Michael Novak is a Catholic theologian, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and winner of the million-dollar Templeton Prize in 1994 for progress in religion. He's an author and lecturer. His daughter Jana is a speechwriter for Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, a woman who, like many of her generation, is interested in God, but put off by much of the institutional Church. So she sent her theologian father a fax full of questions about religion. He answered, she commented, and the result is their new book. We talked to them at the Novaks' beach house in Delaware.Ms. JANA NOVAK: I left the Church when I was very young. In fact, one of my earliest religious memories is in fourth grade, I think it was, creating my own religion with a friend because I did not -- I found Catholicism, since that's what I was raised in, to be very distant, very withdrawn. I didn't find it in any way to be personal or anything that I could relate to. It just seemed very cold. So I went through a process of basically going completely atheist for a while.
Mr. MICHAEL NOVAK: I didn't realize that she was as estranged from the Church as she was.
Ms. NOVAK: I was very good at covering up.
Mr. NOVAK: I really didn't -- I mean, I should have been more attentive and picked up the little signals. And I think there's a normal resistance that most children have, but it was much more profound than I grasped.What did you learn most from this? I mean, what about the way we should go about it and ...
Ms. NOVAK: I had basic questions I wanted answered. I didn't want to have to really search that hard for them. You know, I wasn't willing to put the effort into the search until I kind of answered the first couple of stumbling blocks. So that's where we came up with the idea of the fax. We had a lot more to talk about than just sports or politics, which we both love to discuss, but suddenly we had an entirely new subject area. And so -- one that was especially important to him -- so that was rather fun for me because obviously, this was the subject that has encompassed his entire life.Mr. NOVAK: To have her engage me in a serious way over a year, back and forth, was really wonderful. It's the greatest gift I've had in many, many years.
ABERNETHY: Jana, Michael, welcome. Welcome here. Some of us asking your questions, Jana, might have begun, I think, with God. You began with religion, with the institution, the Church. Why?
Ms. NOVAK: I think for my generation, God is something we accept. We're very spiritual; I don't think, though, in any organized way. So for us, we have many more questions about religion. We don't understand why we can't just have a personal relationship with God, why it's necessary to have an organization.Mr. NOVAK: I liked her line to me once that -- that so many of the parents of her friends and classmates were not religious who grew up in the '60s. And so the kids, in order to -- when they wanted to really tick the parents off, go to church. It's sort of -- of the reverse of 30 years ago.
ABERNETHY: Well, Michael, what did you say? Why can't -- what did you say to Jana? Why can't someone just worship God privately? Why do we need a church?
Mr. NOVAK: Well, it's a kind of long answer. But if you're -- who's going to preach about God if not -- where are you going to get the books? Where are you going to get the tradition of studying? I was very touched when we buried my father-in-law, my father, mother. That there was a poetry, a ritual, when we baptized Jana and her sister and brother. So it's lovely to be part of this tradition.
ABERNETHY: What did your dad say to you in the book that was the most helpful to you?
Mr. NOVAK: ... in a way harder because it's easier to speak to my peers and to argue and criticize and combat. But you know, with your daughter, you can't miss a note. I mean, she's got a truth detector that's unbelievable. And -- and you're either speaking common sense or you're not. I find it much more difficult and much harder. But look, you just have to trust your instincts, Bob. And I just hope that by going through some of these questions, other people will say, gee, we always thought that, too.
Ms. NOVAK: Well, I've actually joined a parish. I now go to church every Sunday and have now put more effort into educating myself. When we did this book and before we had done this book, I hadn't gone anywhere near any of the great religious books out there, like C. S. Lewis. And now that's all I'm reading. In fact, I'm making my novels and my fun reading -- all have to be religious, like George McDonald as well.
