POCKET GUIDE TO WORLD RELIGIONS

143 Pages·2013·1.67 MB·English

by  Corduan

WINFRIED CORDUAN

Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
2 Baha'i
3 Buddhism
4 Christianity
5 Confucianism
6 Daoism
7 Hinduism
8 Islam
9 Jainism
10 Judaism
11 New Religions
Aleph
Ahmadiyya Islam
Coo Dai
Christian Science
Falun Gong
Iskcon (Hare Krishna)
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jace
Mormonism
Nation of Islam
Rastafarianism
Scientology
Soka Gakkai
Tenrikyo
Unification Church
Wahhabite Islam
Wicca
12 Parsiisrn (Zoroastrianism)
13 Shinto
14 Sikhisrn
15 Traditional and Tribal Religions
It would be impossible for me to count how many times someone has asked one
for the title of a "short and handy" summary of world religions. I count it a
privilege to be able to contribute such a reference tool myself. Obviously there is
danger insofar as anything "short and handy" could also become "generalized
and false" rather than "precise and accurate." I trust that this little volume will fit
into the latter category.
This pocket guide is based on many years of firsthand study of world
religions and teaching on the subject at many levels. For a fuller survey, see my
Neighboring Faiths, and for a booklength discussion of how the world's religions
are related to Christianity, see my A Tapestry of Faiths. Irving Hexham has
produced two helpful reference tools that dovetail with this book: Concise
Dictionary of Religion and Pocket Dictionary of New Religious Movements. All
of these books are published by InterVarsity Press.
After looking at many sources for the numbers of adherents and the
distribution of religions, I decided to follow most closely the website Adherents,
especially its chart "Major Religions of the World Ranked by Number of
Adherents" <http:// www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html>,
because this site takes the ambiguity of these numbers into greater account than
do most handbook listings.
Thanks need to go to my friend and editor, Jim Hoover of InterVarsity Press,
for suggesting the idea for this book and then letting me experiment with the
format. I would like to thank my friends and colleagues at Taylor University for
their encouragement, particularly Phil Loy, Mike Harbin and Bill Heth. June, my
wife, was with one every step of the way, as always. She proofread any
manuscript and had lots of great ideas on how to make the book more useful.
Finally, I would like to dedicate this book to my mother-in-law, Beryl Anderson,
who is always there for us and who manages to think highly of whatever I do.
It was New Year's Eve 1999, the birth of the new millennium. A famous TV
personality was interviewing the Dalai Lama, head of Tibetan Buddhism.
"Would you tell mne, Your Holiness," fawned the reporter, "do they celebrate
New Year's in the Islamic religion?"
It is, of course, possible that the interviewer thought the Dalai Lama, though a
Buddhist himself, was a good source of information about Islam. More likely,
this could have been a slip of the tongue. But most probably, the reporter was
genuinely confused.
And who wouldn't be these days? There was a time in America when the
question "What is your religion?" was intended to elicit an answer such as
"Presbyterian," "Catholic," or `Jewish." Everyone seemed to fit into a
preconceived pattern of religion. Now we are becoming far more used to the idea
that the answer to the question about someone's religion may include Islam,
Buddhism, Hinduism or any number of other faiths.
Your coworkers, fellow students or neighbors down the street may be
immigrants who have brought their home culture with them. In previous
generations, people coming to this county often left their original identity behind
them, seeking to blend in and copying the lifestyle of those they perceived as
being typically American. Many immigrants even Anglicized their names so as
to be less conspicuous, whereas nowadays getting to know your new neighbors
may begin with the seemingly insurmountable hurdle of learning to say their
names correctly.
Here's the bad news: this book will be of little help to you with learning to
pronounce your neighbor's name. But the good news is that this book will help
you understand at least one part of your new neighbor's culture: his or her
religion. This book is written for those of us who do not know anything about
other religions and do not have the option of subjecting ourselves to lengthy and
laborious study.
Imagine we find out that the new family who has just moved in across from
us is Hindu, and we would like to have them come over to our house for dessert
or a meal, but we don't want to embarrass ourselves by not having a clue as to
what they believe. Much as we would want to, we cannot afford to take a week
off from work to do an in-depth study of Hinduism. We need some quick,
practical help-now. Of course, we can go on the Internet and see if we can find
what we need courtesy of Google. Unfortunately, although we are bound to get a
lot of information instantaneously, we are going to find so many conflicting and
obscure claims that, without further help, all of that content may not be of more
use than an encyclopedia written in a foreign language. This book is intended to
fill this gap.
Everyone has heard certain things about other religious, but few of us are in a
position to check out the rumors. Here are some common questions people have:
•What does the red dot on an Indian woman's forehead mean?
•Are Muslims commanded to conquer the world for Islain?
•Do Buddhist monks practice martial arts?
•Is the emperor of Japan still considered a god?

•Do all Jews want to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem?
•Why does the Svetambara sect of the Jain religion recognize different
Tirthankaras from the Digambara sect?
Well, okay, the last question is not likely to come up anytime soon in casual
conversation. But there are many important concerns for which Ave need to get
straight answers lest we embarrass ourselves or, worse yet, offend our neighbors.
What are some things we need to know about a religion? Well, you might
start out by saying that it would be good to know what the people believe. Not a