Read complete books and articles on: Comparative Religion

Religion - a system of thought, feeling, and action that is shared by a group and that gives the members an object of devotion; a code of behavior by which individuals may judge the personal and social consequences of their actions; and a frame of reference by which individuals may relate to their group and their universe. Usually, religion concerns itself with that which transcends the known, the natural, or the expected; it is an acknowledgment of the extraordinary, the mysterious, and the supernatural. The religious consciousness generally recognizes a transcendent, sacred order and elaborates a technique to deal with the inexplicable or unpredictable elements of human experience in the world or beyond it.

Types of Religious Systems

The evolution of religion cannot be precisely determined owing to the lack of clearly distinguishable stages, but anthropological and historical studies of isolated cultures in various periods of development have suggested a typology but not a chronology. One type is found among some Australian aborigines who practice magic and fetishism (see fetish) but consider the powers therein to be not supernatural but an aspect of the natural world. Inability or refusal to divide real from preternatural and acceptance of the idea that inanimate objects may work human good or evil are sometimes said to mark a prereligious phase of thought. This is sometimes labeled naturism or animatism. It is characterized by a belief in a life force that itself has no definite characterization (see animism).

A second type of religion, represented by many Oceanic and African tribal beliefs, includes momentary deities (a tree suddenly falling on or in front of a person is malignant, although it was not considered "possessed" before or after the incident) and special deities (a particular tree is inhabited by a malignant spirit, or the spirits of dead villagers inhabit a certain grove or particular animals). In this category one must distinguish between natural and supernatural forces. This development is related to the emergence of objects of devotion, to rituals of propitiation, to priests and shamans, and to an individual sense of group participation in which the individual or the group is protected by, or against, supernatural beings and is expected to act singly or collectively in specific ways when in the presence of these forces (see ancestor worship; totem; spiritism).

In a third class of religion—usually heavily interlaced with fetishism—magic, momentary and special deities, nature gods, and deities personifying natural functions (such as the Egyptian solar god Ra, the Babylonian goddess of fertility Ishtar, the Greek sea-god Poseidon, and the Hindu goddess of death and destruction Kali) emerge and are incorporated into a system of mythology and ritual. Sometimes they take on distinctively human characteristics (see anthropomorphism).

Beyond these more elementary forms of religious expression there are what are commonly called the "higher religions." Theologians and philosophers of religion agree that these religions embody a principle of transcendence, i.e., a concept, sometimes a godhead, that involves humans in an experience beyond their immediate personal and social needs, an experience known as "the sacred" or "the holy."

In the comparative study of these religions certain classifications are used. The most frequent are polytheism (as in popular Hinduism and ancient Greek religion), in which there are many gods; dualism (as in Zoroastrianism and certain Gnostic sects), which conceives of equally powerful deities of good and of evil; monotheism (as in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), in which there is a single god; supratheism (as in Hindu Vedanta and certain Buddhist sects), in which the devotee participates in the religion through a mystical union with the godhead; and pantheism, in which the universe is identified with God.

Another frequently used classification is based on the origins of the body of knowledge held by a certain religion: some religions are revealed, as in Judaism (where God revealed the Commandments to Moses), Christianity (where Christ, the Son of God, revealed the Word of the Father), and Islam (where the angel Gabriel revealed God's will to Muhammad). Some religions are nonrevealed, or "natural," the result of human inquiry alone. Included among these and sometimes called philosophies of eternity are Buddhist sects (where Buddha is recognized not as a god but as an enlightened leader), Brahmanism, and Taoism and other Chinese metaphysical doctrines.

Bibliography

See J. Wach, Comparative Study of Religions (1951, repr. 1958); J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough (3d ed., 13 vol., 1955; repr. 1966); V. T. A. Ferm, Encyclopedia of Religion (1959); J. Hick, The Philosophy of Religion (1963); J. de Vries, The Study of Religion (tr. 1967); G. Parrinder, ed., Man and His Gods (1971); M. Eliade, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion (16 vol., 1986); E. L. Queen 2d et al., ed., The Encyclopedia of American Religious History (1996).

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16 of the Best Books and Articles on: Comparative Religion

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Global Religions: An Introduction » Read Now
by Mark Juergensmeyer. 155 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

The essays collected here provide brief and accessible introductions to the major world religions in their global contexts. The volume begins with an introduction to the globalization of religion by Mark Juergensmeyer, and is followed by individual essays on Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism...
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The essays collected here provide brief and accessible introductions to the major world religions in their global contexts. The volume begins with an introduction to the globalization of religion by Mark Juergensmeyer, and is followed by individual essays on Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and local religious societies. The book concludes with three essays reflecting on the global religious scene. Taken together, these essays provide a concise, authoritative, and highly readable introduction to the state of worldwide religion in the 21st century.
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2.

