Living Religions (5th Edition) Description:

Living Religions (5th Edition) review:
3 stars (A good book; except...) - There is a rich amount of knowledge; I will keep this in my library. It is baptized in feminist views. That would be okay except it isn't supposed to be a platform for feminists; it is suppose to show the richness of the various religions. It is overly concerned with defending or proving the importance of women; this often takes up to much space pushing out writing that would be more informative of the actual heart of the religion (which would be better then the dispute over women which is such a small fraction of what religion is about. I would be just as unnerved if it focused on how important men where to religions.... it seems to miss the point; the point being the religion itself be it from/to men or women.) There is to much of it that comes across as feminist propaganda (can you be truly sympathetic to a religion if you take modern feminist propaganda to say Islam or past Christian monasteries where women were not allowed or where at least kept separate from the males?)The book is corrupted by (as written on the back of the book)"Increased coverage of the role of women in each tradition." What a waste of space! I could have been learning more about the religions. Your expecting a loving look into religion on the religions own terms... then why, I ask, is their a reading included dedicated to the idea of God as a female within the Christian Religion? It might as well be including excerpts from the writings of Martin Luther as representative of Catholicism; they are clearly not apart of the Religion except as fringes that are better understood as protesting what is taught in the religion itself.
4 stars (Recommended for religion survey courses) - This textbook not only looks at the history of different religions, but it also shows you the contemporary version/manifestation of each religion. As an instructor, I found this very easy for my students to understand and relate to.One of the strongest points of this text is the interviews with different contemporary people to explain religious belief. An example of this would be an interview with Ann-Ping Chin on Confucianism in today's society. This is much easier for students to relate to than using discussions of ancient religious leaders only.Each chapter has a list of suggested readings, which I found very useful in preparing discussions. The publisher also has a web-site with exercises and links for each chapter to assist students in studying the different religions.I would recommend this book.
5 stars (Best I've Seen) - I teach world religions and have used many different textbooks. This book has always been among the best, and the fourth edition is definitely the best--has made a lot of substantial improvements over earlier editions. Fisher is sympathetic, engaging, accessible and yet scholarly, up-to-date, thorough, and accurate. Many great pictures and side box interviews really help students understand the material, and so does the website with on-line tests and web links associated with the book chapters. If you saw an earlier edition and weren't terribly impressed, you need to take a new look at the 4th edition! Finally, a world religion survey to please both students and professors! Hard to improve on.