What am I Reading?

I just finished Memoir of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

I felt like I was transported back to another time and place.  The way the women were treated is just heart breaking.  Life was hard in the early twentieth century for poor girls in Japan.

I like this book a lot.  It did have some sad stuff about the geisha girls lives. Sold as a young girl to a geisha house in Kyoto, she is beaten into submission, rescued from certain oblivion into the cheap sex trade and fights her way to the top with the help of another geisha.  She lives with a rival that hates her and is devious and cunning. Our heroine does overcome much and there is a happy ending.  The action occurs from pre-WW II through some fifty or so years and ends on the streets of New York city.

Book Review

When Jesus Became God:  The Struggle to Define Christianity  in the Last Days of Rome.

Author:  Richard E. Rubenstein  267 pages

I am well on my way to finishing this book.  A great read that gives a  lot of details about the lives and battles of the Roman Emperors, Caesars and such along with a whole lot of history of the early church.  So far the book has really concentrated on the 300's or the Fourth Century.

It is quite apparent that the Christians have had substantial arguments about the Christ figure and have never gotten along.  When Constantine got involved, the differing opinions about the godness of Jesus were brought into the political arena as Constantine tried to get the differing factions on the same page.  He wanted to unite his empire by using religion.  He may have been quite sincere in his belief in Christianity, as well.

The story is very complicated. The Nicene Creed was being developed.  The anti-Arians described god as "the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, tha is, from the ousia of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, homoousios with the Father, through Whom all things came into being."  [page 82]


Frankly, it all sounds like gibberish go me:)  Fortunately, the book does a great job of explaining what the controversy was about.  The Arians were thinking that Jesus was a man that became God through his life's work, the anti-Arians  thought that Jesus was God even though he was a man.  After all, who would want to worship a man, even a great man like Jesus.  Nope, Jesus was God but he was God in human form.

There were lots of opinions floating around and some of them felt that Jesus was a demi-god since he was born of a virgin impregnated by God.  Others thought that Jesus might be ranked as an angel.  This was totally unacceptable to those who worshiped Jesus as God.

In my opinion, no one has ever come up with a theological theory that actually makes sense on this issue so there has been a huge reliance on the mystery of God.

I'm on page 197 and so I have a bit more reading to do but if you want to understand more about late Roman history and the early chapters of the Christian story, this is certainly a book you will want to read.

Book Review: The Only Prayer I'll Ever Pray Let My People Go

The Only Prayer I'll Ever Pray Let My People Go  by Donald R. Wright  82 pages

Mr. Wright's book is by a black man and is about the issues of Christianity as, he thinks, it affects the black community.  He states in his forward:

It is very disappointing that the crime rate among blacks in America is high considering we are the most religious race of people in the country.  It is interesting that most racists [white supremist] are very religious.  The ills of the universe cannot be blamed on the non-religious.


And so, Mr. Wright takes a look at Christianity from the perspective of a black man who has turned from religious to non-religious.  He takes a path that many have taken when he decides to study Christian doctrine and the Bible for himself.  He ended up following the yellow brick road, looking behind the curtain and seeing that there is no great Redeemer there.  We have to make a difference ourselves as we humans are all we have got.  


I enjoyed the book and think that Mr. Wright has some very valid points such as the church helping to keep poor people in poverty by insisting that ten percent be placed in the plate every week.  Perhaps it is more fiscally sound to save that ten percent towards a rainy day than to hand it over to someone wearing a nice suit and driving a nice car - using your money.


The quotes are fantastic and we get some quotes from great thinkers who are black like Carter G. Woodson and Frederick Douglas, as well as quotes from Bertrand Russell, Epicurus, Robert G. Ingersoll,  and Albert Einstein.  


I loved the quote from Butterfly McQueen at the top of Chapter 3:  Let My People Go.  She says : 


"As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion."


This chapter deals with how Christianity was a friend to slavery and how slaves in the South were converted to the Christian religion.


If you get a chance to read this book, I say it is well worth your time.