GOD IS NOT ONE by Stephen Prothero and MAN SEEKS GOD by Eric Weiner

Last year when Matt, the adult religious ed director at St. Mike's Catholic Church, asked the Wednesday morning class what they'd like to study next, the response was nearly unanimous - other religions.

St. Mike's is in Wheaton, Illinois, and Wheaton used to be called the evangelical Vatican (it now vies with Colorado Springs for that title). Wheaton is in DuPage County, which is roughly two-thirds Catholic. But the heavily Christian western suburbs of Chicago are changing. Today DuPage County, though still the home of hundreds of Christian churches, also has four Muslim mosques, six Hindu temples, an Arya Samaj center, a Buddhist temple, a Buddhist meditation center, two synagogues, and the headquarters of the Theosophical Society. These people are our neighbors, our coworkers, our children's classmates. No wonder we want to learn more about them.

Thanks to the class, I've gotten acquainted with Stephen Prothero's outstanding survey, God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World (2010). Prothero's thesis runs counter to the prevailing wisdom, at least in the West. No, he argues, the world's major religions are not all essentially the same. They do not all lead to the same place. They do not "make up one big, happy family." "This is a lovely sentiment," Prothero writes, "but it is dangerous, disrespectful, and untrue." Intended to increase tolerance, such wishful thinking about other religions can actually lead to more terrorism, more war.

Prothero, who describes himself as "religiously confused," does not argue for the superiority of one religion over another. His aim is not to proselytize but to increase clarity and understanding. He does this by looking at how each religion answers the big questions: "Here we are in these human bodies. What now? What next? What are we to become?" "Each religion," he writes, articulates

a problem;

a solution to this problem, which also serves as the religious goal;

a technique (or techniques) for moving from this problem to this solution; and

an exemplar (or exemplars) who chart this path from problem to solution.

Choosing eight religions based on their numeric and historical importance, he then devotes separate chapters to each: Islam, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Yoruba religion, Judaism, and Daoism, with "a brief coda" on atheism. The chapters can be read in any order. Last night I delved into Confucianism, about which I know almost nothing. Oops--Prothero says it's been more influential than any other religion except Islam and Christianity. In 30 pages, he summarizes its history, its teachings, and its influence (especially in the West). He also made me laugh out loud more than once. Here is a teacher who can impart an amazing amount of information while holding my attention, not an easy task.

God Is Not One is a great introduction for people interested in other religions' history, teachings, and practices. If that's more than you want to know but you'd still like to find out how various religions might feel to a Western observer, try Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine (2011). It offers significantly less information, being almost entirely experience oriented; but it's fascinating and funny and might even inspire you to go on and read Prothero's book.

Eric Weiner (channeling Prothero?) describes himself as a "Confusionist" and does not accept "the politically correct belief that all religions are equally valid":

I find this extraordinary. Would we say that about anything else? Would we say that all forms of government, be it totalitarian or democracy, were equally true and good? Would we say that all corporations are equally true and good? Would we say that all toaster ovens are equally true and good? Yet when it comes to religion we jettison our powers of discernment. Saying all religions are equally true and good is like saying none are.

He does not argue in favor of the truer and better, however, because--as a health crisis dramatically showed him--he doesn't know who his God is. So he grabs a notebook and his passport and sets off to find God.

Interested mostly in religious experience, he spends time with touchy-feely subgroups of some of the world's major religions (and a few minor ones): Islam (Sufism) in Mendocino, CA, and Istanbul, Turkey; Buddhism in Kathmandu; Christianity (Franciscans) in the Bronx, NY; Raëlism (this would be the world's largest UFO-based religion) in Las Vegas, NV; Taoism in Wuhan, China; Wicca in Seattle, WA; Shamanism in Beltsville, MD; and--I'm guessing this is his personal favorite--Judaism (Kabbalah) in Tzfat, Israel.

