I had the questioning text paper and I decided that I wanted the group to think about the question "How does the plot of this novel position readers views and feelings on people who question either their own faith or faith in general?"
To direct you to the text when thinking about this question the passages I choose are page: one (confession of examining faith), six, seven and eight (learning about new religions), Page 104 (how Bubbe feels), and Pages 143 and 164-165(religious leaders feelings.
I choose this question because I know I have struggled with faith and my stance on it my entire life and at time faced ridicule for it.
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4 comments:
I think this a very good question to address with this paper. I feel that there are not enough books out there today that address the issue of religion with regards to questioning it. I was actually pleased that the character was questioning his faith. Especially the Catholic religion. In answer to your question, it positioned me to question my faith and faith in general. I have some very similiar feelings to you. I was baptized Catholic but my parents told me to believe whatever I want. I went to a Catholic school from 2nd to 12th grade. I always felt left out in religion class discussions because I had trouble believing things that I was learning about. It definitely made me question my own faith and the faith my fellow classmates were being taught. However, there are definitely some people out there that would not agree with the ideas found within this book.
Your question gets at what might be similar struggles across faiths. I also think it is important to think about how Justine experiences particular conflicts because she's Jewish. For example, how does the remembrance of the Holocaust shape her experience? Why does Catholicism seem more socially acceptable to her?
I think one of the strengths of the book is that I can imagine readers of different faiths connecting to Justine, while still considering the particulars of how Judaism is historically and socially located in the text.
I felt the same way as both of you about questioning my faith. I am Catholic, but when I started to question this and some Catholic beliefs my parents acted as though I was saying I was going to jump off a cliff. However, I did not really feel a connection to Justine through the way she went about questioning her faith. I felt as though she was conforming to her best friends beliefs so they could have that in common. In my opinion, thats not a really good way to go about exploring your own identity.
I did appreciate this book for the fact that it dealt with religion. I have not come across any books that tackle this topic and I really like that it was included in this class because religion is a really interesting topic to look into especially from an adolescent point of view.
As I commented earlier, I agree with Courtney. I feel that there are not enough books out there today that deal with issues of religion. This would have been an interesting topic to research for the final project. I also agree with Valerie in the fact that people can connect with this book on the basis of different religions. One thing people forget that religion is an area of life where people can connect.
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