Understanding World Religions: An Interdisciplinary Approach | Written by Irving Hexham (Zondervan, 2001, 512 Pages).
Since I teach a unit on world religions here at the RTC I am always on the lookout for resources to recommend to students. Irving Hexham’s ‘Understanding World Religions’ is a welcome addition to the reading list for this unit. It covers all the basics that one would expect of a book of this nature (with discussions of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, tribal religions etc.), but where it really shines is in the area of comparing belief systems with each other. Hexham would like his readers to see both the similarities and deep and abiding differences between the religions of the world. To achieve this goal, he does the occasional ‘deep dive’ into an aspect of a specific faith (or an individual associated with it) to demonstrate how this influenced this faith’s worldview and interaction with other faiths. I particularly enjoyed and appreciated his extended discussion of the impact of Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966) on the development of 20th century political Islam. Although Qutb is hardly known in the contemporary West, it would be impossible to overstate his influence within the Muslim world. By devoting an entire chapter to Qutb, Hexham went way beyond what one might expect in an introductory textbook on world religions, but the book is all the richer for it. There are several other examples of how Hexham made use of detail-focused chapters to help readers understand the contemporary shape of the major religions of the world. I believe that this work can serve as a wonderful resource to help believers to better understand the contexts in which we are called to share the gospel and would especially recommend it for those preparing for missions or other kinds of cross-cultural service.
