!1: Now is the time Foure paradoxes 1 A byshop and a minister is one. 2 A byshoppe or deacon shoulde not bee called Grace or Lord. 3 A popish priest is no minister of the ... meete officers in the churche of God. (1570) Order Today!
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Date Created : Nov 06, 2010 09:30:10
EARLY HISTORY OF RELIGION. Imagine holding history in your hands. Now you can. Digitally preserved and previously accessible only through libraries as Early English Books Online, this rare material is now available in single print editions. Thousands of books written between 1475 and 1700 can be delivered to your doorstep in individual volumes of high quality historical reproductions. From the beginning of recorded history we have looked to the heavens for inspiration and guidance. In these early religious documents, sermons, and pamphlets, we see the spiritual impact on the lives of both royalty and the commoner. We also get insights into a clergy that was growing ever more powerful as a political force. This is one of the world's largest collections of religious works of this type, revealing much about our interpretation of the modern church and spirituality.
++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++
Foure paradoxes 1 A byshop and a minister is one. 2 A byshoppe or deacon shoulde not bee called Grace or Lord. 3 A popish priest is no minister of the gospel. 4 Canon chauncellours, & officials are no meete officers in the churche of God. Anon. Signatures: pi1 A-C4. Publication date from STC. Imprint and printer's device (McKerrow 151) on verso of pi1, bound before A1, title page. [26] p. [Imprinted at London : In Paules Churchyarde, at the signe of the Lucrece, by Thomas Purfoote, [ca. 1570]] STC (2nd ed.) / 19185 English Reproduction of the original in the Bodleian Library
!1: Now is the time Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 years Order Today!
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Date Created : Oct 24, 2010 09:15:05
Jesus Wars reveals how official, orthodox teaching about Jesus was the product of political maneuvers by a handful of key characters in the fifth century. Jenkins argues that were it not for these controversies, the papacy as we know it would never have come into existence and that today's church could be teaching some-thing very different about Jesus. It is only an accident of history that one group of Roman emperors and militia-wielding bishops defeated another faction.
Christianity claims that Jesus was, somehow, both human and divine. But the Bible is anything but clear about Jesus's true identity. In fact, a wide range of opinions and beliefs about Jesus circulated in the church for four hundred years until allied factions of Roman royalty and church leaders burned cities and killed thousands of people in an unprecedented effort to stamp out heresy.
Jenkins recounts the fascinating, violent story of the church's fifth-century battles over "right belief" that had a far greater impact on the future of Christianity and the world than the much-touted Council of Nicea convened by Constantine a century before.
!1: Best Buy Philip Jenkins has written a serious history of the Christological controversies that strongly marked the fifth to seventh centuries. It is an era whose strident tensions and bloody conflicts over the identity of Jesus were punctuated by ecclesiastical councils and driven by political powers. In this period one sees the forces in play that evidence the transition from classical times to the Medieval Period in the West and the strident disruptions which left many of the ancient churches, warred upon by Christian brethren of different persuasions, welcoming the tolerance of Islamic invaders. It is in fact the story of the collapse of Roman and Christian rule over Egypt and the East which in effect insulated the protagonists from each other, or, as the author puts it, "How the Church lost half the world."
The book brings back into focus that, compared to the Protestant Reformation and the Counter Reformation of Catholicism in the 16th and 17th centuries and the subsequent sectarian conflicts in the West, the period under study here was far more violent than the latter fragmentation has managed to become despite its well known atrocities. It seems incomprehensible today that debates over whether Jesus had one nature or two, one will or two, could he and did he really die, and the like, could have produced Bishops who could sic their hit teams of cudgel and knife wielding monks on their fellow bishops and their congregants. But they did, even with imperial and military support in many cases. Fist fights were not uncommon at meetings of bishops wrangling with concepts that would seem arcane and perhaps incomprehensible to most Christians today.
Do theological debates of this nature rage today? Probably with less overt physical violence between Christian groups, but Jenkins raises the question: "Do churches today fall into internecine conflict over issues of biblical authority and sexual regulations while millions of Christians starve?" Of course the issues of the identity of Jesus and of the Christian are in never ending reflection and development, and mental images of present day believers are affected both by the orthodoxy that was created in these earlier centuries. They frequently impact the cultures we are a part of on an everyday basis but, given the transparency that culture tends to assume and the reluctance of many who study culture to eschew religion as either irrelevant or as too conflictual, we are rarely in a position to accurately and comfortably knit religious realities into the cultural pictures we draw.