The result is a crazy melange of personal memoir, travel writing, religion, and journalism--and it works. Weiner's previous book, The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World (2008), made the New York Times bestseller list and collected a heap of awards. I wouldn't be surprised if Man Seeks God does the same.

DESERT QUEEN by Janet Wallach

"If you liked The Sisters of Sinai," my librarian friend Beth told me, "you'll probably also like Desert Queen."

Both books are about rich, feisty, brilliant, and often misunderstood and misrepresented British ladies who defied convention, traveled without male escorts in the Middle East, accomplished what male rivals only dreamed of, and made enormous contributions. The Smith sisters, twins born in 1843, were devout Scottish Presbyterians whose discoveries advanced the field of biblical studies; Miss Bell, born in 1868, was a North England atheist whose networking genius and intrepid desire for adventure helped to create the modern nation of Iraq. All three women were brilliant linguists. (My review of Sisters is here.)

Gertrude Bell, who has been called "the brains behind Lawrence of Arabia," made her first trip to Jerusalem in 1899 and died in Baghdad in 1926. During that tumultuous quarter-century, the political map of the Middle East was redrawn, and Bell was one of the principal mapmakers - literally, in that much of her work involved drawing maps to inform European diplomats, spies, and businessmen; and figuratively, in that she represented Mesopotamian interests at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, participated in the 1921 Cairo Conference that created the British mandate over Mesopotamia, and was instrumental in making Faisal king of Iraq.

That last sentence only hints at the genius that was Miss Bell. Of the 40 delegates to the Cairo Conference, she was the only female. Without her support, Faisal could never have navigated post-war political chaos and jockeying for power to become ruler of a nation that was not even his own. "I must tell you in confidence that he is my appointment," she wrote to her brother; "everyone is delighted, but they don't know it was I who did it."

And yet for years, Bell had had to endure "the disdain of her colleagues and the humiliation of working without an official position." She may have earned the respect of every sheikh in Araby, but to the British, she was merely a woman. When in 1916 her superior, Sir Percy Cox, finally gave her a salary and the official title of Liaison Officer, she became "the only female Political Officer in the British forces."

Just five years later, the New York Herald was calling her "Mesopotamia's Uncrowned Queen."

Though the book sometimes reads like a novel - and more than once made me wonder how author Janet Wallach could possibly have known that - Wallach says she based her account, right down to reported conversations, on Bell's voluminous letters and diary entries as well as on letters and memoirs written by her family and associates. In addition, Wallach visited many of the sites where Bell traveled and worked, and she has skillfully recreated a bygone era in both England and the Middle East.

Published in 1996, five years after the first Gulf War, the story of Iraq's formation is even more poignant now that fighting has destroyed so much of what Bell hoped - perhaps misguidedly - to create. Wallach's focus, though, is less on geopolitics than on the near mythical and eventually tragic character of Bell herself.

Bell was happy when she was hard at work, whether traveling by camel through uncharted desert, gathering data for British intelligence, schmoozing with world leaders at strategic conferences, or creating her beloved Baghdad Archaeological Museum (which was looted when U.S. forces invaded Iraq in 2003; click here for more information about the current state of the collection).

She was less happy back in England, where she felt out of place and was constantly reminded of several lost loves. Probably clinically depressed, she lost her appetite for life once her influence in Baghdad began to wane. Her closest friends had moved on to other assignments. Her typical work day dwindled from ten hours to three or four. Her father's fortunes had reversed, and she no longer had funds to finance further adventures. Her health was precarious. And one July night in 1926, just before her 58th birthday, she took an extra dose of sleeping pills.

Gertrude Bell, the extraordinary woman who became one of the most influential Europeans in the Middle East before she ever held an official position, was buried with full military honors.

"Newspapers throughout the world carried her obituary," Wallach writes:

- not just in notices but in long articles complete with her photograph - and in England, King George sent a message to the Bells:

'The Queen and I are grieved to hear of the death of your distinguished and gifted daughter whom we held in high regard.