The World's Religions » Read Now
by Peter Clarke, Friedhelm Hardy, Leslie Houlden, Stewart Sutherland. 1012 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library
3.

The Power of Religion: A Comparative Introduction » Read Now
by Amanda Porterfield. 210 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

This introductory textbook describes and compares six religious traditions - Native American, Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist - focusing on ways in which belief is played out in practice, experience, and community. Emphasis is placed on religion in the USA today, with attention to...
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This introductory textbook describes and compares six religious traditions - Native American, Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist - focusing on ways in which belief is played out in practice, experience, and community. Emphasis is placed on religion in the USA today, with attention to the historical developments each religion has undergone, especially in response to the religious pluralism of American culture.
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4.

Religion in a Changing World: Comparative Studies in Sociology » Read Now
by Madeleine Cousineau. 238 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

Twenty-eight scholars, many of them well known in the sociology of religion, examine a variety of faith traditions and sociological topics that illustrate the connection between religion and society in many different countries at the dawn of the 21st century. The faith traditions include Judaism...
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Twenty-eight scholars, many of them well known in the sociology of religion, examine a variety of faith traditions and sociological topics that illustrate the connection between religion and society in many different countries at the dawn of the 21st century. The faith traditions include Judaism, Roman Catholicism, evangelical and mainstream Protestantism, Islam, Hinduism, Yoruba religion, Chinese religion, and several new religious movements, including a UFO cult in Quebec.
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5.

The Ideology of Religious Studies » Read Now
by Timothy Fitzgerald. 284 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

In recent years there has been an intensifying debate within the religious studies community about the validity of religion as an analytical category. In this book Fitzgerald sides with those who argue that the concept of religion itself should be abandoned. On the basis of his own research in India...
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In recent years there has been an intensifying debate within the religious studies community about the validity of religion as an analytical category. In this book Fitzgerald sides with those who argue that the concept of religion itself should be abandoned. On the basis of his own research in India and Japan, and through a detailed analysis of the use of religion in a wide range of scholarly texts, the author maintains that the comparative study of religion is really a form of liberal ecumenical theology. By pretending to be a science, religion significantly distorts socio-cultural analysis. He suggest, however, that religious studies can be re-represented in a way which opens up new and productive theoretical connections with anthropology and cultural and literary studies.
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6.

Time, Place, and Circumstance: Neo-Weberian Studies in Comparative Religious History » Read Now
by William H. Swatos Jr. 234 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

This book is a collection of essays that explore a variety of topics in religious history, both East and West, using theoretical frameworks derived from the comparative-historical sociology of Max Weber. It breaks new ground, offering substantive research in the historical sociology of religion...
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This book is a collection of essays that explore a variety of topics in religious history, both East and West, using theoretical frameworks derived from the comparative-historical sociology of Max Weber. It breaks new ground, offering substantive research in the historical sociology of religion. This book should appeal to anyone interested in Buddhism, Hinduism, Ancient Judaism, Ancient Greece, early Christianity, and Protestantism and Catholicism from the 13th to the 19th centuries, and it can ideally be used as a text for teaching Comparative Religions at the undergraduate and nonspecialist graduate levels.
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7.

Religion and Politics in Comparative Perspective: Revival of Religious Fundamentalism in East and West » Read Now
by Bronislaw Misztal, Anson Shupe. 230 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

Misztal and Shupe bring together theoretical and empirical studies that focus on fundamentalist social movements in North and Central America and Eastern Europe and that examine the role religion plays in determining the direction of social evolution. Each chapter emphasizes a common set of...
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Misztal and Shupe bring together theoretical and empirical studies that focus on fundamentalist social movements in North and Central America and Eastern Europe and that examine the role religion plays in determining the direction of social evolution. Each chapter emphasizes a common set of processes at work: how religious identities arise or reemerge to confront the globalization trend, how various social movements cope with pressures to conform their identities, and how the globalization trend sets in motion the antithetical reaction of the nationalistic/religious dialectic that it was thought to have eliminated.
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8.

