Seven Dilemmas in World Religions

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Too often our curiosity about the religious faith and practices of our neighbors in "the global village" is stifled by the arcane language and philosophical hair-splitting that greets us when we open a book in search of answers to our questions. With our frustration in mind, Professors Lynn Stephens and Gregory Pence offer this insightful and engaging introduction to six of the world's major religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Rather than lead us through the labyrinthian...
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Overview

Too often our curiosity about the religious faith and practices of our neighbors in "the global village" is stifled by the arcane language and philosophical hair-splitting that greets us when we open a book in search of answers to our questions. With our frustration in mind, Professors Lynn Stephens and Gregory Pence offer this insightful and engaging introduction to six of the world's major religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Rather than lead us through the labyrinthian history preceding the modern-day incarnations of these six traditions, Professors Stephens and Pence invite us to view the world, if only for a few moments, as we might through the eyes of someone whose religious life is very different from our own. By drawing our attention to a problem or "dilemma" central to the beliefs and rituals of a given tradition, Stephens and Pence enable us to understand how the experiences common to all of us - birth and love, faith and community, suffering and death - can become, in the actual living of these experiences, uniquely Christian or uniquely Buddhist or uniquely Jewish. For example, we learn about Christian moral thought as we puzzle over the mystery of Jesus's dual nature. We come to understand the idea of a "chosen people" by uncovering the tensions between ethnicity and universalism in Judaism. And we stretch our minds to comprehend the essence of life as we ponder the Buddhist paradox of soulless reincarnation. To be sure, we take away from Seven Dilemmas a keener sense of how the world appears to someone steeped in the tradition of Islam or Hinduism or Confucianism. But more than this, we realize that many of the concerns so characteristic of our religious life - the relation between religion and secular culture, the nature of God, the hope for life after death - are common to believers whose lives of faith we might otherwise have thought wholly different from our own. The real treasure Stephens and Pence of

This book offers readers a more complex description of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Combining the intellectual investigations of philosophy with the tolerance and curiosity of comparative religion, the authors summarize each major religion's beliefs and ask the tough questions about their implications in order to foster greater understanding and deeper appreciation.

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Editorial Reviews

Library Journal
Philosophers Stephens and Pence have crafted an introduction to the world's religions that examines central philosophical problems in each religion. The authors rehearse well-worn arguments about age-old topics such as the character of divine reality, the conflict of religion and mortality, the problem of evil, and the possibility of eternal life. For example, Christianity is explored in light of its focus on the divine/human character of Jesus of Nazareth. Yet, while the book has its lucid moments, the arguments and conclusions are sophomoric, i.e., "Paul's Christianity emerges as a partial melding of Judaism and Hellenism." Not recommended.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781557787026
  • Publisher: Paragon House Publishers
  • Publication date: 6/15/1998
  • Edition description: 1st ed
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 158
  • Product dimensions: 5.80 (w) x 9.00 (h) x 0.80 (d)

Table of Contents

Preface
1 Judaism in a Hostile World: The Threat of Hellenism
2 Was Jesus a Great Moral Teacher?
3 Was Jesus Divine?: Paul on the Status of Jesus
4 Mohammed and the Islamic Conception of God
5 Is God a Person? Hinduism on Brahman
6 Does Anything Survive Death?: What the Buddha Taught
7 Does Public Morality Depend on Religion?: Confucius on Politics and Religion
8 Conclusions and Reflections
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