World Religions Today (review)

Field: Arts and Humanities (Social Sciences)

Reviewed by: World Religions Today Ryan Weimer John L. Esposito, Darrell J. Fasching, and Todd Lewis. 2006. World Religions Today( 2nd edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 592, Pb, £29.99. World Religions Today(WRT) narrates the 'struggle between pre-modern, modern and post-modern interpretations' (p. 27) within contemporary religion, allowing other works to specialise in textual, theological and historical perspectives. 'Storytellers and storydwellers' (p. 16) are conceptualised through Otto's 'fascination and dread', Eliade's 'sacred and profane', Lyotard's 'collapse of meta-narratives' and Berger's 'heretical imperative'. Resisting myths of homogeneity, WRT highlights religious [End Page 301]diversity and ﬂuidity, avoiding easy, essentialist reductionism and colonialist orientalism. Regarding Primal Religions, authors speculate a 5,000-year transition from village to urban life when 'elaborate and detailed mythologies emerged' to answer crises of morality, mortality and meaning (p. 15f). Notions of isolation and innocence are misleading, as are inferences that urban religion became more 'complex' than hunter-gatherer societies. Narrating multiple stories of Jews (15m), Chapter 3 surveys pre-modern Talmudists to Reconstructionalists, from Rashi and Maimonides to Herzl and Heschel, including topics of exodus/exile, halakhah/ mitzvothand Holocaust. The largest religion, Christianity (1,966m), ﬁts into a shorter chapter, focusing mainly on Euro-American expressions through an intellectual history of iconic leaders and idealised beliefs, covering Protestants and Catholics more than Orthodox and Pentecostals. With only a page on Africa and three pages on Asia (p. 183f), insights from recent studiesin World Christianity are notably absent to explicate its 'incredible diversity' (p. 134) as a world religion today. The section on Muslims (1,179m) offers balanced perspectives on controversial topics ( jihad, polygamy, Iraq, terrorism), but mostly concentrates on Arabisation and Euro-Americanisation of Islam. With only twenty percent of Muslims living in the Middle East, the reader is curious to learn more of South/east Asian contexts. An inclusive chapter on Hinduism complicates Vedanta ideals of elite minorities, refocusing on lived religion from formative to postclassical eras. Some may quibble that Sikhs (23m) are sub-sectioned among Hindus (767m); Jainism (4m) receives passing reference, yet is described as 'one of the three great heterodox faiths that originated in India' (p. 333). Chapter 7 describes formative and expansion eras of Buddhists (357m), Theravada and Mahayana approaches to nirvana, and social engagement with modernity. The straightforward accounts of founder and 'core' beliefs are not problematised. WRT's longest chapter, East Asian Religions, surveys Daoist (20m), Confucius (5m), Shinto (3.6m), and Buddhist expressions in China, Japan and Korea. Zoroastrians (.5m) are mentioned brieﬂy. Contrasted are Intra-cosmic myths of harmony against Middle Eastern myths of history. Motifs include festivals and monasteries, shrines and temples, ancestors and deities, Confucian economics and postcolonial independence. A 'catch-all' chapter, New Religions (99m), covers Wiccans to Scientologists. While Baha'is (6.3m) receive one sentence, Tolstoy, Gandhi and King are presented as models for 'religious postmodernism … (whereby) the struggle [End Page 302]among religions will most likely be not between fundamentalism and modernism … but between the sacred and the holy – religious exclusivism and religious pluralism as alternative forms of public religion' (p. 529). With appropriate supplementary and primary materials, the jargon-less prose of WRT is an excellent text for introductory courses, making contemporary religion accessible, relevant and engaging. Given its length, 200+ illustrations and pedagogical tools, the affordable WRT is money well-spent, and should continue to earn wide readership. Ryan Weimer University of Edinburgh Copyright © 2007 Edinburgh University Press