Who My Neighbors Are

My Jesus Year, by Benyamin Cohen

Here is the son of a rabbi, the scion of generations of rabbis, who grows up in famously secular Atlanta and marries a recent convert from Christianity. He decides that if his wife could spend three years converting to Judaism, he can spend a year exploring the majority Christian culture. He begins at Stone Mountain, where he professes surprise that not all Christians are a monolith. His reportage is gentle. He's interested in and respectful of the people he meets wherever he goes.

Readers of this blog will be happy that he found the Episcopalians serious and reverent. In fact he found lots of Christians, most of whom after seeing this book in print will be pleased to call Cohen a friend. The friend he did not find among Christians, after a year of intense looking, is Jesus. Cohen doesn't seem to name that an indictment of Christian practice in Atlanta, but I do. Nobody from St. Bartholomew's to the New Birth Missionary Baptist megachurch managed to present Jesus to the body, mind and soul of someone earnestly seeking him.