Comparing Religions - Coming to Terms

Comparing Religions is a next-generation textbook which expertly guides, inspires, and challenges those who wish to think seriously about religious pluralism in the modern world.
A unique book teaching the art and practice of comparing religions
Draws on a wide range of religious traditions to demonstrate the complexity and power of comparative practices
Provides both a history and understanding of comparative practice and a series of thematic chapters showing how responsible practice is done
A three part structure provides readers with a map and effective process through which to grasp this challenging but fascinating approach
The author is a leading academic, writer, and exponent of comparative practice
Contains numerous learning features, including chapter outlines, summaries, toolkits, discussion questions, a glossary, and many images
Supported by a companion website (available on publication) at www.wiley.com/go/kripal, which includes information on individual religious traditions, links of other sites, an interview with the author, learning features, and much more

Sommario

An Important Note to the Instructor xi
A Comment on the Cover Image and the Paintings xv
List of Illustrations xvi
Acknowledgments xx
Part I Prehistory, Preparation, and Perspective 1
Introduction: Beginnings 3
1 Comparative Practices in Global History: If Horses Had Hands 9
The Comparative Practices of Polytheism 11
The Comparative Practices of Monotheism: Early Judaism 16
The Comparative Practices of Monotheism: Early Christianity 20
The Comparative Practices of Monotheism: Early Islam 27
The Comparative Practices of Asia: Hinduism 33
The Comparative Practices of Asia: Sikhism 36
The Comparative Practices of Asia: Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism in China 38
The Tough Questions 39
2 Western Origins and History of the Modern Practice: From the Bible to Buddhism 43
Deep Upstream: Mystical Humanists, Protesters, Rationalists, and Romantics 44
Mid-Upstream: "Not as Moses Said," or the Biblical Beginnings of Critical Theory 54
Just Upstream: Colonialism and the Modern Births of Spirituality and Fundamentalism 58
The Immediate Wake: Counterculture, Consciousness, Context, and Cosmopolitanism 67
The Tough Questions 73
3 The Skill of Reflexivity and Some Key Categories: The Terms of Our Time Travel 77
The History of Religions 79
Patterns of Initiation 82
The Humanities: Consciousness Studying Consciousness 85
Cultural Anthropology and Initiation Rites 88
Working Definitions and Their Histories 89
The Uncertainty Principle: The Insider-Outsider Problem (and Promise) 103
Religious Questions as Ultimate Concerns 105
The Tough Questions 106
Part II Comparative Acts 109
4 The Creative Functions of Myth and Ritual: Performing the World 111
Myth: Telling the Story Telling Us 113
Ritual: Acting Out the Story Acting Us 116
Patterns in Myth 120
Patterns in Ritual 125
Comparative Practice: The Awakened One and the Great Hero in Ancient India 133
Beginning a Toolkit 138
The Tough Questions 139
5 Religion, Nature, and Science: The Super Natural 143
Religion and Contemporary Science 145
The Paradox of the Super Natural 146
Food and Purity Codes: "You Are What You Eat" 149
New Directions: Space Exploration, Dark Green Religion, and Popular Culture 154
Comparative Practice: The Human Plant 164
The Toolkit 172
The Tough Questions 173
6 Sex and the Bodies of Religion: Seed and Soil 177
In the Beginning ... 178
The Social Body: Sexuality, Gender, and Sexual Orientation 181
Sex and Transgression 188
Super Sexualities 192
The Sexual Ignorance of the Religions 195
Comparative Practice: The Two Ann(e)s 198
The Toolkit 204
The Tough Questions 205
7 Charisma and the Social Dimensions of Religion: Transmitting the Power 209
Charisma and Community 211
The Institutionalization of Charisma: Passing on the Charge 215
Patterns of Special Institutions 221
The Miracle and the Saint: Signs of the (Im)possible 226
Comparative Practice: The Flying Saint and the Levitating Medium 229
The Toolkit 234
The Tough Questions 235
8 The Religious Imagination and Its Paranormal Powers: Angels, Aliens, and Anomalies 239
System and Anomaly: Paranthropology 241
The Sixth Super Sense 244
The Imaginal: Not Everything Imagined Is Imaginary 249
The Comparative Practices of Popular Culture 253
Miracles in the Making: The Fortean Lineage 258
Fact and Fraud: On the Trick of the Truth 259
Comparative Practice: Supernatural Assault Traditions 261
Adding to Our Toolkit 266
The Tough Questions 267
9 The Final Questions of Soul, Salvation, and the End of All Things: The Human as Two 271
Two Scenes 272
The Nature of Embodied Consciousness 275
Patterns of the Soul and Salvation in the History of Religions 276
Soul Practices 280
Traumatic Technologies of the Soul 284
Comparative Eschatologies 286
Comparative Practice: Re-Death, Near-Death, and After-Death Experiences 288
The Toolkit 294
The Tough Questions 296
Part III Putting It All Together Again 299
10 Faithful Re-readings: Exclusivism, Inclusivism, Plurali

Relazione

"Jeffrey Kripal provides a thoughtful and compelling discussion of key themes, ideas, and challenges that ground study of religion across traditions and geographies. It is a layered and textured treatment that will capture the imagination and engage students from start to finish. This important and timely text is not to be missed." --Anthony B. Pinn, author Introducing African American Religion "Comparing Religions is a lucid, entertaining, and even fun introduction to the comparative study of religion. It will be effective with its target audience, young people and the undergraduate classroom, because while they must wrestle with the way scholars deconstruct and reduce to social or evolutionary functions such phenomena, Kripal never loses sight of the experiences and meanings of those transformed by, engaged in, and mobilized through it. There is no better single volume to entice students into the fraught and fascinating study of religion." --Bron Taylor, author of Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future and editor of The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Andrea Jain, Jeffrey J. Kripal, Jeffrey J. Jain Kripal, Erin L. Prophet
• Editore: Wiley, John and Sons Ltd
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Copertina rigida
• Pubblicazione: 21.03.2014
• EAN: 9781118774878
• ISBN: 978-1-118-77487-8
• Pagine: 448
• Categoria: Scienze umane, arte, musica > Religione / teologia