I just finished A. J. Jacobs’s The Year of Living Biblically, in which the author asks, “What if someone really did try to take the Bible’s guidelines on living as literally as possible for one year?”
If you know me, you know that I grew up in a very conservative religion. While we didn’t follow the dietary and fabric guidelines literally, we did believe in a traditionalist/Restoration movement interpretation. Salvation was real and necessary, and there was only one path to it. I know from my Bible. (Common phrase amongst my people: “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.”) This approach was a little different. Jacobs tried the theological things (prayer, study, gathering with like-minded individuals), but most of the book centers on following the behavior codes with regard to food, clothing, and interaction. Over the course of the book, he develops an appreciation for certain aspects of a religious life, such as taking time out to be thankful, taking one day to rest, but in the end he opts to return to his secular life, albeit with a greater understanding.
It’s a good read, though if you’re not ready for discussions of priestly minutiae it might throw you off. I did enjoy that the author became less of an egoist over the course of the book; all of us, most of all me, could benefit from such a transformation.
Up next, when I finish it: Courtesy of Mike Berry, S. A. Paolantonio’s Frank Rizzo: The Last Big Man in Big City America.
Whatcha reading?
WF
Wes Flinn Music 
Did he cut his hair or shave his beard? Most of the personal rules and regs I could handle but the social justice wouldn’t fly.
He would cut his hair (though not at the “corners,” a.k.a. temples), but he did not shave for a full year.
WF
This is not about religious baggage (unusual for me, since I grew up in a household similar to yours), but an answer to your last question. True confession: I’m forty and I’ve never read “Lord of the Rings” before. I’m slogging through it now, at the encouragement of my husband. I can barely stand it–I find it disjunct, horribly tedious and have to force myself to pick it up each night. Is there something I’m missing?