Religious Worlds: The Comparative Study of Religion

A wonderful resource about religion that anyone should have in their library. This book needs a home.

This comprehensive study by a professor of religion at the University of Vermont provides a useful overview of contemporary trends in the study of the faiths of today's world. Early chapters present the previously held models that were used to interpret "exotic religions" to the Western world. Most often these religions were compared unfavorably with Protestant Christianity. After the French Revolution, a rationalist approach to "foreign" religions was popular among European intellectuals. More recently, the universalist reading has gained a wide following. Moving beyond these models, Paden presents a synthesis of the work of the acknowledged deans of modern comparative studies, Eliade and Van der Leeuw, that focuses on understanding religious practices and beliefs through an analysis of structure and pattern. However, much of the book's second half reads as lists of parallels between otherwise differing faiths. An unfortunate bias is the author's tendency to lump together Judaism and Christianity under the rubric of "the phenomena of biblical religions," thus ignoring recent work in comparative studies that emphasizes the sharp distinctions between them.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In Many Mansions , Cox provides an exciting and informative account of the various interfaith dialogues in which he has participated, chiefly with a Muslim student at Harvard, with Hindus at a Krishna festival in New York and visiting Vrndavana, with Christians in Russia, in Palestine, and at Weston Priory, as suggested by a Buddhist. His essays vary from narrative accounts to thoughtful and reflective meditations on the feminine aspects of God, liberation theology, Christian-Muslim misunderstandings through the centuries, and modern scientific ideology. Paden is very different, reflecting on the comparative perspective, myth and its nature, ritual and time, and systems of purity. Cox is a wonderful introduction to the need for dialogue, while Paden skillfully presents the problems of religious and multicultural study, concluding with reflections on the comparative perspective. Both consider the future of religion, interreligious cooperation, and dialogue. Two excellent books that provide what is not available elsewhere; highly recommended.Carolyn M. Craft, Longwood Coll., Farmville, Va.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.