The Children of Men

...Oxford don, is disillusioned with his vo- Witnessing the Quietus is a turning cation ("History, which interprets the past point for Theo, the book's only even minto understand the present and confront the imally interesting character, who realizes future, is the least rewarding discipline for that "faced with some abominations, a man a dying species") and fights the disease had no option but to step onto the stage," with weapons that are also his consolations: and decides to see Xan and convey the debooks, music, food, wine, nature...

...Man is diminished if he lives lar...

...Our hero, James's projection of how mankind is tated and dependent old who kill themTheodore (Theo) Faron, historian and selves...

...We should have been warned in the early 1990s, says Theo, with the "search for alternative medicine, the perfumed oils, the massages, the stroking and anointing, the crystal-holding, the nonpenetraTHE CHILDREN OF MEN throughout their youth, and he later served tive sex," when pornography and sexual P.D...

...James as advisor on Xan's Council, a position violence became more explicit but figures Alfred A. Knopf, $22, 241 pp...

...without ligion think that traditional societies with stolen food, racing, with several narrow hope of a future he becomes a beast...

...On no naJames R. Kelly about it...

...symptoms of lassitude, tility testing because they have physical phemistically referred to as "the mass depression, ill-defined malaise, a readiness defects), is born in a woodshed, and is suicide of the old...

...Although religious burnt, except for the dolls, which sterility of body and spirit leading to the services are rare in the England of 2021, have become for some half-dephysical end of mankind and the destruc- and the churches have all but fallen into mented women a substitute for chiltion of society, questions of individual and ruin, it is in a church where Theo went "to dren...

...Committed secular intel- gious leaders confuse their faith with the America is sociolo- lectuals seeking a nonthreatening ex- market, say Finke and Stark...

...That hope has mysteries, this novel makes you wonder mand for religion, just as unregulated finally gone except in the mind of fools what makes her the queen...

...Then why do we hear so much IN ith its big hypothe- quote...

...And even nonments about religion and those who write members show a brand loyalty...

...Among the areas she Omega and the second, Alpha...

...This people are weighted with sandbags, put species has lost the ability to reproduce...

...Finke and Stark that the reader with some general inter- the name of faith...

...mass graves...

...If there are more than 256 sepof the five members of Xan's Council, P.D...

...For example, on the eve of the American THE RELIGIOUS-FUTURES MARKET Revolution, probably about 17 percent of Americans were churched...

...yses are enlivened with pungent com- active church membership...

...With the introduction of the Five written "as a defense against personal acpointed in a murder mystery you Fishes, the book changes from a detailed cidie": pick up for a few hours of enter- and depressing description of the death In our universal bereavement, like tainment, even if the author has throes of the world into an adventure story grieving parents, we have put away been acclaimed as "the queen of about its rebirth...

...As part of its social to give way to minor infections, a perpetual clearly intended to bring the human race program, the Council "pays handsome disabling headache...

...gy of the kind that used to be written be- planation of why secularization hasn't The typical social scientist asks, "How fore the ideologically tumultuous 1960s happened in America and elsewhere can people possibly believe in supernatwhen blacks, women, and others humbled might especially find the authors' eco- ural beings and forces, and whatever drives the universalizing theory that conceptu- nomic analysis persuasive...

...redemption...

...The authors' theoretical framework about secularization from both intellectuals sis, bold claims, and is a hybrid of church/sect and economic and religious leaders...

...Afterwards, "feel, he told himself, catastrophe can prevail against it...

...When the question is claim that newly retrieved late-nineteenth- est in religion and some specific alle- posed in this way, "they have been virtuand early-twentieth-century Bureau of giances will at different times and in ally forced to frame answers that postuCensus statistics on religious bodies based different moods find the book insightful, late personal flaws in those who believe on denominational self-reports (and sta- tendentious, and reductive...

...One on crumbling barges, and, to the accomThe realization, in the year 2008, that not member is a priest who celebrates Mass paniment of a brass band playing "Bye Bye, one of the generation born in 1995 could regularly for himself and the one other be- Blackbird" and "Somewhere over the produce fertile sperm leads to "an almost lieving Fish...

...By 1906, slightly more Economy This book is smartly written, the graphs than 50 percent of Americans were Roger Finke and Rodney Stark and statistics are easy to read, and the anal- churched...

...It is too dif- better support their counterargument that has been formed by history, that his life- ficult to believe a redeemer will rise from religious pluralism, which better than respan is brief, uncertain, insubstantial, but the bed in the woodshed...

...pensions to the relatives of the incapacisuccumbed to this malady...

...and sacrifice...

...His mands of the Five Fishes...

...Finke and Stark estimates) allow them to make "major re- we believe...

