This text provides a thematic and comparative approach to the study of religion. The focus of individual chapters gives equal weight to both theoretical issues and to practices as they are reflected in the major religions of the world. It examines the main ideas that characterize all religious thought and practice, focusing on such fundamental topics as ritual, sacred language, ethics, salvation, and the problem of evil.

Lawrence Cunningham is a Rev. John A. O'Brien Professor of Theology in the Department of Theology at Notre Dame University. Cunningham's research interests are in the history and practice of Catholic spirituality as well as the intersection of theology and culture. The author or editor of twenty books, he writes regularly for journals both learned and pastoral. Twice honored by the university for his teaching, he also received a Presidential Award in 2001 for his service to the church and the academy. He is currently finishing a book on Roman Catholicism for Cambridge University Press and is the Christianity editor for the the forthcoming Norton Anthology of World Religions.

 

John Kelsay is Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Religion at Florida State University.  He is the author of Arguing the Just War in Islam (Cambridge, Mass:  Harvard University Press, 2007) and other works dealing with Muslim and Christian teaching about war.  A past recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he also serves as co-editor of the Journal of Religious Ethics.