Way to go Globe and Mail...

My great friend Andrew Lakin passed this on to me. And I was amazed. I'm going to print it here because you have to subscribe to view it online. I hope that's legal.

Soul hunger, always a strong suit

Are we really so different from Americans when it comes to our spiritual yearning?


By MARGARET WENTE
Saturday, November 6, 2004 – Page A25


Here's a question that an educated Globe reader like you should be able to answer. What was the top-selling non-fiction book in North America last year (and likely this one, too)?

No, it's not Dude, Where's My Country? It's something called The Purpose Driven Life. It has sold 19 million copies so far, including 600,000 in Canada (which is more books than anything else except maybe Harry Potter). And it was written by pastor Rick Warren, who founded the Saddleback Church in California.

Never heard of it? Well, neither have most otherwise well-informed members of the media -- you know, the ones who are supposed to be on top of social trends. They've been too busy interviewing Michael Moore. And yet the people who've been gobbling up The Purpose Driven Life are the same people who re-elected George W. Bush. Not all of them live in the shotgun 'n' pickup zip codes. Most of them are middle-class professionals who live in the sprawling new American exurbs.

The Purpose Driven Life is a sort of anti-self-help book. Instead of showing how you can claw your way to the top, lose 30 pounds on the South Beach diet or become the millionaire next door, it promises to connect you with life's larger meaning. "It's not about you," it begins. "The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfilment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness."

The Purpose Driven Life (or PDL, as it's known in the book trade) directly addresses the spiritual void at the heart of our materialistic, consumer-driven, sex-saturated, celebrity-mad, culturally trashy age. Liberal social critics, rightly, have identified this as the central existential challenge of our time. But their answers haven't been all that satisfying. Madonna finds solace in the Kabbalah, and Richard Gere in Buddhism. For the rest of us, there's yoga and recycling.

PDL offers a more old-fashioned approach: Jesus. "If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God," it says. It goes on from there for 40 chapters (a meaningful biblical number, if you remember Noah's flood and Jesus's 40 days in the wilderness), and deals with the timeless matter of how to find inner meaning and affiliation in a community of good persons. It doesn't say a single word about abortion or gay marriage or moral crusades or voting for Republicans. Instead, it stresses tolerance and conciliation. "If you want God's blessing on your life you must learn to be a peacemaker," it says.

The people who devour PDL have created an entirely new religious movement, one that has abandoned the old-line mainstream churches and promises a direct, personal and unabashed connection to God. Its unsensational (some might say banal) message does not make for good headlines. Instead, when the mainstream media tackle the religious revival in North America, they bring us stuff such as the CBC's sensational documentary the other night on faith-healing peddler Benny Hinn. Or they haul out Jerry Falwell to rant about abortion.

Oh, yes, the religious revival contains plenty of zealots and hard-liners you'd go nine miles out of your way to avoid. But presenting Benny Hinn and Jerry Falwell as typical of the movement is like saying that Ralph Nader and Noam Chomsky are typical liberals.

The secular media have a curious double standard when depicting people of faith. We're sensitive and respectful toward practising Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and aboriginal people performing smudge ceremonies. This demonstrates our pluralism and tolerance. We're even comfortable with liberal-minded United Church types. But show us a bunch of born-agains and we'll automatically assume they're an intolerant bunch of knee-jerk know-nothings. News organizations that strive for diversity in their ranks will embrace somebody who's a gay Asian Wiccan. But don't be caught reading the Bible, because your colleagues will think you're some kind of nut.

If you're curious about my religious bent, I will disclose it.

I had a brief love affair with God when I was 12; but, by the time I was confirmed at 13, it was all over. I like to think there's a Great Earth Mother who probably hides out on the Queen Charlotte Islands. I think most religions provide similar templates for living the good life and sometimes become dangerously perverted in practice. I think the longing for God -- call it soul hunger -- is universal, and hard-wired into our genes. I like the evangelicals I've met, who strike me as decent, modest, unpretentious people who feel totally shut out by the mainstream media. I also believe strongly in gay marriage, and I have gay friends who tell me that escaping from their religious families was the happiest day of their life.

As for the so-called God gap between Canada and the United States, it's not as big as you think. A recent Ipsos-Reid poll found that 19 per cent of Canadians now describe themselves as evangelical Christians. (In the U.S., it's about one-third.) The gap between the two countries is not so much in beliefs as in the grip that "moral values" now have on the public agenda. In the U.S., they are front and centre, and that is not a good thing; in Canada, they are almost invisible.

And yet are we really so different? If gay marriage were put to a popular vote in Canada, do you think it would pass? I think not. I do not believe this would be a sign of rampant homophobia. I think it means that many people are willing to endorse civil unions and civil rights for gays, but still stick at the M-word. I think that most people in both countries don't want judges to decide this matter for them, and I think that's a reasonable position.

I've always suspected that history was just lying in wait to take its exquisite revenge on us boomers who sought meaning in sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll and the entire menu of Eastern mysticism. And so it has. The people who buy books such as The Purpose Driven Life have an average age of 38. They think our generation debased the culture, and they're right.

After every period of personal and cultural excess, the pendulum inevitably swings back. After the Regency came the Victorians, and so it goes for us, too. Meantime, until somebody else can come up with as good an answer to soul hunger as Rick Warren has, maybe we shouldn't sneer. The '60s are finally over, folks. Time to move on.

mwente@globeandmail.ca