Understanding World Religions: An Interdisciplinary Approach - Hardcover

Hexham, Irving

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0310259444 ISBN 13: 9780310259442

Publisher: Zondervan, 2011

Synopsis

Globalization and high-speed communication put twenty-first century people in contact with adherents to a wide variety of world religions, but usually, valuable knowledge of these other traditions is limited at best. On the one hand, religious stereotypes abound, hampering a serious exploration of unfamiliar philosophies and practices. On the other hand, the popular idea that all religions lead to the same God or the same moral life fails to account for the distinctive origins and radically different teachings found across the world’s many religions. Understanding World Religions presents religion as a complex and intriguing matrix of history, philosophy, culture, beliefs, and practices. Hexham believes that a certain degree of objectivity and critique is inherent in the study of religion, and he guides readers in responsible ways of carrying this out. Of particular importance is Hexham’s decision to explore African religions, which have frequently been absent from major religion texts. He surveys these in addition to varieties of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Standard introductions to academic fields, such as Anthropology, Economics, History, or Sociology bristle with debates about both facts and interpretations. Yet similar Religious Studies textbooks strenuously avoid anything that might be considered controversial. The virtue of this book is that it removes Religious Studies from the dream world of academic irrelevance into the nitty gritty world of daily life where religions play a major role in shaping social attitudes and behavior. This text helps students to understand the vital role of religion in contemporary society. Recognizing that existing textbooks structure the way course are taught, this text provides the reader with a standard overview of world religions. But rejecting the approach that sees all religions as a reflection of the values of Liberal Protestantism, Irving Hexham recognizes that uncritical descriptions fail to prepare students for the reality of events like the attacks of September 11, 2001, or the ongoing war between Buddhists and Hindus in Sri Lanka. Therefore, he combines empathic description with critical analysis. In his view, understanding precedes criticism, but this does not mean that criticism should be avoided.

About the Author:

Irving Hexham is professor of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary and adjunct professor of World Christianity at Liverpool Hope University. He has published twenty-seven academic books, including The Concise Dictionary of Religion, Understanding Cults and New Religions, and Religion and Economic Thought, plus eighty major academic articles and chapters in books, numerous popular articles, and book reviews. Recently he completed a report for the United Nations’ refugee agency on religious conflict in Africa and another for the Canadian Government’s Department of Canadian Heritage on Religious Publications in Canada. He is listed in Who’s Who in Canada and various scholarly directories. In 2008, he was honored at the historic Humboldt University in Berlin with a Festschrift, Border Crossings: Explorations of an Interdisciplinary Historian (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag).

About this edition

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0310259444
• ISBN 13: 9780310259442
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 512