Not for sale or redistribution. So I cannot presume background knowledge of things religious when I teach this course. Another factor contributing to that limitation is the fact that most of the students in the course are not religion majors. Although I teach one class on Muslims in America, I direct those students interested in more non-traditional religions to the New Religions course. It seems to me that there are three ways that texts can be used in this course.
None is the best.
Each has its advantages and disadvantages. The efficacy of each will depend on the professor and the make-up of the class. Although the text was colorful and well-written, composed by excellent scholars, I found that the students were engaged more by the primary sources and our attempts to interpret those sources. I used the monograph instead of primary sources for the first unit of the course, on Puritanism. The students enjoyed the monograph, but I sensed that they would have enjoyed the primary sources even more.