Despite the complex terminology involved, Jenkins, a frequent contributor of op-ed pieces to major media, has managed to tell the intricacies of the theological debates in simple, almost conversational language. He has managed clarifying lists of events and people where today's reader is unfamiliar with both the issues and the cast of characters. An appendix nicely summarizes the dramatis personae of the period and the footnotes are full and professional. It is a pleasant but not an easy read and, in a sense, emblematic of the present where, in understanding of the mental and emotional conflicts surrounding religious or theological controversies, it is nigh impossible to put ourselves in the shoes of the other in our families as well as in public fora. on Sale!
!1: Now is the time The Trinity is One God Not Three Gods Order Today!
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Date Created : Oct 11, 2010 09:30:09
Boethius - (480-524), Philosopher and statesman Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius was born in or near Rome around the year 480 A.D. Orphaned young, he was brought up in the household of one of the richest and most venerable aristocrats of the time, Symmachus. He married Symmachus's daughter and pursued a typical career for a senatorial scion of the time, alternating between ceremonial public office and private leisure.
In two ways, however, Boethius was unique. He was far and away the best educated Roman of his age: indeed, there had been no one like him for a century, and there would never be another (the senate, long since ceremoniously inane, disappeared forever by the end of the sixth century). He had a command of the Greek language adequate to make him a student, translator, and commentator of the Platonic philosophies of his age (to which we give the name Neoplatonism, to distinguish their opinions from the original doctrines of Plato himself). Boethius may in fact have studied in the Greek east, perhaps at Athens, perhaps at Alexandria, but we cannot be sure. At any rate, he undertook an ambitious project of translating and interpreting all the works of both Plato and Aristotle and then -- he opined -- demonstrating the essential agreement of the two. Only a few pieces of this large undertaking were completed before Boethius's life was cut short.
For the other unique facet of Boethius's character was that he took public affairs so seriously that he lost his life at the hands of an authoritarian monarch: such complete devotion to the public weal had long since faded from aristocratic fashion. Little is to be made of his term as consul in 510, or of his doting presence at the consular celebrations of 522 when his two sons held the office simultaneously. But in the early 520's, he served as magister officiorum in the half-Roman regime of the Ostrogothic king Theoderic. Theoderic had taken Italy at the behest of the emperors in Constantinople; but political and theological fashions had changed in the thirty years since Theoderic entered Italy. In the reign of the emperor Justin (519-527), the aging Theoderic fell out with Constantinople; somehow, in ways that remain hotly controversial, Boethius came to be suspected by his monarch of disloyal sympathies; the suspicion may indeed have been well-placed, but the sympathies may have been well-grounded. Sometime c. 525/26 Boethius was executed. His father-in-law Symmachus went to the block not long after. When Theoderic died in August 526, legend quickly but implausibly had it that he was haunted at the end by his crimes.
The Consolation of Philosophy is apparently the fruit of Boethius's spell of imprisonment awaiting trial and execution. Its literary genre, with a regular alternation of prose and verse sections, is called Menippean Satire, after Roman models of which fragments and analogues survive. The dialogue between two characters (one of whom we may call Boethius, but only on condition that we distinguish Boethius the character from Boethius the author, who surely manipulated his self-representation for literary and philosophical effect) is carefully structured according to the best classical models. Its language is classical in intent, but some of the qualities that would characterize medieval Latin are already discernible.
!1: Now is the time Had It Not Been for Him: To God Be the Glory and No One Else! Order Today!