Religion and Moral Reason: A New Method for Comparative Study » Read Now
by Ronald M. Green. 288 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Philosophy, Entire Library

Continuing in the tradition of his well-received Religious Reason, Ronald Green here offers a penetrating moral understanding of religious belief and practice. Human religiousness, he contends, principally arises from a universal "deep structure" of moral reasoning that comprises three essential...
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Continuing in the tradition of his well-received Religious Reason, Ronald Green here offers a penetrating moral understanding of religious belief and practice. Human religiousness, he contends, principally arises from a universal "deep structure" of moral reasoning that comprises three essential elements: one guides impartial moral reasoning; a second affirms the reality of moral retribution; and a third provides escape from the penalties that justly accompany unavoidable human moral failure. Using this innovative approach, Green confronts a series of different religious traditions and issues, including African primal religions, classical Chinese religion, the "Divine Command" tradition in Judaism and Christianity, religious ritual, and the economic teachings of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Drawing on contemporary rationalist ethical theory, Green provides a simple but effective model for understanding the complexity of religious life.
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9.

Between Eden and Armageddon: The Future of World Religions, Violence, and Peacemaking » Read Now
by Marc Gopin. 314 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

Much has been written on the relationship between violence and religious militancy, but there has been less research on constructive methods of confronting religious violence. This book represents an innovative attempt to integrate the study of religion with the study of conflict resolution. Marc...
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Much has been written on the relationship between violence and religious militancy, but there has been less research on constructive methods of confronting religious violence. This book represents an innovative attempt to integrate the study of religion with the study of conflict resolution. Marc Gopin offers an analysis of contemporary religious violence as a reaction to the pressures of modernity and the increasing economic integration of the world. He contends that religion is one of the most salient phenomena that will cause massive violence in the next century. He also argues, however, that religion can play a critical role in constructing a global community of shared moral commitments and vision - a community that can limit conflict to its nonviolent, constructive variety.
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10.

Explorations in Global Ethics: Comparative Religious Ethics and Interreligious Dialogue » Read Now
by Sumner B. Twiss, Bruce Grelle. 352 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Philosophy, Entire Library

Inspired by the 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions, this volume for the first time brings the scholarly discipline of comparative religious ethics into constructive collaboration with the community of interreligious dialogue. The contributors draw from both communities of discourse in...
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Inspired by the 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions, this volume for the first time brings the scholarly discipline of comparative religious ethics into constructive collaboration with the community of interreligious dialogue. The contributors draw from both communities of discourse in addressing questions of method & theory & global moral issues-such as human rights, distributive justice, politics of war, international business, the environment, & genocide-in a cross-cultural context.
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11.

The Ideal in the World's Religions: Essays on the Person, Family, Society, and Environment » Read Now
by Robert Carter, Sheldon Isenserg. 438 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

This timely volume examines the "ideal" of the individual, the family, society, and the environment from a variety of vantage points -- Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist and Zen Buddhist, Native American, Confucian, Taoist, Shinto, and the Goddess tradition. The Ideal argues forcefully for the...
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This timely volume examines the "ideal" of the individual, the family, society, and the environment from a variety of vantage points -- Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist and Zen Buddhist, Native American, Confucian, Taoist, Shinto, and the Goddess tradition. The Ideal argues forcefully for the ideals of a peaceful world, of respect for religious difference, of mindfulness, of ecology, and the resacralization of nature and the body. Although The Ideal makes clear the general support for the possibility of a global ethics, each tradition -- both within itself and between other traditions -- is faced with challenges. What the editors and the writers finally call for is a reshaping of established views if we are to survive and flourish in a postmodern world.
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12.

Anthropology of Religion: A Handbook » Read Now
by Stephen D. Glazier. 544 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

Religion has experienced growing importance in recent years, and interest in the anthropological study of religion has increased as well. This reference book offers a much-needed overview of the most significant topics and concerns in the field. Chapters by expert contributors examine such matters...
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Religion has experienced growing importance in recent years, and interest in the anthropological study of religion has increased as well. This reference book offers a much-needed overview of the most significant topics and concerns in the field. Chapters by expert contributors examine such matters as snake handling, magic and ritual, shamanism, and the role of religion in particular cultures. Chapters contain extensive documentation, and a bibliography concludes the volume.
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13.

Women in the World's Religions, Past and Present » Read Now
by Ursula King. 262 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...religious teachings on or by women from a historical, contemporary or comparative point of view, and would take into account some of the perspectives on women and religion...
14.

