Comparative category: 2220 books

Jesus and Muhammad are two of the best known and revered figures in history, each with a billion or more global followers. Now, in this intriguing volume, F.E. Peters offers a clear and compelling analysis of the parallel lives of Jesus and Muhammad, the first such in-depth comparison in print. Like...

Prophet or messiah, the figure of Jesus serves as both the bridge and the barrier between Christianity and Islam. In this accessible and revelatory book, Muslim scholar and popular commentator Mona Siddiqui explores the theological links between the two religions, showing how Islamic thought has approached...

Most Jews, Muslims, and Christians are devoted and faithful. Still, on any given day, it’s difficult to avoid the vigorous and heated disputes between them, whether over the “Ground Zero” mosque, lobbying state legislatures against Sharia law, sharing worship space, dissecting the fallout of...

A groundbreaking new look at the story of America At the heart of the nation's spiritual history are audacious and often violent scenes. But the Puritans and the shining city on the hill give us just one way to understand the United States. Rather than recite American history from a Christian...

This insider’s view of how North American Muslims think and live goes beyond false stereotypes and provides practical suggestions on how to establish friendships that can point to Christ. Since September 11, 2001, Americans are more curious about the followers of Islam. We can no longer afford to...

Despite the recent ferocious public debate about belief, the concept most central to the discussion-God-frequently remains vaguely and obscurely described. Are those engaged in these arguments even talking about the same thing? In a wide-ranging response to this confusion, esteemed scholar David Bentley...

In this fascinating overview of the shape of myths throughout human civilization’s expansion, Joseph Campbell lays out an overview of both the origins and the evolution of our myths. Campbell wrote this essay just as he was launching his seminal Masks of God series. “The Historical Development...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has had a long and tortuous relationship with religion over almost the entirety of its existence. As early as 1917, the Bureau began to target religious communities and groups it believed were hotbeds of anti-American politics. Whether these religious communities...

Huston Smith, the author of the classic bestseller The World's Religions, delivers a passionate, timely message: The human spirit is being suffocated by the dominant materialistic worldview of our times. Smith champions a society in which religion is once again treasured and authentically practiced as the vital source of human wisdom.

For more than sixty years, Huston Smith has not only written and taught about the world’s religions, he has lived them. This Reader presents a rich selection of Smith’s writings, covering six decades of inquiry and exploration, and ranging from scholarship to memoir. Over his long academic career,...

A leading authority on religion and spirituality in America recounts the changes she witnessed from 1992–2004, a period she compares to the tumultuous years of the Reformation and Peri-Reformation in Europe. As the founding editor of the religion department of Publishers Weekly, Phyllis Tickle...

Material religion is a rapidly growing field, and this volume offers an accessible, critical entry into these new areas of research. Each "key term" uses case studies and is accompanied by a color image – an object, practice, space, or site. The entries cut across geographies, histories,...

William Paden's classic exploration in religious studies, with a new introduction In the current climate, Interpreting the Sacred provides a fresh, thorough way to consider and compare various religious belief systems. Paden puts forth the idea that our understanding of religion influences...

Why Studying Religion Matters in a Pluralistic Context This brief primer explains why Christian students should study religion, how they should go about it, and why it is important in our contemporary, pluralistic context. Senior religion scholar Terry Muck introduces the discipline and explains...