Review by Choice Review
Written primarily for religious studies experts, this collection of essays attempts to move beyond rhetoric that extols religious pluralism as an obvious good. The contributors are aware that differences not only exist between religious traditions, but also occur within those traditions and between religious and nonreligious groups. The result is a book in which the essays intentionally blur boundaries and distinctions once thought to be self-evident. Contributors find religion a much more problematic, complex, and destabilizing phenomenon than is apparent in bland calls to interfaith dialogue. The book is divided into three parts: one is on religious pluralism and the law; the second is on how religions are "performed" in cultural space; and the third focuses on the problematic of religious pluralism in a series of distinct situations (Native American religion, Darfur, postcommunist Poland, and East German prisons). Other than the research interests of individual contributors, the criteria for topic selection are unclear. This book would be difficult reading for nonprofessionals, but it provides experts some challenging insights into religious pluralism. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and above. F. G. Kirkpatrick Trinity College (CT)
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