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Date Created : Sep 15, 2010 07:01:57
Have you ever sat in a pew and thought the pastor, reverend, or priest was talking directly to you? Have you ever had a conversation with a stranger and acquired a sense of direction that you spiritually needed? Have you ever woke up early in the morning and clicked on the TV and a televangelist's words were very compelling and convicting? If your answer is yes to any of these questions, then you will find this book not only interesting but also revealing. The contents scribed within the front and back covers you are holding accentuates the spiritual and mental processes that lead Christians, like you, to a place of serenity and contentment. The Christian's primary objective is to worship God because it is recorded in John 4:24 that, God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." I pray that the Lord, our God, provides you the spiritual discernment, revelation, confirmation, conviction, and assimilation required to worship Him in spirit and truth. We can no longer live a life of mediocrity because He has called us to a greater purpose. He has predestined us to be conformed into the image of His son, Jesus Christ. Everything we have on earth and will have in Heaven is because of Him. Can you ever imagine life...Had it not been for Him?"
±1±: Now is the time The Bible is Not What You Think: Why You Must Understand the Bible, Proof That You Currently Don't, What the Church Isn't Telling You Order Today!
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Date Created : Sep 01, 2010 18:45:19
Do you realize the importance of Jesus Christ teaching you the Bible's mysteries and hidden wisdom? To really be His disciple, He must teach you His "mysteries of the kingdom of God." The Bible is a "sealed" Book, sealed by God on purpose. Many people say they know God, but what does the Lord say about the "many"? "Few" actually go to Him as the One Teacher, understand the Bible from His viewpoint, and are part of His small, hidden body. Whatever you have thought about the Bible in the past, would you be willing to consider a totally new perspective? Has Jesus Christ blown open the Scriptures for you yet (all 66 books)? Do you know how to go to Him as the One Teacher so that He will remove His seal and teach you to read?
±1±: Now is the time God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything Order Today!
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Date Created : Aug 19, 2010 18:42:18
In the tradition of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris's recent bestseller, The End of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope's awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.
±1±: Best Buy This is a great book for both athists and religous people. In fact it's an important book in my childhood. When I was born my mom wanted too make me go to church every week and educate me in a christian fundamentalist style. I sucked up those teachings like a sponge and I encountered many of the unfortunate side effects from the teachings. My frontal lobe, the part of the brain that controls reason was being dulled, I was woefully intolerant of people, and I was a sexist and racist. Fortunately my dad rescued me from my near coma like state by making me read "The Portable Atheist" and look up and research all the examples shown and think about what I'm reading instead of blindly believing. This mental exercise broke the mental chains that the church had put so much effort into wrapping around the reserves of reason of many children like me. If your an athist you're gonna like this book but if you're religous then offer you a challenge. Read it, research the examples shown and think about what you're reading. If you have a niggling doubt in the back of your head that won't go away about how your relidgion doesn't make sense than the mental exercise will strengthen that doubt and allow it to cut the chain that your relidgion has wrapped around your mind, but if you don't have a niggling doubt than I feel sorry for you because clearly your beliefs have sucked every bit of intelligence from your mind and you're doomed to sleepwalk through life as a zombie. on Sale!
±1±: Now is the time One But Not The Same: God's Diverse Kingdom Come Through Race, Class, and Gender Order Today!
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Date Created : Aug 05, 2010 20:38:06
America is dreadfully divided over politics, race, gender, and class. Unfortunately, the church isn't much better. Galatians 3:28 states, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Paul gives us the kingdom paradigm for how Christians can be one without being the same.
Serious learners and people intent on changing the status quo will find sound, biblical perspectives and real life examples to guide them. Readers will discover:
How people of different races can come together, moving beyond superficiality
Why women should be empowered to lead in the local church
How Christians can be one without being the same politically
What God says about wealthy and poor Christians empowering each other
This book boldly addresses the topics Christians keep avoiding. But get ready. God's Diverse Kingdom is coming on earth as it is in heaven!
±1±: Best Buy If you're interested in learning about God's Diverse Kingdom, this is the book for you. It's a shame that Sunday mornings are still the most segregated hours in our week but it's often the reality for most believers. This book will help open your eyes to issues and ideas that may have been in your blind spot...even among the most well-intentioned and racially sensitive of us.
I believe that true community among believers of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds is something the Lord loves and this text will help you get excited about it too! What better way to heal wounds and dialog openly than with other believers with different ethnic backgrounds? on Sale!
±1±: Now is the time Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years Order Today!
