpe has been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer that remains incurable, but for which he is now in remission. He decided to write the book the day he finished chemotherapy.
“I love literature,” Wolpe said. “I have always found consolation in words, in both reading them and also writing them and speaking them. One of the really great gifts of being a rabbi is that you are expected to translate your experience into something that other people can understand and benefit from. That forces you to reflect on it and create some kind of mosaic out of the jagged pieces of a life.”
“Why Faith Matters” by Rabbi David Wolpe (224 pages, HarperOne, $24.95)
Rabbi David Wolpe will be interviewed by Rabbi David Levinsky at 3:45 p.m. Nov. 2 as part of Bookfest 2008 at the JCCSF, 3200 California St., S.F.
Paging all readers: Bay Area JCCs celebrate Jewish Book Month