KEEP THE HOME FIRES BURNING

For those of you not fortunate enough to live in the People’s Republic of Oak Park, here’s a little ditty about God Girl that ran in the Oak Park Oak Leaves newspaper yesterday:

Celebrities discuss spiritual influences

June 21, 2007
By BRIDGET KENNEDY Staff Writer

It’s probably safe to say that when a person hears Hugh Hefner’s name, “spirituality” and “morals” are not the next two words that come to mind.

But as author and Chicago Sun-Times religion columnist Cathleen Falsani discovered, “Hef” considers himself quite spiritual and feels he lives up to his own moral code.

In her latest book, The God Factor, Falsani, an Oak Park resident for about 10 years, interviewed 32 “culture shapers,” as she calls them, to discuss how their private beliefs affect their lives and shape our world.

Some of those culture-shapers include Hefner, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, actor John Mahoney, Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, economist Jeffrey Sachs and U2 frontman Bono. “In our mainstream media, little of what we learn about the beliefs of public figures goes beyond labels — this actor’s a Catholic, that one’s a Buddhist,” Falsani wrote. She had no idea what about 90 percent of the interviewees’ religious or spiritual predilections were, she said. What Falsani discovered was an openness and honesty from all of them about a topic once considered taboo. In her own reporting and columns on religion, Falsani has received praise and disdain for her thoughts, including most recently her column on the death of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the fundamentalist Christian pastor and televangelist who died in May. Falwell was publicly opposed to gay and feminist rights, and advocated beliefs he felt were taught by the Bible.

In Falsani’s column about Falwell’s death, she wrote that her first reaction upon hearing the news was, “Good,” and then compared Falwell to fictional mobster Tony Soprano.

But as the column continues, Falsani reflects on her reaction and recalls the teaching to not judge others. “I won’t miss having to apologize for the insensitive, mean-spirited, sometimes downright hateful things the Rev. Falwell said in the name of Christ,” Falsani wrote in her column. “… But at the same time, I cannot dismiss the good he somehow managed to accomplish.”

Falsani said she isn’t sorry for writing the piece. Nothing was said in anger, but she did receive a number of “vulgar and vitriolic” e-mails from Christians in the defense of faith that she found disheartening. Falsani just started work on her next book, a spiritual memoir titled Sin Boldly, a Field Guide for Grace. She will be reading from and signing copies of The God Factor at 7:30 p.m. June 26 at Borders bookstore, 1144 Lake St., Oak Park.