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Date Created : Jul 23, 2010 16:22:28
The National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of The Reformation returns with the definitive history of Christianity for our time
Once in a generation a historian will redefine his field, producing a book that demands to be read-a product of electrifying scholarship conveyed with commanding skill. Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity is such a book. Breathtaking in ambition, it ranges back to the origins of the Hebrew Bible and covers the world, following the three main strands of the Christian faith.
Christianity will teach modern readers things that have been lost in time about how Jesus' message spread and how the New Testament was formed. We follow the Christian story to all corners of the globe, filling in often neglected accounts of conversions and confrontations in Africa and Asia. And we discover the roots of the faith that galvanized America, charting the rise of the evangelical movement from its origins in Germany and England. This book encompasses all of intellectual history-we meet monks and crusaders, heretics and saints, slave traders and abolitionists, and discover Christianity's essential role in driving the enlightenment and the age of exploration, and shaping the course of World War I and World War II.
We are living in a time of tremendous religious awareness, when both believers and non-believers are deeply engaged by questions of religion and tradition, seeking to understand the violence sometimes perpetrated in the name of God. The son of an Anglican clergyman, MacCulloch writes with deep feeling about faith. His last book, The Reformation, was chosen by dozens of publications as Best Book of the Year and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. This awe-inspiring follow-up is a landmark new history of the faith that continues to shape the world.
±1±: Best Buy I would highly recommend this books placement in the reserved reading section of a University library. It's size makes it too big for a one semester course on the History of Christianity, but could be used for a two semester course. This book is slightly bigger than the other standard in the field (i.e. A History of Christianity by Williston Walker) but definately worthy to sit beside it. It is much more colorful and enjoyable to read than Walker's text, thus making it more captivating and memorable. It also covers many aspects of Christian history few books delve into with their Western focus. It would be worth buying simply for it's chapter on the conditions that allowed for or led to the Reformation. It presents such a good synthesis on this issue, that it would be good required reading for students taking a course that covers this period. I move now to a detailed look at the downsides and positive features of this book.
The downside of this book comes from the fact that it is more interpretive than some of the others in this field (i.e. Walker's). I suppose this cannot be avoided in a book of this size. This can be seen in the first four chapters more than the others as it deals with the formations of Judaism and Christianity delving into times when little was recorded in the historical record. Educated guesses sometimes have to be made with what little evidence there is and it seemed as if MacCulloch did this without making it completely clear what he was basing his conclusions on and why he took them in the directions that he did. When MacCulloch makes these guesses he takes a more liberal direction on them. I will give but one example. He notes the Ebionites (i.e. "the poor") that Saint Jerome encountered on the eastern side of the Jordan. These "Christians" did not believe in the virgin birth and practiced many Jewish customs unlike the Western Church. MacCulloch assumes these are "the poor" that Paul the Apostle mentioned as the church living in Jerusalem and headed by the Apostle James that was later dispersed by the persecution of Temple Authorities and the destruction of the Temple. He goes on to state the reason they didn't believe in the virgin birth is because they could read the Hebrew which says "alma" or "young woman" while the Western Church only knew how to read the Septuagint. These are plausible connections that could explain their name and practices, but they are mere educated guesses. He gives enough information for a careful reader to discern this, but I am not sure everyone will have the habit of reading between such lines. The two chapters before this chapter on Christianity's birth are even less clear. For instance, he states as fact the liberal assumption that Daniel was written not long before the time of Jesus since it had ideas similar to some that were in Persia (i.e. Zoro-Astr). But conservative scholars would contests such a late date for Daniel and there are scholarly debates that continue on this today. Instead of merely stating his view as a fact, it would have been helpful to explain his reasoning a bit more on this issue and perhaps explain plausible views other than his own. And I could give other examples along these same lines.
