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The Meaning and End of Religion Paperback – 1 October 1990
by Wilfred Cantwell Smith (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars 26 ratings
Wilfred Cantwell Smith, maintained in this vastly important work that Westerners have misperceived religious life by making "religion" into one thing. He shows the inadequacy of "religion" to capture the living, endlessly variable ways and traditions in which religious faith presents itself in the world.
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Print length
356 pages
Language
English
Publisher
AUGSBURG BOOKS
Publication date
1 October 1990
Product description
From the Publisher
Wilfred Cantwell Smith is professor Emeritus of the Comparative History of Religion, Harvard University, where he also served for nine years as Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions and then as chair of the Committee on the Study of Religion.
About the Author
Wilfred Cantwell Smith is professor Emeritus of the Comparative History of Religion, Harvard University, where he also served for nine years as Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions and then as chair of the Committee on the Study of Religion.
Product details
ASIN : 0800624750
Publisher : AUGSBURG BOOKS (1 October 1990)
Language : English
Paperback : 356 pages
ISBN-10 : 9780800624750
ISBN-13 : 978-0800624750
Dimensions : 14 x 2.02 x 21.6 cmBest Sellers Rank: 1,084,426 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)6,327 in Philosophy of Religion
32,035 in Theology (Books)
966,049 in Textbooks & Study GuidesCustomer Reviews:
4.3 out of 5 stars 26 ratings
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Jeff
5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful bookReviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on 11 August 2018
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A thoroughly researched and well- written book with no bias( as it should be) would recommended it if you are interested in theology.
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John in Orlando
4.0 out of 5 stars Dated, but essential reading for those interested in the problem of definitionReviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 11 July 2011
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This classic work is a study of the evolution of "religion" as a reified, essentialist concept in modern intellectual history. Religion, as Cantwell Smith persuasively argues, is--when understood either as designating an absolute "thing" in human experience ("religion in general") or as indicating a particular instantiation of that thing ("the Christian religion" or "the Buddhist religion")--purely a modern intellectualist construct, one that has no parallel in pre-modern Western thought or in the ideas of non-Western cultures that have not come under decisive Western influence. Cantwell Smith further argues that the term "religion" and the concept that it communicates create barriers to true scholarly understanding of human religiousness.
The methodology proposed by Cantwell Smith involves recognizing what we have called "religions" as being, in fact, nexuses of "cumulative traditions" (the historically-observable data of religious life in history--artworks, buildings, rituals, communities) and "faith" (the inner encounter between the individual and what Cantwell Smith calls "transcendence"--presumably comparable to Otto's Heilige or Eliade's "the sacred," and similarly susceptible to the charge that it is simply a smuggled-in God-concept).
The Meaning and End of Religion is now nearly half a century old, and it shows its age. While the historical survey is very compelling, and the case Cantwell Smith makes in this portion of the book is persuasive, much of the rest of the work takes a decisively theological turn that reveals the author's largely uncritical mid-twentieth-century liberal-Protestant worldview. When Cantwell Smith writes that "Men of different religious communities are going to have to collaborate to construct jointly and deliberately the kind of world of which men of different religious communities can jointly approve, as well as one in which they can jointly participate" (location 2421 in the Kindle edition), it's hard for this not to sound like the culturally-imperialist fantasy of white, affluent, first-world liberals like the author.
In spite of these reservations, The Meaning and End of Religion is a work of real erudition and one which has helped to establish important themes in the methodological and theoretical study of religion over the past five decades.
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Don Burger
5.0 out of 5 stars A classic of Spiritual Thought.Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 14 December 2013
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It is not surprising that this book, THE MEANING AND END of RELIGION, has become an authoratative source for students and scholars in their study of religion and spiritual matters.
Because of the limited, restricted and narrowing thought that is imposed upon us by embracing our own religion, whether it is Christian, Hindu, Baptist, Lutheran, or any other sect the author suggests that we discontinue using the term "religion" itself, and replace it with a Universal conception of God that embraces all of humanity, not of just one separate religious sect. The author questions why the loving father of all humankind favors only the Christians,the Methodists, the Baptists, the Jews, or any others, as his "chosen few".
The importance of learning about the History of other religions, as well as our own, is strongly recommended by the author. The chapter "The Special Case of Islam" opened my eyes to my own narrow, prejudiced conception of "those other guys".
The chapter on "Faith" is thoughtful enough to have been written in a book by itself.
"THE MEANING AND THE END OF RELIGION" is a classic in the area of spiritual thought. It will undoubtedly remain a classic for many years to come.
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John Randall
4.0 out of 5 stars It's not necessarily great recreational readingReviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 4 June 2015
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Used this for a World Religions class. It was a bit heavy, but really stresses the failure of Western cultures to recognize religions of other cultures accurately or fairly. It's not necessarily great recreational reading, but for those seeking to have a clearer perspective about religions of non-western cultures, it is an important prerequisite for religious studies. In a nutshell, Smith's findings lead to the truth that we really cannot understand another culture's religion since we are not living in that culture or practicing that religion. It helps one to gain a real sensitivity to other culture's religious practices and avoid harsh judgments. I recommend it for the world religions student.
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George M. Plasterer
5.0 out of 5 stars Classic workReviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 3 January 2015
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I have found the book quite helpful, especially as he separates faith commitment from cumulative faith traditions. He is able to show that "religion" has a mixed history and can hardly find definition, so he breaks his study in this way. It balances the personal dimension of all faith traditions with the corporate and historical nature of cumulative faith traditions. His insight that given the historical nature of the tradition, even within the tradition, what would be a heresy in the past may be quite acceptable today is quite good.
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