How's Your Faith?: An Unlikely Spiritual Journey

Informationen zum Autor David Gregory is the former moderator of NBC's Meet the Press. He previously served as Chief White House Correspondent for NBC News, where he was hailed by Washingtonian magazine as a ?firebrand in the front row.? How's Your Faith? is his first book. Klappentext In this ?thoughtful, introspective, and moving account? ( The Washington Post ), former NBC news anchor David Gregory probes various religious traditions to better understand his own faith and answer important questions about who we want to be and what we believe.When David Gregory was a reporter covering the White House, President George W. Bush asked him a question: ?Gregory, how's your faith?? Raised by a Catholic mother and a Jewish dad, David had a strong sense of Jewish cultural and ethnic identity, but no real belief?until his marriage to a Protestant woman of strong faith inspired him to explore his spirituality for himself and his growing family. His spiritual journey has taken him inside Christian mega-churches and into the world of Orthodox Judaism. He's gone deep into Bible study and asked big questions of America's most thoughtful religious leaders, including evangelical preacher Joel Osteen; Mohamed Magid, the imam of a big northern Virginia mosque; and Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Catholic Archbishop of New York. He has even reconsidered his own childhood, where a belief in God might have helped him through his mother's struggle with alcoholism. How's Your Faith? is ?an unusual, probing book, part memoir, part cri de coeur, part exploration? ( The Boston Globe ). David explores spirituality with the curiosity and dedication you would expect from a seasoned journalist, coupled with the ?genuine and deeply felt? ( The Wall Street Journal ) yearning of a true seeker of faith.How's Your Faith? CHAPTER 1 Pain The Spiritual Search Begins with the Family Story In these pages, I tell secrets about my parents, my children, myself because that is one way of keeping track and because I believe that it is not only more honest but also vastly more interesting than to pretend that I have no such secrets to tell. I not only have my secrets, I am my secrets. And you are your secrets. Our secrets are human secrets, and our trusting each other enough to share them with each other has much to do with the secret of what it is to be human. Frederick Buechner, Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner In a line, this is my spiritual autobiography: I grew up with a strong sense of Jewish identity, but I didn't have much belief. And it makes sense, given who my parents are. My mom, Carolyn, grew up Catholic and left the faith when my sister and I were still little. She had a bad experience after a stillborn birth in a Catholic hospital, and it turned her against the Catholic Church for good. She was conflicted about whether to baptize us. In the end, my older sister, Stephanie ( I called her Ci, pronounced Kigh, because I couldn't pronounce her name) was baptized and I was not; I was named in synagogue. For the most part, Mom was content to leave our religious upbringing to my dad, and Dad's Jewish identity has always been more ethnic than religious. As a result, I did not think much about God or spirituality. The concepts felt too abstract. My mother encouraged me to pray, in spite of her negative experience with the Church; she told me once at bedtime that speaking to God was as easy as starting a conversation in my head. Some people might even call Him Champ, she said, knowing that anything to do with the film Rocky was likely to inspire me. I identified with my dad's brand of Jewishness, a cultural identity developed in New York...

Klappentext

In this ?thoughtful, introspective, and moving account? (The Washington Post), former NBC news anchor David Gregory probes various religious traditions to better understand his own faith and answer important questions about who we want to be and what we believe.

When David Gregory was a reporter covering the White House, President George W. Bush asked him a question: ?Gregory, how's your faith?? Raised by a Catholic mother and a Jewish dad, David had a strong sense of Jewish cultural and ethnic identity, but no real belief?until his marriage to a Protestant woman of strong faith inspired him to explore his spirituality for himself and his growing family.

His spiritual journey has taken him inside Christian mega-churches and into the world of Orthodox Judaism. He's gone deep into Bible study and asked big questions of America's most thoughtful religious leaders, including evangelical preacher Joel Osteen; Mohamed Magid, the imam of a big northern Virginia mosque; and Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Catholic Archbishop of New York. He has even reconsidered his own childhood, where a belief in God might have helped him through his mother's struggle with alcoholism.

How's Your Faith? is ?an unusual, probing book, part memoir, part cri de coeur, part exploration? (The Boston Globe). David explores spirituality with the curiosity and dedication you would expect from a seasoned journalist, coupled with the ?genuine and deeply felt? (The Wall Street Journal) yearning of a true seeker of faith.

Zusammenfassung
In this “thoughtful, introspective, and moving account” (The Washington Post), former NBC news anchor David Gregory probes various religious traditions to better understand his own faith and answer important questions about who we want to be and what we believe.

When David Gregory was a reporter covering the White House, President George W. Bush asked him a question: “Gregory, how’s your faith?” Raised by a Catholic mother and a Jewish dad, David had a strong sense of Jewish cultural and ethnic identity, but no real belief—until his marriage to a Protestant woman of strong faith inspired him to explore his spirituality for himself and his growing family.

His spiritual journey has taken him inside Christian mega-churches and into the world of Orthodox Judaism. He’s gone deep into Bible study and asked big questions of America’s most thoughtful religious leaders, including evangelical preacher Joel Osteen; Mohamed Magid, the imam of a big northern Virginia mosque; and Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Catholic Archbishop of New York. He has even reconsidered his own childhood, where a belief in God might have helped him through his mother’s struggle with alcoholism.

How’s Your Faith? is “an unusual, probing book, part memoir, part cri de coeur, part exploration” (The Boston Globe). David explores spirituality with the curiosity and dedication you would expect from a seasoned journalist, coupled with the “genuine and deeply felt” (The Wall Street Journal) yearning of a true seeker of faith.

Leseprobe
How’s Your Faith?

CHAPTER 1

Pain

The Spiritual Search Begins with the Family Story

In these pages, I tell secrets about my parents, my children, myself because that is one way of keeping track and because I believe that it is not only more honest but also vastly more interesting than to pretend that I have no such secrets to tell. I not only have my secrets, I am my secrets. And you are your secrets. Our secrets are human secrets, and our trusting each other enough to share them with each other has much to do with the secret of what it is to be human.

—Frederick Buechner, Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner

In a line, this is my spiritual autobiography: I grew up with a strong sense of Jewish identity, but I didn’t have much belief.

And it makes sense, given who my parents are. My mom, Carolyn, grew up Catholic and left the faith when my sister and I were still little. She had a bad experience after a stillborn birth in a Catholic hospital, …