The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People - A Summary of Cathleen Falsani's Book

The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People combines interviews from over two dozen distinguished icons, exploring their views on religion and spirituality. The interviewees range from Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel to humanitarians such as Barack Obama and musician Bono to unexpected cultural figures such as vampire novelist Anne Rice and Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner.

Author Cathleen Falsani is a religion columnist for the Chicago-Sun Times and the 2005 Religion Writer of the Year. Most of the interviews in the book are extracted from her work as a journalist. The copyright page states that they appeared in slightly different forms in the newspaper and some of the quotes have been edited for clarity. Furthermore, Falsani states in the introduction that her intention is not to convert the reader's faith, but to find tidbits of wisdom to enrich it. Right off the bat, the reader has to proceed warily as he encounters an author who is an advocate for religion, a Christian, and a journalist straying from her original material but nevertheless claims to take an unbiased look at the spiritual lives of those she interviews.

Each chapter begins with a full-size picture of the interviewee whose name takes a prominent position at the top of the opposite page. The purpose of this is simple: these are recognizable faces and names and therefore are meant to draw reader interest. Underneath the name are factoids such as occupation, birth date, religion raised, and other bits of information to which the reader may relate.

The interviews describe Falsani's encounters with each character, beginning with their appearance and her initial impressions. Through these meetings, the reader finds out about each person's current religious affiliation whether they may consider themselves Roman Catholic, a secular humanist, or spiritually "unlimited" and learns about their personal encounters and outlooks on faith.

Overall, the author does not advocate any particular faith or even organized religion but takes a surprisingly hands-off approach to present the reader with insight on faith in general. The appeal of The God Factor lies not only in the familiar names found inside its pages and the broad scope of the faiths represented but the fact that it transcends the conventional concept of religion and finds small incidences of faith in the most unexpected places.