“Man Seeks God” by Eric Weiner

Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine

By Eric Weiner
2012
368 pages. Audio: 12 hours and 22 minutes
Nonfiction

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When I first started this series one of my goals was to encourage ministers to read broadly—both fiction and nonfiction. I believe that we feed the preaching imagination when we range widely both intellectually and artistically. So I was more or less committed to staying away from religious books, which preachers are going to read anyway. I will leave it to everyone to make their own decisions of what they find theologically instructive. But this book is a sort of exception. It is about religion but then again it's not a book that you are likely to just stumble onto and read. And that's a shame, because it is glorious.

Eric Weiner's book, Man Seeks God, has the irresistible subtitle: My Flirtations with the Divine. Weiner begins the book as an agnostic with a Jewish background. A health scare sets him on a journey to answer a question from a nurse: “Have you found God yet?”

Through the book Weiner explores eight different faiths. And by explore I don't mean he just reads about them. His spiritual journey is going to be a real journey as he examines Sufism, Buddhism, Franciscan, Raelism, Taoism, Wicca, Shamanism, and Kabbalah Judaism. I am going to take a wild guess that there is one in that list that stumped you. I will not steal from you the joy of discovery but will simply say that the chapter on Raelism is one of the funniest things I have ever read.

Which brings me to one of the points I want to emphasize most. This book is knee-slapping hilarious. But I want to assure you that the point of the book is not to make fun of religion. I actually found the book to be quite respectful. But when you learn Buddhism from someone named Wayne, that's already funny. And the chapter on Shamanism, where Eric is trying to find his inner animal, brought tears to my eyes I was laughing so hard.

The New York Times book review describes Weiner as “Woody Allen channeling Karen Armstrong.” I wish I had written that line.

It is true that Weiner is drawn more to esoteric and mystical religious experiences, but I'm pretty interested in mysticism too. After reading Wiener’s exploration with Judaism, which was his original religious home, I wonder how many Christians feel drawn by the allure of the unknown in other religions when what they truly seek is already deeply embedded in their own.

I do somewhat get the feeling that Weiner had a book in the back of his mind when he started this quest. With books like this, I suppose it’s common to suspect the writer is not looking only for transcendence but also for something that will sell. Even so, the book is so funny, so well-written, so adventuresome, that I'm willing to back-burner my cynicism. Go ahead and read the book. It might not make you a better Christian, but I'm pretty sure you won't want to be a Raelist when you are done.