OPEN BOOK

By DAVID VAN BIEMA

Eighty-one pages into The Good Book (Morrow; 383 pages; $25), his entertaining bid to grab serious Bible study back from the religious right, Peter Gomes quotes his guiding spirit: not St. Paul, Paul Tillich or scores of other cited exegetes, but obscure Yale historian and teetotaler Roland Bainton, who in 1958 defended his abstinence "based on biblical principles [although] not based on biblical precepts or biblical practice." Gomes applies this same distinction to biblical texts on slaves, Jews, women and homosexuals, explaining why each group's persecution or exclusion, even if derived literally from Holy Writ, runs counter to its principles.

These arguments serve a double purpose. As Minister at Harvard University's Memorial Church, Gomes detects "enormous spiritual cravings" among his semilapsed acquaintances, and he believes that large helpings of Scripture, smartly parsed, are perfect fare for the faith starved. Each application of Bainton's doctrine invites a new group into Gomes' revival tent; just as important, each serves as an example of the way the Bible can still speak to even the most liberal or intellectually sophisticated Christian.

When Gomes moves on to such universal issues as suffering, joy and science, some topics are slighted: the section on evil seems loath to admit the traditional concept of Satan, even in order to challenge it. More typical, however, is a cheerily trenchant meditation on wealth ("not a sin, but it is a problem.") Fundamentalists will have little use for this book, but its target audience just may be charmed back into the pews.

--By David Van Biema