Gods in the Global Village: The World’s Religions in Sociological Perspective
Kurtz, Lester R. 2006. Gods in the Global Village: The World’s Religions in Sociological Perspective (Sociology for a New Century Series). 2nd ed. Pine Forge Press.
Rating:
8
Summary:
excellent text on the sociology of religion
This is really more of a textbook on the sociology of religion than anything else. As such, it is not particularly conducive to summation (too many topics; too much information).
However, there are two things worth noting about the contents. First, the book goes to great lengths to look at religion from a global perspective, which I found to be invaluable and informative, especially considering how uncommon it is to do so. The second point is similar – the book doesn’t focus on just Christianity or U.S. religion. The book compares, contrasts, and examines all of the major world religions– Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. There isn’t really more emphasis on one than another; they pretty much receive equal treatment, which is also unusual.
Review:
The fact that the book looks at all of the major world religions rather than focusing on just Christianity, which is early on outlined as the book’s objective (a global perspective), is refreshing and likely very informative for students in the U.S. who typically are somewhat ignorant of life outside of their country.
It is also nice that the author, Lester Kurtz, reveals his personal religious biases to begin with. His wife and kids are Jewish, but as a family they predominantly worship at Quaker worship services. His interest in the Quaker religion is revealed, to a degree, by his treatment of Ghandi. Not only is the treatment quite extensive, but Ghandi is idolized for his peaceful tactics (not that I disagree with this approach, I just found it revealing of the author’s biases). Also, the final chapter, though well-written and not particularly overt, is definitely Kurtz’s attempt to spread a message of peace. He doesn’t necessarily attack religions for their history of justifying violence, but he definitely hopes this history is nearing its end.
Despite being well-written and offering an informative global perspective, there are a couple of problems with the book. First, there is only minimal treatment of secularization. Lacking is a discussion of neo-secularization (Chaves 1994), though admittedly much of this was happening while Kurtz was writing the book. Also, though the debate continues, there is definitely much more evidence for the existence of secularization in the U.S. than is presented in the text.
The book also gives the impression that it isn’t possible to have values/morals without religion. I’m guessing this isn’t the intention of the author as he tends to be fairly objective, but it is implied in several locations. I also found the author’s usage of scripture, the Bible in particular, disturbing. He goes in and out of using the Bible as historical and metaphorical and never specifically states which perspective he is employing at any given point. For instance, Kurtz uses the story of Moses coming to power as the leader of the Children of Israel to make a point about religions generally, but also seems to conclude that the story is historically accurate. Whether he really believes it is or not isn’t clear.
Finally, the author has a tendency to drift off onto theoretical tangents that at times are more rambling than coherent. These occurrences are few and far between, but when they do happen you find yourself wondering how you arrived where you are.
Overall, I highly recommend this book as a text for a course on the sociology of religion. The book is for the most part accurate, well-written, and clear (I know he missed one point with Mormons, but I didn’t find many other flaws). The book isn’t without its problems, but they are truly minimal compared to the synthesis of a global perspective on religions he has produced in writing this book.