The World's Religions: A Contemporary Reader - Softcover

This wide-ranging reader combines some of the best contemporary perspectives from leading thinkers. Together they address critical challenges and opportunities for the world's religions in a post-9/11 world. Edited by Arvind Sharma, renowned scholar of comparative religion, this anthology is organized by seven key themes conflict, human rights, women the environment diversity, interreligious dialogue and spirituality. The books contributors consider broad questions such as, what influence does religion have on contemporary life? Can religion destroy or preserve us? Could the world's religions join together as a force for good? this reader's contemporary focus invites vital engagement with one of the most powerful forces in our world today.

Contributors include: Karen Armstrong, Gregory Baum, Harvey Cox, Shirin Ebadi, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Rosemary Radtord Ruether, Arvind Sharma, Huston Smith, Summer Twiss, and numerous other scholars of the World's religions. Unlike most anthologies, this volume includes both a glossary and Index to assist the reader further. Please also visit this book's companion website (www.fortresspress.com/sharma) offering additional resources for both instructors and students.

"This volume brings together a set of readable and interesting essays on the impact of religion in the contemporary world. Rather than organizing these around religious traditions traditions, Arvind Sharma presents them as discussions of timely, lively topics---such as human rights, environmental and gender issues, and the troubling revival of religion in political violence, terrorism and war, ending with essays on the possibilities of a global spirituality for the twenty-first century."---Mark Juergensmeyer Author of Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State

"The conspiracy theory of the 9/11 commission that blames crazed Muslim fundamentalists for the attacks of September 11, 2001 on the United States has been used to promote an endless war driven by fear of terrorists, Muslims, foreigners and people serious about their religious faith. Whether that traming of 9/11 is accurate or not (and I don't believe it is), the varied articles in Sharma's reader provide more careful and helpful investigations of how religions may contribute to or intefere with our efforts to act well in the current world situation. This collection will be valuable for any course in world or comparative religion, as well as for political science and peace studies."---David Whitten Smith Professor of Theology Emeritus and Founding Director Emeritus of Justice and Peace Studies University of Saint Thomas, Saint Paul, Minnesota

Arvind Sharma holds the Birks Chair of Comparative Religion at McGill University in Montreal, succeeding Wilfred Cantwell Smith. Having earned his PhD in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Harvard University in 1978, he was the first infinity Foundation Visiting Professor of Indic Studies at Harvard, Sharma has published over fifty books and five hundred articles in the fields of comparative religion, Hinduism, Indian philosophy and ethics, and the role of women in religion. Among his most noteworthy publications are Our Religions. The Seven World Religions Introduced by Preeminent Scholars from Each Tradition and The Study of Hinduism