Author urges believers to examine faith

Peter Manseau and his friend Jeff Sharlet dropped a buck for a used Ford Tempo and drove cross-country to find stories of Americans practicing religion.

"Killing the Buddha: A Heretic's Bible" (Free Press) tells those stories: attending a Pentecostal exorcism for a cross-dressing gunman who had tried to shoot up a church; New Mexicans eating blessed dirt; storm chasers in Oklahoma. Interspersed are chapters by various authors meditating on books of the Bible.

"In North Carolina, they call the vengeful God coming down out of the skies Jesus, and at that soup kitchen [somewhere], they call the third homeless guy waiting to get in . . . Jesus," said Manseau, who divides his time between Boston and Virginia. He is the son of a former nun and a current Catholic priest under censure by the Archdiocese of Boston for marrying and having a family. (Manseau said his father expected, incorrectly, that Vatican II would discard priestly celibacy.) The authors will attend a reading and signing at Newtonville Books Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

Could you explain the book's title?

"Killing the Buddha" is a Zen saying ascribed to a ninth-century Chinese sage. A student of his had, after years of meditation, an experience of meeting the Buddha, of feeling he had reached nirvana. The master [told] him, "Next time you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." He's asking his student to be aware of his own assumptions. We take this as a metaphor for looking at faith, to be mindful of what we are looking for and whether we are finding what we set out to find. Questioning your assumptions and knowing that there are answers beyond the answers.

If you kill every Buddha, what's left to believe in?

It's not a matter of saying, "This isn't true." Killing the Buddha means acknowledging the complexity of what you're dealing with. When you hear about religion in the news, everything is pious or holy, or on the other end, it's about fanaticism. To look at it in a more complicated way is to see both sides in every faith you encounter.

There are fascinating, offbeat stories in your book. But would many religious Americans not recognize these stories as reflective of their faith?

Our first story starts in a conventionally religious place, an Episcopal church. The trajectory of the book is to go out to the farther reaches of faith, to see echoes of faith in other faith experiences. We did happen across some interesting people with peculiar beliefs, but belief is peculiar, which is not to say that believers are crackpots -- I don't believe that. But I think people of faith will recognize themselves in many of our characters. What was enlightening to us is the way that different characters within the stories resemble people whose beliefs are so far removed from theirs.

For example, there's the Pentecostal exorcism in North Carolina in a prayer circle of four preachers speaking in tongues. Months later, we found ourselves standing in a circle of witches calling down the moon. Something in their stories has an echo.

I don't know that many of these people would be part of a community that I would be part of. However, [we tried] to enter into their life a little bit to understand where they're coming from. When we're in the [Pentecostal] prayer circle, they are doing that as an act of compassion for this person who threatened their lives. I find that incredibly humanizing and touching. In the end, we may decide, "I still think they're crazy." But the first step is to try to understand what is it in these people's lives that makes them believe.

Your subtitle is "A Heretic's Bible," but you seem to have a positive definition of heresy.

My mother is still a Catholic despite her history; what most upsets her about the book is that "heretic" is in the title. But heresy comes, I believe, [from] the verb "to choose" in Greek. It's all a matter of finding your own way. Whether or not people are calling themselves heretics, I think the majority of Americans are a stripe of heretic.

Is there a biblical book that speaks most to you?

While I was traveling, I did think a lot about Jonah. It was very easy to feel swallowed up by this project and brought to who knows where for who knows what reason.

Rich Barlow can be reached at rbarlow.81@alum. dartmouth.org.