Overview

In an era plagued by religious conflict, the Third Edition of Gods in the Global Village directly responds to issues of social problems prevalent in the world today. Using an engaging, thought-provoking style, Lester R. Kurtz focuses on the relationship among the major faith traditions that inform the thinking and ethical standards of most people in the emerging global social order. This book focuses on a central aspect of that common crisis. A major assumption of this book is that all knowledge is shaped by the social context of the knower; therefore, both religious traditions and our studies of them are shaped by the context in which we construct them. The author argues that religious pluralism will be a necessary precondition of the global village for the foreseeable future. The question that faces us as a human community is not 'Which religious tradition is true?' or even 'Is any religious tradition true?' but rather 'How can we enable the various religious and secular traditions to coexist peacefully on the planet?' The text supports the belief that the sociology of religion - itself a pluralistic discipline - can provide invaluable insight into the most pressing problems of our time. New To This Edition: * a new chapter (Chapter 4) on indigenous religions * a new section on Sikhism in Chapter 2 * a new section of religion and sexuality in Chapter 5 * a new section on homosexuality * a new section on Islamic condemnations of terrorism in Chapter 8 * updated data, statistics, examples, and tables/figures throughout Key Features: * explores religious life in today's world: This book introduces students to the fundamentals of each of the major world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and considers the various global interconnections among beliefs and believers, as well as among those who oppose them. The author offers a comparative study of the world's religions, including personal reflection upon the time he spent living in India and China that further shaped his own beliefs. * challenges students to overcome biases: This book assumes that all knowledge is shaped by the social context of the knower; therefore, both religious traditions and our studies of them are shaped by the context in which we construct them. The question that faces us as a human community is not Which religious tradition is true? but How can we enable the various religious and secular traditions to coexist peacefully? * reexamines conventional understandings about the role of religion: The sociology of religion provides invaluable insight into the most pressing social problems. This book does not suggest sociologists should lead the way in solving these problems, rather it encourages them to assess the role of religion in the global community and become involved in the lively debates about the future of humanity.

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9781412991254

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Reviews

Kurtz's book is the only textbook on the sociology of religion to my knowledge that is genuinely interreligious. It transcends the one-sidedness of western / Christian views not only in intent, but in fact... the book introduces the key topics and concerns of the given discipline with clarity and good continuity. It is also quite comprehensive. In one word, it is a textbook that can be used as such without too much of a need for the instructor to reshuffle everything. -- Claude A. Perrottet 20010427

Kurtz,s book is the only textbook on the sociology of religion to my knowledge that is genuinely interreligious. It transcends the one-sidedness of western / Christian views not only in intent, but in fact... the book introduces the key topics and concerns of the given discipline with clarity and good continuity. It is also quite comprehensive. In one word, it is a textbook that can be used as such without too much of a need for the instructor to reshuffle everything. -- Claude A. Perrottet 20010427

Kurtz's book is the only textbook on the sociology of religion to my knowledge that is genuinely interreligious. It transcends the one-sidedness of western / Christian views not only in intent, but in fact! the book introduces the key topics and concerns of the given discipline with clarity and good continuity. It is also quite comprehensive. In one word, it is a textbook that can be used as such without too much of a need for the instructor to reshuffle everything. -- Claude A. Perrottet 20010427

Author Information

Lester R. Kurtz is Professor of Public Sociology at George Mason University, where he teaches the comparative sociology of religion, peace and conflict, social movements, globalization, and both Western and non-Western social theory. He has lectured regularly at the European Peace University and was previously Director of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Prof. Kurtz holds a Master's in Religion from Yale Divinity School and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago. He is editor of the three-volume Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, & Conflict (Elsevier), coeditor of the two-volume Women, War and Violence (Praeger), Nonviolent Conflict and Civil Resistance (Emerald), Nonviolent Social Movements: A Geographical Perspective (Blackwell), and The Web of Violence: From Interpersonal to Global (University of Illinois Press). He is also the author of numerous books and articles on religion and conflict peace, including The Nuclear Cage: A Sociology of the Arms Race (Prentice Hall) and The Politics of Heresy: The Modernist Crisis in Roman Catholicism (University of California Press), which received the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion's Distinguished Book Award. He is currently working on books titled Gods and Bombs: Religion and the Rhetoric of Violence and another on Fighting Violence. Prof. Kurtz is the past Chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Association as well as the Peace, War, and Social Conflict Section of the American Sociological Association, which awarded him its Robin Williams Distinguished Career Award in 2005. He received the Lester F. Ward Award for Distinguished Contributions to Applied and Clinical Sociology in 2014 and has lectured in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America and has taught at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Delhi University in India, and Tunghai University in Taiwan.

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