The Book: Personalized Religion

Summary • Book Proposal (including media contacts) •
Agent Query Letter • Question & Answers •
Sample Chapters

Personalized Religion: finding (the) God (of your understanding).

In 28 words "Rabbi Brian helps people unlearn what they thought they knew about God, the Bible, and Religion so they can find and be with (the) God (of their understanding.)"

Progress of the book, from 2004 until present...

June 2004 - Rabbi Brian sends a manuscript of "My Authoritative & Definitive Guide To Your Spiritual Happiness" to David, his editor.

January 2005 - Rabbi Brian sends David a re-worked manuscript entitled, "What God Really Wants."

May 2005 - Rabbi Brian sends David another re-worked manuscript, this time entitled, "The Gospel of Rabbi Brian."

January 2006 - "The Gospel of Rabbi Brian" goes out to reader as a public draft.

May 2006 - The autobiographical story of Rabbi Brian is taken out, the manuscript is re-worked, and is sent on its second public draft with the working title, "What God (?) wants from you.*"

August 2006 - in an email exchange, Rabbi Brian proposes the title of "Personalized Religion" and focusing the book on

1. helping people unlearn what they thought they knew about religion, the Bible, and God.
2. once they've unlearned what they thought they knew, help people come up with ways to create a spiritual/religious life that works for them — howsoever they define it.

Fall 2006 - With the new title and focus, the manuscript gets it's final re-workings and Rabbi Brian and David work on the book proposal packet. (In November, all progress stops as Rabbi Brian's son is born.)

Spring 2007 - Manuscript and book proposal are polished. The search for agents begins.

 

 

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Summary:

Personalized Religion:
Finding (the) God (of your understanding)

Even among the billions who practice it, millions of adults feel exiled and distanced from organized religion. Many of them — including those who identify as “spiritual-but-not-religious” — know what doesn't fit them spiritually and religiously, but are at a loss as to knowing how to create a spiritual–religious life that works for them.

"…your religious life is like singing. Most of us can sing, but few of us do it in public — and fewer do it in public without embarrassment. This book is here to help you work on your proverbial religious voice and get you comfortable enough with your spiritual life that — if you care to — you practice it privately and publicly without embarrassment."

Personalized Religion is a guidebook to help everyone from atheists and agnostics to fundamentalists understand and come to an adult understanding of their spiritual–religious lives.

The book helps those not comfortable with the one-size-fits all approach of formal, religious institutions individuals explore their own, unique religious–spiritual perspectives and come to an adult, mature understanding of what they mean by “God,” as well as learn how to create a personalized spiritual–religious goals and paths.

Author Rabbi Brian is an outside-the-box clergy-person, having left organized religion after a two-fold epiphany: (1) God, if there is a God, wouldn’t discriminate based on religious affiliation, and (2) religion ought neither be about aggrandizing itself or limiting people, but helping people come to an understanding of themselves, their notion of God, and the world. Rabbi Brian doesn’t pretend to have answers. Instead, he accompanies the reader as, together, they explore issues key to the lives of spiritual–religious adults: organized religion, fate, evil, belief, prayer, the Bible, God, and more.

Rabbi Brian’s tone is relaxed, offering humor, anecdotes, and poignant analogies to elucidate even the most complex and esoteric ideas. Moreover, fun-to-do exercises help coax out of the reader their own innate wisdom with regard to their spiritual–religious life.

"Personalized religion is religion your way. Not the way you are told you are supposed to do religion, not the way your parents did it, not the way I think you should do it, and — quite possibly at this point — not the way you 'think' it must be done. Personalized religion is about discovering what really makes sense to you — and doing religion the way you find that you know deep in your heart is right."