Christianity & World Religions: Wrestling With Questions People Ask, Participant's Book (Paperback)

by Adam Hamilton (Author)
Key Phrases: compelling picture, Jesus Christ, Hebrew Bible, New Testament (more...)

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Abingdon Press (August 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0687494303
• ISBN-13: 978-0687494309
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #78,929 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Starting Point to Learn About World Religions, July 15, 2006

By	Big D (Auburn, AL. USA) - See all my reviews

We live in a big, sometimes bad world. Sometimes other people, other good people, other God-fearing and God-seeking people, see things differently from the way we do. Sometimes their concept of God, the way to God and life's meaning and purpose may be different from ours. This book is a decent, respectful look at five World Religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity. It details what these faiths are about, compares and contrast them to the traditional Christian faith, pointing out places of agreement and disagreement.

This is an excellent book to learn about the world in which we live. If you are looking for "In-Your-Face" Christianity, this is not your book. If you want to learn and study in the spirit of Christ, this is your book.

Not a deep book, but a well-written, informative starting point.

If you are considering this book for a Sunday School Class, Devotional or Study Group, I suggest you consider reading and discussing the chapter one week, then inviting a person of that faith to come to visit with your group the next week. We did that, and it was a truly remarkable study. Remarkable. It deepened our faith (Christian) and caused us to have a greater respect and appreciation for those who have beliefs different from ours.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars great for group discussion, January 24, 2009

By	C. M. Wheeler "Blessed" (HOOVER, AL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

We are using this as a study in Sunday School. It is a great overview of several world religions, as well as Christianity. The DVD of Adam Hamilton and his interviews with people from those other religions gives added insight. It has sparked lively discussion, and additional questions, from out group.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Ecumenism through apologia, April 11, 2009

By	Cynthia Baker "pseudo intellectual" (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Christianity & World Religions: Wrestling With Questions People Ask (Leader's Guide) (Paperback)

This book was the basis for a class I took at my United Methodist church in an 8-week series, which incorporated viewing the supplemental DVD, plus a 50-minute lecture each by 4 local religious experts: a rabbi, a Buddhist nun, an imam, and a professor of Hindu studies.

Subtitled "Wrestling with Questions People Ask", this book presupposes that the reader is a Christian who's curious about 4 other major world religions. The author states in his introduction "I believe that if Christianity does offer us the truth about God, it can withstand a serious study of other religions."

However, this book doesn't claim that it's a "serious study" in 133 pages; it merely introduces basic precepts of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam from a framework where Christians can draw analogies from dogma with which they are most familiar.

Hamilton doesn't cite any other religious writings besides the Protestant Christian Bible. It left some of us in class wondering if this was through fear that directly quoting the Quran, Tao Te Ching, Vedas, or Talmud would misrepresent them "out of context", that it would be considered blasphemy, or that it would "proselytize" us to convert away from Methodism! We were frustrated that other scriptures/commentaries were not allowed to speak for themselves, but were filtered through Hamilton's conclusions.

The book isn't arranged according to the chronological emergence of the religions it discusses, but in an order that places Christianity in the easily defensible final position.

Hamilton on Hinduism: "In Hinduism, God is in everything and everything is part of God." The professor of Hindu studies who spoke to us refuted this by clarifying that Hindus believe we are not *part* of the Divine, not little separate god entities walking around; the Divine is everywhere. I understand it to mean we're more like windows or conduits to the Divine -- similar to Christians allowing others to see Christ through them.

Hamilton on Buddhism: "The ultimate goal of existence is a kind of extinction in which whatever is left of one's energy is snuffed out like a candle, dissipated into the universe." The Buddhist nun who spoke to our class addressed the impermanence of this world. I understand this as an idea emphasized in the Christian Bible that Hamilton couldn't relate to Buddhism; he interpreted it into a clumsy candle simile that frightens people attached to impermanent individualism.

Hamilton on Islam: "So the Quran speaks not of sparing the sword when enemies attack you, and killing them all if necessary." The imam who spoke to us said that particular controversial scripture refers to a battlefield instruction to warriors, not to non-warriors in times of peace. For me, it's equivalent to the Old Testament instruction to Elijah to kill the 450 prophets of Baal; a historical context that Hamilton applied to Christian scripture but failed to apply to the Muslim scripture.

Hamilton on Judaism: "For our Jewish friends, Jesus is a great teacher. He is a rabbi. He might even be a prophet. But he is not the Son of God." The rabbi who spoke to us refuted Hamilton's interpretation; rabbis did not exist during Christ's time, and Jews today don't believe Jesus was a prophet, because he lived during a time after Malachi, when God's word is no longer revealed through prophets, but through study of scripture.

The book concludes with a defense of Christianity and various "rational" illustrations and anecdotes to persuade people to become Christians, somewhat in the tradition of Christian apologetics, but without any deep philosophical or metaphysical arguments. The last chapter also reiterates the differences between Christianity and the other religions presented, reducing a broader sense of worldwide Ecumenism into a narrower sense of Christian Inclusivism.

This book gets a star for opening a dialogue about other religions and for encouraging Christians to respect and understand the basic tenets of other religions. It gets another star for the author admitting in his Introduction that he is not an expert and cannot be completely objective despite his best efforts.