Engagement with primary sources is an essential part of effective teaching and learning in the church history or theology course. And yet; pulling together and distilling the right readings can be challenging; especially in more recent periods where tracing the diverse traditions that flow from the momentous events of the sixteenth century requires nuance.In this all-new primary-source anthology; Keith D. Stanglin has done the heavy lifting for a new generation of classrooms. Stanglin has edited and introduced over 100 selections to create a reader that orients students to the ebb and flow of thought that moves out from the pre-Reformation period. Attentive to major movements such as confessionalization; pietism; skepticism; liberalism; and revivalism; Stanglin organizes the readings into nine chapters and provides helpful introductions to each: Late Medieval Contexts; Outbreak of Reform; Radical Reformation; Roman Catholic (Counter-)Reformation; Protestant Codifiers and Confessionalization; Enlightenment and Skepticism; Pietism and Revivalism; Liberal Protestantism and Responses; and Late Modern Fragmentation and Ecumenism.
Farquhar J N 2008-11-04Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.50 x 1.19 x 5.51l; 1.65 #File Name: 1443723975476 pagesThe Crown of Hinduism
Review
9 of 12 people found the following review helpful. Comparative drivelBy Intrepid ReviewerThis book is another one belonging to the Comparative religions bandwagon and truly deserves 0 stars.Christians or Christian apologists write two types of books when talking about other religions. The first type is the rabid and vitrioloc critique. Founded on ignorance; nourished by fear these books quickly degenerate into diatribes lacking evidence based scholarly research. These books stem from the insecurity inherent to all proseletyzing religions encumbered with dogma and doctrine.Unfortunately this book is of the second kind; far more insidious of the two. Farquhar under the homogenizing umbrella of Post-modernism; Collectivism; Inclusivity seeks not to deride Hinduism by attacking it but instead concludes that everything good about it is but a subset of the GREAT faith that is Christianity.I doubt Farquhar is a Sanskrit scholar or that he has read the Vedas; the Upanishads; Yoga Sutras; Ramayana; Mahabharata and Yoga Vasishista in their original Sanksrit form. He probably only has read translations. No matter how well intentioned or accurate a translation it is but reading a collection of half truths. Philosophy is not a mere regurgitation of facts. It is not users manual for a microwave oven where all 23 languages are equally competent. Aside: Hinduism is really a philosophy once you get past all the Holy Cow stereotypes promulgated by the people who write books of the first kind.If Farquhar is indeed a dyed in the wool Sanskrit scholar who can read the Upanishads in Devanagari then this book confirms his shallow scholarship. Why would a man dedicate his life to reading such non-trivial texts with the sole purpose of exposing them as half baked because they lack the lustre of Jesus of Nazareth's aura? Or to claim that Jesus is in fact the saviour of not only his people but also of all Hindus and all Hindu thought is merely one part of the Christian canon as propounded by the life of Jesus. Vedanta unfortunately predates Christ's nailing by over 2 millenia.Such writing falls in the category of shoddy western scholarship manifest in other fields as music (Ethnomusicology; since when was Beethoven taught in Ethomusicology); Comparative Religious Studies; World History and Comparative art. All these fields seek to denigrate the non-western traditions or seek to view them through anthropological lenses; as little rituals and quaint traditions. Everything Farq examines is cast into the file titled "Good but redundant" as it is but a subset of the glory of Christianity.Hinduism and the people of India has suffered not only due to colonialism but also due to the shoddy scholarships of the likes of Max Mueller and his European hordes. The entire Aryan invasion myth is a creation of the western mind and Farquhar seeks to create a few myths of his own. This book will not convert a single Hindu to Christianity (the missionaries handing out food packets to the heartland of India still suffering from the after math of 200 years of British rule are far more effective). What Farq hopes to do is prevent his own brethren from seeking alternatives to Dogma and Doctrine.The interested reader might read a true work on Hindu thought as written by a practitioner. This might reinforce your own faith by adding elements from the East; but more likely you will be better acquainted with what constitutes the vareigated path known as Sanatana Dharma instead of reading what an outsider thinks Hinduism ought to be.
