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This Week:
- Guyana’s Jonestown suicide site gets plaque
- Gaddafi preaches Islam to Rome beauties
- Scientology practices ‘putting people at risk’
- Recession: Muslim schools in UK under threat of closure
- Australian senator tells Parliament of widespread criminal conduct within the Church of Scientology
- When a child dies, faith is no defense
- Muslim terrorists smuggle fatwas promoting Jihad out of secure UK prisons
- Techie Holy water and geeky bishops
- Israel Charges Extremist With Attempted Murder Of Messianic Family
- Scientology’s feet held to the fire in Australia: Struggle between a church and the state
Book Review: The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena
More articles on this topic: The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena. J. Gordon Melton. Visible Ink. $25. 380 pp.
J. Gordon Melton is a renowned authority on what academics call “New Religious Movements.”
He takes on a broad range of topics: ectoplasm, the tomb of Christ, the Touro Synagogue in Rhode Island, Ouija boards and the Kumbh Mela festival in India.
Melton’s introduction takes a swing at a definition but misses. When describing each phenomenon, his tone whipsaws between critical and credulous, often without obvious justification.
And sometimes he doesn’t provide enough context. For instance, if you don’t know what the Western Esoteric tradition is, you’ll be wondering. He mentions it a lot.
And he does an entire entry about the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem without ever citing the cryptic Quran verse that is the root of the tradition — and never mentions Jerusalem.
But this is an entertaining and fascinating look at a variety of ways that people experience belief.
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