But once one moves past the first four chapters into the period right after Christ and so on, the book becomes less interprative as the facts are more established (i.e. there are more recorded records from the early church and other secular sources). What I like most about this book is that he not only traces the Western Calcedonian Church, but the Orthodox Church in detail as well. Williston Walker's was typical in that it hardly dealt with the Eastern Church. MacCulloch's book deals with it's divergence from the west and it's history down to our own present day. He also deals with that third wing of the Church that few even touch on: the Jacobite and Nestorian Churches. These churches which lay on the fringes of the Roman Empire never accepted the Council of Calcedon (unlike the Western and Eastern Orthodox Churches) but had more believers within them than the Western Church for a very long time. Missionaries from Syria even planted monastaries as far as India and China at a suprisingly early date. I found it refreshing that MacCulloch even covered the rise and demise of this church. Along with this eye for a comprehensive history of the Christian Church, MacCulloch takes his history to our own day. He covers the Missionary Movements of Roman Catholics after Trent into the New World and the later rise of Protestant missionary movements. He traces the decline of Christianity in Western Europe following the Enlightenment (and other factors), the emergence of the Anglican Communion, the uniqueness of the American (U.S.) version of Christianity and the rising tide of Christianity in new parts of the world (i.e. Africa, China and India). He then ends by stating challenges Christianity faces into the future with positive notes and projections as well. This book would serve well in the task of educating people on the WHOLE history of the Church (i.e. not just the Western Church, or the Calcedonian Churches, or up to Trent but remembering the Third-World as well). The comprehensiveness of his approach not only tells the full story of the Church up to now, but gives students interested in other cultures a stake in this history...
±1±: Now is the time Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife Order Today!
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Date Created : Jun 25, 2010 16:00:21
A groundbreaking and accessible history of heaven—from the earliest biblical conceptions of the afterlife to the theologians who frame our understandings to the convictions and perceptions of everyday people
Drawing on history and popular culture, biblical research and everyday beliefs, Heaven offers a new understanding of one of the most cherished—and shared—ideals of spiritual life. Lisa Miller raises debates and discussions not just about our visions of the afterlife, but about how our beliefs have influenced the societies we have built and the lifestyles to which we have subscribed, exploring the roots of our beliefs in heaven and how these have evolved throughout the ages to offer comfort and hope.
She also reveals how the notion of heaven has been used for manipulation—to promulgate goodness and evil—as inspiration for selfless behavior, and as justification for mass murder.
As Miller demonstrates in this absorbing and enlightening book, the desire for a celestial afterlife is universal—shared by the faithful around the world and across religions. It is as old as the Bible itself. While there are many notions of what exactly heaven is and how we get there, Jews, Christians, and Muslims all agree that heaven is God's home. From the Revelation to the Left Behind series, Augustine to Osama bin Laden, Muslims in the West Bank to American Mormons baptizing their dead, Heaven is a penetrating look at one of our most cherished religious ideals.
±1±: Best Buy When I was a little kid, first grade or so, I had a nightmare about Chilly Willie, the penguin cartoon character. Chilly was out in the ocean and he drowned. But that wasn't the scary part. The scary part was seeing the bird sitting on a cloud in heaven. And he was going to be there, doing nothing for ever. That boredom was what scared me. That's why I was happy to see that Lisa Miller, in her book Heaven (Harper Collins 2010), included a chapter entitled "Is Heaven Boring?" Because a lot of adults wonder about that, it isn't just the mini-me. Miller explores many interesting questions about heaven and the answers provided by the monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) for the last few millennia. Ideas about Heaven from culture (Dante) to pop culture (The Lovely Bones) are also presented. Miller is Jewish, the religion editor of Newsweek and skeptical herself about the existence of heaven. But her interviews with followers of various faiths are fair and respectful. She calls Anne Graham Lotz (Billy's daughter) a friend and listens politely (and uncomfortably) to Anne pleas to take the Christian path to Heaven. She also writes about her respect for prominent atheists. It is interesting to follow the history of views of Heaven through the years and the various ways heaven is viewed today. Is Heaven a physical place or purely spiritual? Does one get entrance to Heaven through faith or works or does everyone get in? How does one's view of Heaven affect the way one lives life? The varied answers to these questions that Miller finds are intriguing, sometime funny, and thought provoking. I knew a lot of the things that Miller writes about. I remembered from my seminary days about Augustine's teaching that unbaptized babies would not get into heaven. (The Bishop of Hippo wrote that just as the thief on the cross would enter Heaven based on his faith, though he was not baptized; babies who are baptized enter Heaven though they