Hindu Goddess Religion
Most people have heard about the Bhagavad Gita, and may have read it once upon a time. But what about the Devi Gita? In The Song of the Goddess, C. Mackenzie Brown offers an unencumbered translation of the Hindu devotional text the Devi Gita, which dates to somewhere between the 13th and 16th centuries. In an accessible and short introduction, Brown explains that the Devi Gita posits the supremacy of a great goddess, who is called the World Mother. Mackenzie offers a useful synopsis of the Devi, which incorporates elements of the earlier Bhagavad Gita but also moves beyond it to embrace Tantra and various yogic disciplines. (SUNY, $50.50 160p ISBN 0-7914-5393-6; $9.95 paper ISBN -5394-4; Sept.)
A Mother's Grief
In August, new Christian publisher Green Key Books will launch its first list, which includes the heartbreaking story of a mother's grief at losing three of her six children to a rare genetic disease. In Nothing Can Separate Us, Connie Jackson tells her family's story, beginning with the first signs that her six-year-old daughter Karen had something wrong with her eyes. Jackson is honest about depression and despair, about trying to strike bargains with God and about the overwhelming grief she felt at slowly losing her children to blindness, brain damage, seizures and ultimate death. But throughout, her deep faith offers hope in the face of tragedy. ($13.99 paper 300p ISBN 0-9705996-3-3)
Mesoamerican Religion
Marco Aurelio Navarro-Génie offers a spiritual biography of a Nicaraguan revolutionary in Augusto "César" Sandino: Messiah of Light and Truth. Sandino, an early 20th-century firebrand from whom the Sandinista government later took its name, has been studied before, but not with this kind of attention to his unique theology and millenarian worldview. At the end of his life, he believed himself to be the Messiah, and his determination to free his people from oppression deeply influenced liberation theologians later in the 20th century. This is an accessible biography with a fresh, long-overdue perspective. (Syracuse Univ., $34.95 208p ISBN 0-8156-2949-4; Aug.)
In The Gospel of the Toltecs: The Life and Teachings of Quetzalcoatl, Frank Díaz translates key documents related to Quetzalcoatl, the Toltec avatar who is believed to have been born in the 10th century A.D. Díaz offers 86 stories about the spiritual leader, but these are presented with almost no contextualization. Victor Sanchez provides a brief foreword, which is the book's only concession to aiding the reader: it offers no introduction, explanation of its organization or biographical digest to explain why these teachings are important. As such, it will be of limited usefulness to the beginner, despite its fascinating topic. (Bear & Co., $16 paper 256p ISBN 1-879181-86-X; Aug.)
Contemporary American Religion
As architect Akel Ismail Kahera notes in the introduction to Deconstructing the American Mosque: Space, Gender, and Aesthetics, "there is virtually no literature on the history of American mosques," so this theoretical volume makes a real contribution. It's clearly academic; on the opening page, for example, Kahera cites but does not explain Derrida's philosophy of deconstruction. But informed readers will be delighted by this sophisticated book, which posits some important questions about sacred space: Since many U.S. Muslims come from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, is there such a thing as an authentically "American" Muslim architecture? What are American mosques doing to enhance the status of women in worship? How much more symbolically important is the mosque to Muslims in America than in majority-Muslim countries? Generously illustrated and provocatively written, this thoughtful treatise will do much to increase understanding of Muslim aesthetics and religious practice in America. (Univ. of Texas, $40 208p ISBN 0-292-74344-0; Aug.)
The Unity School of Christianity, once a tiny movement within the larger rubric of New Thought, has evolved into a significant international religion with more than 170,000 members. Its basic teachings about bodily regeneration and healing, spiritual progress and the divine nature of every person have appealed to individuals from many walks of life. In The Unity Movement: Its Evolution and Spiritual Teaching, Neal Vahle provides a balanced and serviceable account of the movement's origins, beliefs and practices. The tone can be dry and pedestrian at times, and Vahle offers little in the way of analysis. However, the study still represents a great step forward, considering the paucity of source material available on this increasingly visible religion. (Templeton Foundation, $44.95 486p ISBN 1-890151-92-0; $29.95 paper -96-3; Sept.)