'The nation will with us mourn the loss of one who by her intellectual powers, force of character and personal courage rendered important and what I trust will prove lasting benefit to the country and to those regions where she worked with such devotion and self-sacrifice. We truly sympathise with you in your sorrow.'

THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (DVD)

Terrorism and torture - they're all over this week's (and most week's) headlines: "Germany tightens airport security over attacks threat." "Palestinian forces arrest Hamas cell in West Bank planning to attack Israelis." "Britain to pay ex-detainees in torture case."

Saturated with such stories since the bombings of 2001, we may think that terrorism and torture are 21st-century inventions, or at least that their incidence has greatly increased during the last decade. We need correctives like Patrick Smith's article in Slate last week: "News flash: Deadly terrorism existed before 9/11." Indeed it did - Smith lists example after example from the late 1980s. And torture, a typical response to terrorist attacks, is as old as recorded history.

Here is another corrective - a film you need to see, though not for date night. Little kids shouldn't watch it either. The Battle of Algiers is a fictionalized account of urban guerilla warfare during Algeria's bloody war of independence from France (1954-62). Winning a heap of prizes shortly after its release in 1966, it was immediately banned in France and essentially went underground for 37 years.

And then in 2003 the U.S. Pentagon showed the film to about 40 officers and civilian experts. From the flier announcing the screening:

How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar? The French have a plan. It succeeds tactically, but fails strategically. To understand why, come to a rare showing of this film.

The Pentagon showing led to renewed interest in the film, which was restored and then released in the U.K., the U.S., and France in late 2003 and 2004. The DVD version followed in October 2004. You can rent it from Blockbuster online or from Netflix.

Why should you see this film? Partly because it's so very well done. From Ali La Pointe, a disaffected Arab teenager who becomes a leader in the National Liberation Front, to Colonel Mathieu, an unbending French military man who plays by the rules, each character first draws you in and then appalls you as terrorism and torture alternate in a deadly dance. In a mesmerizing sequence, a trio of Arab women don Western garb and charm their way past French guards into the European quarter - with disastrous results. Should you laugh? Cheer? Weep? You may find yourself doing all three. The one thing you won't be able to do is look away from the screen.

Another reason to see the film is to stimulate thinking and provoke discussion about current conflicts. In The Battle of Algiers,as in the news, terrorists kill civilians. Counter-terrorists move in and do the same. Torture is used to gain information. Tortured terrorists become martyrs and incite renewed terrorist activity. Violence explodes on all sides. It sounds so very contemporary.

And yet, whatever your opinions about Iraq or Afghanistan or Guantánamo, it's hard to take sides when the film takes you into the Casbah or the European quarter or the military headquarters. You find yourself sympathizing with the Arab child who grabs the officer's microphone and tells his people to resist, with the frightened women who hide insurgents in a well or behind a false wall, with the terrified man who talks rather than face another round of torture, and perhaps even with the teenager who has lost so much and now just wants to shoot somebody.

At the same time, you cringe when European teenagers are blown to bits when all they are doing is flirting and dancing to salsa music, or when tired businessmen grabbing a quick drink after work lose their lives because they neglect to see a basket left under a bar stool. You understand the colonel's perplexity when he says to reporters:

We aren't madmen or sadists, gentlemen. Those who call us Fascists today forget the contribution that many of us made to the Resistance. Those who call us Nazis don't know that among us there are survivors of Dachau and Buchenwald. We are soldiers, and our only duty is to win

But what about torture? a reporter persists. Colonel Mathieu gives the only answer he knows:

Should we remain in Algeria? If you answer "yes," then you must accept all the necessary consequences.

Terrorism and torture have a long and sordid history, and this film does not glorify either one. Yes, the terrorists eventually win and the French are expelled from Algeria. Yes, The Battle of Algiers has been accused of inspiring violence - though it has also been used as evidence that torture does not work. It's an ethically complex film that may haunt you for days. It might even turn you into a pacifist.