have not faith.) I hadn't known (or remembered) that the church father went on to argue that there was a special baby hell, wherein baby souls wouldn't really even notice their torture. (Baby hell is a concept worth pondering.) I was unaware of some of the Muslim theories of the intermediary state between death and the Resurrection. This is a theory that two angels with green eyes and long fangs test the newly dead with a series of questions. Those who pass the test with flying colors will get a window view of heaven. Second tier corpses will get a window to hell with the assurance that they won't go there. Third level is pretty bad because your grave will be set afire and fourth is worse because your sins are turned into wild animals that will attack you. I also found fascinating the archeological evidence that in ancient Israel, people kept their ancestors bones under there house and may have consulted and/or worshiped them. Miller can, of course, present no definitive conclusions with her research. But she seems to believe that it is a challenge to rationalism to believe in Heaven and is very uncomfortable with the idea that there is only one route to get there. Obviously, these are difficult questions. But I believe in a powerful God who can do as He chooses. And that He has graciously choose to give life to His people after life on this earth. And as to that question of whether Heaven is boring, I came to my own conclusions when I attended camp as a kid, a few years after that penguin dream. A speaker at camp pointed to the beauty around us (the spectacular Sierra Nevada Mountains) and the fun we'd had though the week (swimming, games, archery, great food) and said that a God who thought up such great things would have even better things to come. For me, that answered my fear. That's when I trusted Christ for forgiveness of my sins and began looking forward to Heaven. on Sale!
±1±: Now is the time God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter Order Today!
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Date Created : Jun 16, 2010 05:46:31
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, dizzying scientific and technological advancements, interconnected globalized economies, and even the so-called New Atheists have done nothing to change one thing: our world remains furiously religious. For good and for evil, religion is the single greatest influence in the world. We accept as self-evident that competing economic systems (capitalist or communist) or clashing political parties (Republican or Democratic) propose very different solutions to our planet's problems. So why do we pretend that the world's religious traditions are different paths to the same God? We blur the sharp distinctions between religions at our own peril, argues religion scholar Stephen Prothero, and it is time to replace naÏve hopes of interreligious unity with deeper knowledge of religious differences.
In Religious Literacy, Prothero demonstrated how little Americans know about their own religious traditions and why the world's religions should be taught in public schools. Now, in God Is Not One, Prothero provides readers with this much-needed content about each of the eight great religions. To claim that all religions are the same is to misunderstand that each attempts to solve a different human problem. For example:
–Islam: the problem is pride / the solution is submission –Christianity: the problem is sin / the solution is salvation –Confucianism: the problem is chaos / the solution is social order –Buddhism: the problem is suffering / the solution is awakening –Judaism: the problem is exile / the solution is to return to God
Prothero reveals each of these traditions on its own terms to create an indispensable guide for anyone who wants to better understand the big questions human beings have asked for millennia—and the disparate paths we are taking to answer them today. A bold polemical response to a generation of misguided scholarship, God Is Not One creates a new context for understanding religion in the twenty-first century and disproves the assumptions most of us make about the way the world's religions work.
±1±: Best Buy Overall, I think this book is a great comparative religion text. It is quite sympathetic to each religion it covers, and does a fine job of illustrating the variety within the great religious traditions as well as between those traditions.
Prothero is critical of both wishy-washy feel-good PBS liberals and vitriolic "New Atheists" for over-unifying religion. He is especially hard on the New Atheists. He makes a good case for the fundamental diversity of religion, though there are a couple of instances where he pushes his case too hard. For example, he claims that Christian salvation is unique because it represents freedom from sin (paraphrasing). In my opinion, most Christians and Muslims are after the same thing: an eternal happy existence. That doesn't mean that all religions are after that blissful afterlife, but yes, admittedly, it is a common motivator for many practitioners of religion.
But Prothero doesn't ram his argument down the reader's throat. If anything, he celebrates the diversity of religion. This is what is needed to encourage religious tolerance: enthusiasm for divers ends and means.
I was raised to believe that all religions are essentially one. This was a matter of doctrine in my family. I spent much of my time as a young adult attempting to secure my own belief in that well-meaning doctrine, but that effort ultimately failed, but that's ok, because in studying the world's religions, I found so much more to admire than any white-washed universalist/perrennialist school could offer. Cultural diversity is a good thing. Celebrate it. on Sale!
