Paths of Faith

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic survey-level text for comparative religions
Review: This textbook was required for a class I took in Far Eastern religion a few years ago. My professor had studied with Hutchinson at the Claremont Graduate School. This book is academically rigorous and clearly written. It provides a solid conceptual framework within which you can even-handedly study all the world's religions, from a social science perspective. As my professor said on the first day of class, "I'm not here to teach you religion; I'm here to teach you /about/ religion." After the semester was over, I went through and read the other half of the textbook, on Western religions. I retained more from this class than many others I've had over the years. It is full of insight and very thorough.