Full Flavors Dismiss Caricatures

I was having dinner with my old friend Bob M and he recommended a book to me. I downloaded it for listening on the spot. It turns out to be the best crash course on the world’s largest faith traditions I’ve ever encountered.

In my experience, I’ve noticed the tendency of myself and others to construct a caricature of faith traditions in which we are not involved. It seems to be a universal tendency. The problem with this is that when I reduce an entire faith tradition to a caricature I am robbed of the full flavor of that group’s belief system.

This is precisely what John Dickson expertly avoids in his book “A Doubters Guide to World Religions: A Fair and Friendly Introduction to the History, Beliefs and Practices of the Big Five”.

The title mentions the word friendly and he means it. In the audible version the Australian author’s disarming wit and humor come to life as he reads it himself. I found it deeply engaging as he insisted upon explaining the various faith walks using their own words and enthusiasm as much as possible. It was as if a devoted follower were telling me all the wonderful things about their way of life.

I don’t know about you, but much of my exposure to world religions was taught from the perspective of ‘let’s see what is wrong with them’ rather than being curious. Professor Dickson’s approach is so much more engaging and kind.

In fact, the only dose of ‘let’s see what’s wrong with them’ is in a chapter dedicated to the author’s own faith walk: Chapter 26 - What’s Wrong With Jesus. In this chapter he allows each of the other four traditions to explain what they see as disagreeable or even abhorrent to them regarding the Christian way of belief and life.

Genius.

I learned so much from this genuinely disarming approach. It is the epitome of ‘seeking to understand rather than be understood’. I highly recommend this book to anyone fatigued by the relentless polemical approaches often adopted in this genre.

I have added a few hard copies of this book to share with the curious in the Photon Farms give away library.

It is that good.