Invitation To World Religions 3rd Edition Pdf Free Download

[Tatsuya Deals]

Thedocument discusses several key aspects of the academic study of religion:1) It examines different approaches and definitions of religion proposed by scholars like Durkheim, James, and Tillich. 2) It explores what religions typically do, such as respond to human needs and provide explanations for ultimate reality.3) It outlines Ninian Smart's model of the different dimensions of religion, including mythic, doctrinal, ethical, and social dimensions.4) It discusses some challenges religions face in the modern world with modernization, urbanization, globalization, and secularization.Read less

Featuring a unique, consistent, and modular chapter structure--"Teachings," "History," and "Way of Life"--and numerous pedagogical features, Invitation to World Religions, Fourth Edition, invites students to explore the world's great religions with respect and a sense of wonder. This chapter structure enables students to navigate each religion in a consistent and systematic way and to make comparisons between religions. The book describes the essential features of each religion and shows how they have responded to basic human needs and to the cultural contexts in which they developed. The authors also encourage students to develop an appreciation for what religious beliefs and practices actually mean to their adherents.

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One smoldering question is this: How can I know and worship God in this way while also studying, respecting, and even admiring those who know God really differently? How and why can I stand here, while learning about, respecting, and appreciating those who stand there?

Many students desperately want a clear resolution to these sometimes quite painful identity questions that arise when encountering people of other faiths. I have come to see part of my job as trying to get them to name and endure these tensions and live these questions rather than to solve and answer them straightaway.

What is more, this fraught living with interfaith questions constitutes faith formation for many college students, given that fewer and fewer of them come to college with anything like a mature and reflective sense of their own faith. At my college, which is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, more students identify as nones than identify as Lutheran. What does faith formation look like for students who are passionate about social justice and interfaith understanding but often reticent in naming, owning, and reflecting on their own inchoate identities?

I hope that students come to understand that categories like exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism are simply markers between which more personal negotiations are carried out. Diana Eck, Harvard professor and founding director of the Pluralism Project, is quite clear about this in her book Encountering God:

Let us remember that these ways of thinking about diversity may well be part of the ongoing dialogue within ourselves. Since they represent attitudes, ways of thinking, the move from one position to another is often more of a sliding step than a giant leap. One of the continual challenges and dilemmas in my own writing and thinking is recognizing the ways in which I move back and forth along this attitudinal continuum.

Eck says she moves between pluralism and inclusivism. She even suggests that she has relied more on the terminology and frameworks of her own Methodist upbringing the more that that worldview is widened and stretched by encountering God in other traditions.

But it is one thing for a teacher to rediscover a more capacious and compassionate Christianity by meditating on the traditions of others. It is another to help students develop their own commitments in a course on religious diversity. This is especially difficult when the students are so much inclined to forgo formation in their quest to embrace tolerance.

Studying religions in all their messy particularity will include particularities that leave us uncomfortable: unapologetic segregation by gender in Islam, all the mantras and mandalas and mudras of Buddhism that go far beyond centering prayer, Christians who faithfully, prayerfully believe that Jesus really is the only way to heaven and feel called to witness to that fact. If students are to reflect on their own religious identities in light of different ones, would I be helping or hurting were I to carefully protect the line between outside academic observer and inside faithful believer? How deeply can and should I lead my students into existentially charged, anxiety-producing self-reflection?

"This new edition of World Religions: A Guide to the Essentials provides an accessible, engaging, and thought-provoking exploration of the role of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Chinese religions, and Japanese religions in human life and society as understood, lived, and experienced by insiders of these traditions. It invites students to think about their own values, beliefs, and practices and about those of people who authentically hold ones that are different from theirs as they prepare to find their way through the world. A masterpiece, indeed!"

"In World Religions: A Guide to the Essentials, Robinson and Rodrigues provide a rich, nuanced introduction to world religions. This textbook includes lively and lucid text that is written in a straightforward and thought-provoking style. The text is accompanied by illuminating images and sidebars that help students work their way through difficult subject matter. This textbook is certain to be a class favorite."

Caleb Simmons, distinguished fellow, Center for University Education Scholarship; faculty director, Interdisciplinary Studies Program; associate professor of religious studies, The University of Arizona

"This third edition of World Religions: A Guide to the Essentials once again delivers its concise-yet-comprehensive introduction to religious traditions and is extremely well suited to a twelve-week junior-level university or college course. With nine chapters focused on major religions and two chapters on groups of traditions (Ancient religions, Indigenous American Religions, 'New' Religions), the authors employ a structure that enhances accessibility for students: each religion is presented through the categories of history, belief, and practice. Yet, these categories are sufficiently broad that each religion's unique features emerge to engage the reader. Concision and complexity, nuance and clarity are well-balanced here: in only 321 pages, we have clear and highly detailed portraits of each religion that address complex developments and structures. On the whole, the book offers a model for highly disciplined but still accessible academic writing. Students and instructors will appreciate the many supports provided throughout (and enhanced in this third edition): maps and timelines, graphic and photographic images, and lists of suggested readings. Text boxes and mini-glossaries appropriate for each chapter give convenient overviews of key texts, historical figures, symbols, concepts, and practices. An outstanding introduction to religions of the world and to the academic study of them!"

Moreover, he also highlighted that prayer for peace must be followed by appropriate action for peace. Thus, our active involvement with issues of justice, which are inseparable from the achievement of peace (cf. ibid, n.3)

At this interreligious gathering, ten religious leaders, each read one of the ten commitments in their own language. On 24th February 2002, with an accompanying letter, Pope John Paul II sent the Decalogue for Assisi to all the heads of states and government of the world. The Decalogue follows:

1. We commit ourselves to proclaiming our firm conviction that violence and terrorism are incompatible with the authentic spirit of religion, and, as we condemn every recourse to violence and war in the name of God or of religion, we commit ourselves to doing everything possible to eliminate the root causes of terrorism.

2. We commit ourselves to educating people to mutual respect and esteem, in order to help bring about a peaceful and fraternal coexistence between people of different ethnic groups, cultures and religions.

3. We commit ourselves to fostering the culture of dialogue, so that there will be an increase of understanding and mutual trust between individuals and among peoples, for these are the premise of authentic peace.

5. We commit ourselves to frank and patient dialogue, refusing to consider our differences as an insurmountable barrier, but recognizing instead that to encounter the diversity of others can become an opportunity for greater reciprocal understanding.

6. We commit ourselves to forgiving one another for past and present errors and prejudices, and to supporting one another in a common effort both to overcome selfishness and arrogance, hatred and violence, and to learn from the past that peace without justice is no true peace.

7. We commit ourselves to taking the side of the poor and the helpless, to speaking out for those who have no voice and to working effectively to change these situations, out of the conviction that no one can be happy alone.

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