Books on Faith & Meaning

Faith Initiative Director, Dr. Matthew Croasmun, introduces selections from the Faith & Meaning section of Grace Farms’ Library. Spanning multiple religious and philosophical traditions, both ancient and contemporary, these texts encourage us to think critically about the meaning in our lives.

The Analects of Confucius, translated by Simon Leys

“To know something is not as good as loving it. To love something is not as good as rejoicing in it.” (6.20)

Surely there is no aspect of the question of the good life about which we might not learn something important from Confucius. Perhaps his clearest priority is the question of responsibility: “To whom are we responsible?” Consider the second “analect” (saying) that comes to us: “A gentleman works at the root. Once the root is secured, the Way unfolds. To respect parents and elders is the root of humanity.” (1.2) For Confucius, faithfulness to one’s closest relationships, one’s most intimate responsibilities is, indeed, the root of a life worthy of our humanity. But, despite his reputation for sternness, Confucius is also deeply invested in the important role that joy can play in a good life. The Analects describe Confucius and his followers as joyful. “The question,” Confucius’ 11th century disciples asked, “is for what reason were they joyful?” In the analect above, Confucius argues that what we rejoice in will shape our lives more than what we know or even what we love. The questions for us, then are this: What is worthy of a joyful response? How can we take time to rejoice in what is most worthy of our humanity?

Dive deeper:

• • On the idea that the ultimate goal is to internalize the good: The Analects of Confucius 1.2
  • On the character of Confucian joy: The Analects of Confucius 11.26 and Leys’ commentary
  • Other titles in Grace Farms’ Faith & Meaning Collection to consider:
    • Confucian Reflections: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times by Philip J. Ivanhoe
    • Mencius

The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man, Abraham Heschel with introduction by Susannah Heschel

“The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.” (page 6)

Abraham Heschel’s classic is not just an articulation of a particular Orthodox Jewish religious practice, the Sabbath—though it is that. It is also a diagnosis—and prescription for a contemporary humanity awash in things, but temporally insolvent. The question of how we should live is broader, no doubt, than the question of what our rhythms of work and of rest ought to be. But, at the same time, there may be no more crucial leverage point for reining in our lives and beginning to think deliberately about how we live, the choices we make, and the way those choices reveal who and what we value most. The Sabbath, Heschel argues, is a “palace in time” that serves to refocus our gaze from the realm of things and of space, ruled by the logic of acquisition and conquest, to the realm of time, which can be neither acquired nor conquered. If that all sounds a bit abstract, Prof. Susannah Heschel’s introduction roots her father’s reflections in the material reality of Sabbath practices—the smells, the tastes, the unique possibilities realized when a family deliberately embeds itself within a community oriented around what cannot be bought: time.

Dive Deeper:

• • On the relationship of Sabbath and worship: The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man, pages 13-24
    • Ask yourself: How would your life change if you were to take on this practice? Would it be worth it?
  • Other titles in Grace Farms’ Faith & Meaning Collection to consider:
    • The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary, Robert Alter

Jesus and the Disinherited, Howard Thurman

“The logic of the development of hatred is death to the spirit and disintegration of ethical and moral values.” (page 77)

The Christian faith, Thurman insists, has had much to say about how a Christian ought to respond to the suffering of others. But what does the Christian faith have to say to those who are themselves suffering under oppression—to those “with their backs against the wall”? Thurman offers an account of a Jesus whose life was marked by oppression, a Jesus who grew up under Roman occupation, knew what it was to have one’s body constantly under threat—one who knew the temptation of fear, deception, and hatred, and nevertheless responded in love. Thurman takes from this savior, much neglected in what he politely calls “conventional” (read: “white”) Christian theology, a relentless ethic that refuses to yield to the oppressor what is most precious of all: the moral integrity of the human being whom the oppressor has figured as “the oppressed.” (There is good reason why Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. often carried a well-worn copy of Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited in his coat.) Thurman’s book is a foundational work of non-violent resistance, but it is also a vivid vision of flourishing life in the face of violent oppression.

Dive Deeper:

• • On the fundamental blindness of “conventional” Christianity, including Thurman’s response to a Hindu critic who accused him of “being a traitor to all the darker peoples of the earth” for “standing deep within the Christian faith and tradition,” pages 1-5
  • Other titles in Grace Farms’ Faith & Meaning Collection to consider:
    • Howard Thurman: Essential Writings
    • Meditations of the Heart, Howard Thurman
    • The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race, Willie James Jennings