...The toys have been addresses in this futuristic novel are a symbolism abounds...

...archaic act of worship" that he is first ap- In the book's most chilling passage, old James posits a world in which the human proached by one of the Five Fishes...

...ing story, the excitement of the chase religion is itself a primary agent of secuPlacing the words in the mouth of one would provide the main interest of this larization...

...others, how can any one of them lay claim 'the ages to ensure the survival of nations, The framework of the book, all too plain to binding religious truths worthy of comsects, religions, even of individual fami- to see, is never richly clothed...

...With fair warrant, Finke and adopt a contrary hypothesis which provides visions in the history of American religion" Stark assume we think that Americans were the motive power underlying their theoand to "challenge the received wisdom" once religious and are now pretty secu- ry explaining the success and failure of difCommonweal 23 April 1993: 27...

...Theo notes in his diary, is no big deal if you're disap- reforms...

...James-has raised the stakes tions with titles that reveal the direction dismantled...

...For the rethe country estate for the summer, Theo "You'd think he'd have the courtesy mainder of the book, Theo accompanies was Xan's companion-but never friend- to hurry up...

...On any given Sunday morning," Finke and Stark drolly note, "there were at least as many people recovering from late Saturday nights THE CHURCHING OF AMERICA 1776-1990 about why churches grow and why they in the taverns of these seaport towns as Winners and Losers in Our Religious decline...

...group habitually meets in churches...

...book...

...But in The Children of Men, the The book is divided into two main sec- children's playgrounds...

...Thus, with more rationaltistically checked by Finke's model for Good revisionists, however, must first ity (presumably like their own), there translating pew numbers into membership persuade us that what they revise is what should be less religion...

...today, about 62 percent claim Rutgers University Press, $22.95, 328 pp...

...11 markets are better than state-controlled monopolies in rousing and then satisfying consumer wants...

...Before the excousin Xan, the dictator who calls him- perience he says of himself "I don't want self the Warden of England, is immune to anyone to look to me, not for protection, the disease, protected, Theo speculates, "by not for happiness, not for love, not for anyan egotism so powerful that no external thing...

...from which he has resigned...

...with its...

...Because intellectuals assured premises theory (the Chicago style of unregulated begin with the wrong question and reliThe Churching of competition...

...like an insidious "rejects" (people who escape regular fer- cedure, known as the Quietus, is eudisease...

...The crime...

...Commentators, especially those tional sample has the percentage answering conservatives who use "liberal" as a syn- "none" when asked about religion reached onym for selling out, will find it easy to 10 percent...

...do we now governmental power, religious belief, love, listen to the singing, not to take part in an hear the voices of children...

...Most people have back to life...

...were in church...

...likely to respond to a bewildering turn of events is the most interesting aspect of the NOT TONIGHT, WE HAVE A HEADACHE book...

...The idea was a ligious monopolies can appeal to diverse that there will be a future, for the nation, good one, but like so many of P.D...

...They assume that most students of rehiding, traveling in stolen cars, eating without knowledge of his past...

...Christian...

...the asphalt grassed over considerably and in the process she rais- the narrative will take, the first being or sown with flowers like small es our expectations...

...Only on tape...

...Even if what you feel is As the poor cousin regularly invited to pain, only let yourself feel...

...A child is conceived by two Rainbow," are towed out to sea...

...The data contradict lies.Whatever man has done for good or characters wander over a skillfully depicted each point of this conventional wisdom and ill has been done in the knowledge that he landscape like so many sticks...

...the numerous mitted allegiance...

...have been queen-P.D...

...feel, feel, feel...

...Unfortunately, the unfolding story, arate religious organizations in America, James summarizes: "You [Theo] know buried in a mountain of detail, holds lit- each considering itself more true than the what evils have been perpetrated through tle suspense, the chase little excitement...

...When Theo showed a slump in the number of children is approached by a small group of dissi- being born...

...religious "monopolies" were pervasively escapes, away from the dreaded Council Because James is known as a writer of religious and that secular and pluralistic and toward the woodshed...

...In the course murder mysteries, readers might expect societies inevitably make religion inof this adventure, Theo learns to feel not that the plot, the suspense of the unfold- significant and, indeed, that pluralism in only pain but also love...

...James's religious tastes, increases the aggregate defor the race, for the tribe...

...Molly Finn dents who call themselves the Five Fishes By 2021, people baptize dolls and gathit is because they think he can influence er to watch and celebrate the birth of a litthe Warden to carry out their program of ter of kittens...

...all painful reminders of our loss...

...the Fishes as one of the five is captured, 26: 23 April 1993 Commonweal another defects, and the group goes into and fanatics...

...This prouniversal negativism...

...My guess is them to make such irrational sacrifices in ally marginalized them...