GETTIN’ LUCKY IN KENTUCKY: LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER TGF REVIEW

Religious musings of famous people can surprise you

By Paul Prather
HERALD-LEADER CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST

I’m filing this one on my shelf under “books I wish I’d written.”

Recently, I picked up The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People, by Cathleen Falsani.

Falsani is the religion writer for the Chicago Sun-Times. I’d never heard of her. But The God Factor ranks among the better books on spirituality I’ve read in ages.

It consists of Falsani’s discussions with 32 prominent figures from a variety of fields about God and morality. The personalities include evangelicals, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, hedonists. There’s a chapter on Nobel Prize-winner Elie Wiesel and another on radio shock jock Mancow Muller (who insists he’s a born-again Christian).

Falsani manages to draw her subjects out, far beyond any rote 30-second sound bites. These all are people used to deflecting reporters, yet here they appear to bare their deepest memories, beliefs, regrets and fears. Their responses are by turns illuminating, hilarious, outrageous and astonishing.

. . . Taken together, these 32 profiles demonstrate a couple of truths.

First, what we see on the evening news isn’t always the whole picture. Many of the stars profiled by Falsani bear little resemblance in private to their public personas.

Second, even so, it’s impossible for people to separate their private beliefs from their public lives. Again and again, these celebrities acknowledge the myriad, and complex, ways in which their faith or lack thereof undergirds their political policies, the lyrics they sing or the lines they write in Hollywood screenplays.

This is a book worth reading.

Paul Prather
Read the entire review HERE

Thank you, Mr. Prather!