Joshua: A Parable for Today.

Joseph Girzone In 1986, Joseph Girzone retired from the active Catholic priesthood on the advice of his physician. Girzone, a priest for many years, had been warned that he was heading for a stroke. Perhaps Girzone's symptoms were stress-related: he had already begun to articulate his frustrations by writing Joshua: A Parable for Today (Macmillan, 1983). This enormously popular work, later followed by several sequels, tells the story of Jesus (Joshua) returned to life in the modern age. Joshua attends all the different churches and also the synagogue. He shares his simple wisdom, which contrasts sharply with the hardheartedness of contemporary religious leaders, most of whom are cast in the role of the Pharisees. Because Joshua teaches that religion today is not what it was intended to be, he is brought to trial at the Vatican. However, the entire book functions as a trial in which the churches, especially the Catholic church, are indicted for their institutional sins.

Joshua's appeal comes from the simplicity of its message. Despite an almost adolescent quality in its style, it leaves one with the feeling that there are deeper dimensions to reality, that these dimensions are accessible, that simplicity and wisdom go hand-in-hand, and that complexity and even corruption in the institutional church do not have to get in the way of the spirituality of the ordinary believer.