Top Religion Books of 2010

Revelation of the Magi: The Lost Tale of the Wise Men's Journey to Bethlehem
HarperOne
176 pp.
By Brent Landau

The tale of the Magi, or the Three Wise Men, is one of the most famous stories associated with the birth of Jesus. But as Landau points out, only one brief passage in the New Testament's Gospel of Matthew is actually about the Magi. Even there the details are frustratingly vague: the wise men have no names, nor are their countries of origin indicated. But one source does exist, a lengthy narrative called Revelation of the Magi, which tells the story from the perspective of the wise men themselves. This slim volume is purported to be the first-ever English translation of the elusive tale. Landau, a scholar of ancient biblical languages, discovered the document while doing research at the Vatican Library. Ignored or neglected by contemporary scholars and written in Syriac, a language spoken by ancient Christians in the Middle East and Asia, Revelation of the Magi should be of interest to not only biblical scholars but also students of the Christian story who want to know more about these elusive fellows.  (Booklist)

American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us
Simon and Schuster
688 pp.
By Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell

In recent controversy over the national motto, In God we trust, Putnam and Campbell see a symptom of profound change in the national character. Using data drawn from two large surveys, the authors plumb these changes. The data show that the tempestuous ‘60s shook faith in religion and that the ‘70s and ‘80s incubated a strong resurgence of devotion. But the two most recent decades add another twist, as young Americans have abandoned the pews in record numbers. Still, despite recent erosion of religious commitment, Americans remain a distinctively devout people. And devotion affects life far from the sanctuary: Putnam and Campbell parse numbers that identify religious Americans as more generous, more civically engaged, and more neighborly than their secularly minded peers. But the analysis most likely to stir debate illuminates how religion has increasingly separated Republicans from Democrats, conservatives from progressives. Readers may blame the Christian Right for this new cultural fissure, but survey statistics mark liberal congregations as the most politicized. But whether looking at politics or piety, the authors complement their statistical analysis with colorful vignettes, humanizing their numbers with episodes from the lives of individual Protestants and Catholics, Jews and Mormons. An essential resource for anyone trying to understand 21st-century America. (Booklist)

The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
336 pp.
By Eliza Griswold

Griswold may be the first to explain how global warming intensifies religious conflict. For as she travels the climactically vulnerable region near 10 degrees latitude, she sees climate change exacerbating tensions dividing 700 million Muslims and 1.2 billion Christians. These tensions emerge in probing interviews with religious leaders—Christian and Muslim—aflame with spiritual passions now rare in the secular West. Yet Griswold also discovers how the West has helped incubate the region's interfaith hostility. It was, after all, Western colonizers whose arbitrary boundaries helped harden religious differences: in Sudan, for instance, the British established the tenth parallel as a partition between the Islamic north and the Christian south. More recently, it was the U.S.-led invasion of distant Afghanistan that triggered bloody clashes between Muslim and Christian mobs in the Middle Belt of Nigeria. And in Indonesia, Griswold listens to angry jihadists certain that the spread of fast-food restaurants signals a threatening Christian onslaught. Here and elsewhere Griswold teases out the threads of a complex fabric of religious doctrine, capitalist economics, ethnic pride, and power politics. Despite the complexities, Griswold retains her hope that authentic faith can yet transcend theological differences and foster peace. A compelling portrait of embattled human communities yearning for more-than-human succor. (Booklist)