The Faces of the Goddess » Read Now
by Lotte Motz. 282 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

The belief that the earliest humans worshipped a sovereign, nurturing, maternal earth goddess is a popular one. It has been taken up as fact by the media, who routinely depict modern goddess-worshippers as "reviving" the ancient religions of our ancestors. Feminist scholars contend that, in the...
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The belief that the earliest humans worshipped a sovereign, nurturing, maternal earth goddess is a popular one. It has been taken up as fact by the media, who routinely depict modern goddess-worshippers as "reviving" the ancient religions of our ancestors. Feminist scholars contend that, in the primordial religions, the Great Mother was honored as the primary, creative force, giving birth to the world, granting fertility to both crops and humans, and ruling supreme over her family pantheon. The peaceful, matriarchal farming societies that worshipped her were eventually wiped out or subjugated by nomadic, patriarchal warrior tribes such as the early Hebrews, who brought their male God to overthrow the Great Mother: the first step in the creation and perpetuation of a brutal, male-dominated society and its attendant oppression and degradation of women. In The Faces of the Goddess, Lotte Motz sets out to test this hypothesis by examining the real female deities of early human cultures. She finds no trace of the Great Mother in their myths or in their worship. From the Eskimos of the arctic wasteland, whose harsh life even today most closely mirrors the earliest hunter gatherers, to the rich cultures of the sunny Fertile Crescent and the islands of Japan, Motz looks at a wide range of goddesses who are called Mother, or who give birth in their myths. She finds that these goddesses have varying origins as ancestor deities, animal protectors, and other divinities, rather than stemming from a common Mother Goddess archetype. For instance, Sedna, the powerful goddess whose chopped-off fingers became the seals and fish that were the Eskimos' chief source of food, had nothing to do with human fertility. Indeed, human motherhood was held in such low esteem that Eskimo women were forced to give birth completely alone, with no human companionship and no helpful deities of childbirth. Likewise, while various Mexican goddesses ruled over healing, women's crafts, motherhood and childbirth, and functioned as tribal protectors or divine ancestors, none of them either embodied the earth itself or granted fertility to the crops: for that the Mexicans looked to the male gods of maize and of rain. Nor were the rituals of these goddesses nurturing or peaceful. The goddess Cihuacoatl, who nurtured the creator god Quetzalcoatl and helped him create humanity, was worshipped with human sacrifices who were pushed into a fire, removed while still alive, and their hearts were cut out. And Motz closely examines the Anatolian goddess Cybele, the "Magna Mater" most often cited as an example of a powerful mother goddess. Hers were the last of the great pagan mysteries of the Mediterranean civilizations to fall before Christianity. But Cybele herself never gives birth, nor does she concern herself with aiding women in childbirth or childrearing. She is not herself a mother, and the male character figuring most prominently in her myths is Attis, her chaste companion. Tellingly, Cybele's priests dedicate themselves to her by castrating themselves, thus mimicking Attis's death--a very odd way to venerate a goddess of fertility. To depict these earlier goddesses as peaceful and nurturing mothers, as is often done, is to deny them their own complex and sophisticated nature as beings who were often violent and vengeful, delighting in sacrifice, or who reveled in their eroticism and were worshipped as harlots. The idea of a nurturing Mother Goddess is very powerful. In this challenging book, however, Motz shows that She is a product of our own age, not of earlier ones. By discarding this simplistic and worn-out paradigm, we can open the door to a new way of thinking about feminine spirituality and religious experience.
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15.

Jewish and Christian Doctrines: The Classics Compared » Read Now
by Bruce Chilton, Jacob Neusner. 242 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

Jewish and Christian Doctrines presents a concise and lucid introduction to the foundations of Judaism and Christianity. The authors explore key documents ofJudaism and Christianity to elucidate and illuminate the doctrinal issues which the documents raise and to examine the similarities and differences between the two faiths.
16.

Islam and Modernization: A Comparative Analysis of Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey » Read Now
by Javaid Saeed. 264 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

This study examines and clarifies the relationship between Islam and modernization in the Muslim world. Through a comparative analysis of Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey, the author analyzes the ideas and conceptions which are inculcated and propagated in Islamic countries as Islamic religious thought...
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This study examines and clarifies the relationship between Islam and modernization in the Muslim world. Through a comparative analysis of Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey, the author analyzes the ideas and conceptions which are inculcated and propagated in Islamic countries as Islamic religious thought, practice, orientation, tradition, and ways-of-life. Saeed explains that the chaotic conditions existing in the Muslim world are largely a result of a crisis of thought, that the grossly distorted and misunderstood Islam, as presently practiced, is a major obstacle to the development of Muslim countries--but that Muslim countries can develop and progress only through Islam.
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