Table of Contents

List of Contributors ix

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xiii

1 Studying Religion: Issues in Definition and Method 1

2 Religion and Sociology 21

3 Religion and Psychology 44

4 Religion and Scripture: The Function of the Special Books of Religion 68

5 Religion, Ritual, and Culture 96

6 Religion and the Arts 117

7 Secular Humanism 139

8 Hinduism 163

9 Buddhism 190

10 Sikhism 215

11 Chiness Religion 240

12 Judaism 272

13 Shintoism 297

14 Christianity 309

15 Islam 337

Bibliography 372

Index 375

About the Author

Ian S. Markham is Professor of Theology at Liverpool Hope University College. His previous publications include Plurality and Christian Ethics (1994), and also numerous articles and reviews. In 1993 he was appointed to the Council of the Advertising Standards Authority.

Dr Tinu Ruperell is Lecturer in Theology at Liverpool Hope University College.