What I've Been Reading Lately

Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief. A comparison of the Gospels of John and Thomas, which Pagels perceives to be in conflict and probably competition with one another; and an assessment of the yeasty diversity of thought in early Christianity (prior to the imposition of catholic orthodoxy) that, in its wide latitude of speculative Christologies and its emphasis on the authority of personal understanding, sounds remarkably like the later thought of Channing and Emerson.

Prescott Wintersteen (Minister Emeritus of my church, and still an occasional presence there), Christology in American Unitarianism. Some of the same ideas, though originating much closer to home and more recently in time, and presented by the author in a more formal and less easily approachable style.

Joseph Finder, Paranoia. A paperback potboiler, written by the dad of one of my daughter's classmates, about a Gen-X slacker who finds himself caught up in the cynical intrigues of high-stakes, high-tech corporate espionage. (Hey, if I tried to be an egghead all the time I'd end up like Humpty Dumpty!)