Saturday, October 6, 2012

Understanding World Religions In 15 Minutes a Day by Garry R Morgan

A Concise, Easy-to-Understand Overview of the World's Religions

What religions are represented in your neighborhood, your workplace, and your children's school? Things seem to be changing every day, and it can be hard to keep up. You may know a little about some of these religions. Others are new to you. You'd like to learn about them and how they differ from your beliefs, but who has time to do all the research?

In Understanding World Religions in 15 Minutes a Day, cross-cultural expert and professor Garry Morgan explains the key beliefs, histories, and practices of more than twenty religions, including the familiar--Christianity, Judaism, Mormonism--and some of the lesser known--Baha'i, Sikhism, and New Age religions. Broken into forty short readings, each chapter is engaging and easy to understand. In just minutes a day you'll soon have a better understanding of the world's beliefs.


My review:

This book is not an extensive review of any religion, nor was it meant to be, but the author does a great job of presenting the main ideas and other information about some of the religions in the world. The chapters are fairly short, mostly four pages in length, but not all religions get one chapter. Islam, for example, gets six chapters: Beginnings, Foundations, Beliefs, Theology, Varieties and Issues, and The Nation of Islam. It is the only one covered that extensively, and most likely since it is the biggest religious threat to Christianity.

The information given on each religion is concise and relevant, and the book is very easy to read. Some books like this tend to get wordy and the reader can get bogged down, but this is a book that will hold your attention and help you learn a little more about some of the world religions.

About the author:

Garry R. Morgan is Professor of Intercultural Studies at Northwestern College. He served with World Venture from 1974–1976 and 1982–1999 in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania. Garry is married, has a grown daughter, and lives in the Minneapolis/ St. Paul area.
 
Read an excerpt from the book here.
Understanding World Religions In 15 Minutes a Day is available from Bethany House Publishers, a division of Baker Book House Publishers.  Thanks to Bethany House for the review copy.
 

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