John Dickson - A Doubters Guide to World Religions: A Fair and Friendly Introduction to the History, Beliefs, and Practices of the Big Five

M y introduction to religion came not through family tradition, Sunday school, church, or any other formal means of religious instruction, but through the irresistible power of good food.

One of the relics of Australias semi-Christian heritage is the once-a-week Scripture lesson offered in many state schools around the country, especially in the state of New South Wales where I grew up. Usually, the person running the lesson was an elderly volunteer from the local church, synagogue, mosque, or temple. I took my chances with these harmless old ladies because non-Scripture involved doing homework under the supervision of a real teacher.

One of these Scripture teachers had the courage one day to invite the entire class to her home on a Friday afternoon after school for discussions about God. This would be illegal nowadays, but it seemed plausible at the time. Anyway, the invitation would have gone unnoticed, except that she added: Oh, and if anyone gets hungry, Ill be making hamburgers, milkshakes, and scones. Looking back, this was perhaps an unfair offer to a bunch of ravenous teenagers!

Several weeks later, I was sitting on a comfy lounge in this womans home with half a dozen classmates, feasting on her food and bracing myself for the God bit. I had never been to church or even had a religious conversation of any length, so this was an entirely new experience. I remember thinking at the time that there was nowhere to run. I had eaten so much of her food, I couldnt have left the couch if Id tried.

My fears were unfounded. This womans style was relaxed. She knew she was speaking to a room full of religious spectators and sceptics rather than believers, so she never pushed us. She asked us what we thought, she let us ask her what she thought, and she read to us from some relevant parts of the Bible. For me, and several others from that class, this was the beginning of a very interesting journey into the wonders of faith.

Life has changed a lot since those days. Whereas I once prided myself on not being the religious type, I suppose now I appear about as religious as a modern Australian can get. I have recorded songs about faith, written books about it, given talks on it, completed degrees in it, and even went so far as to get myself ordained as an Anglican (or Episcopalian) priest.

Yet for all this religion in my life, I still wince when people ask, Are you religious? It is not that I am embarrassed about spiritualityfar from it. It is just that the word religion sometimes conjures up images of formality, close-mindedness, and strictness, and these are the last descriptions I would attach to my convictions.

I guess those early hamburger discussions as a teenager set the course of my spiritual journey in subtler ways than simply convincing me of the merits of Christianity. Whether in song, speech, or print, I have always felt more in tune with religious spectators than players. Almost everything I have tried to do over the last thirty years has sought to help the not-so-religious gain a clearer picture of the brand of faith that has convinced me.

Although my topic in this book is much broaderfive major faiths instead of just onethe same thing motivates me: I want to help the person on the street explore the big questions in a non-pushy way. There is no religious sell here. It is not even a minor purpose of this book to criticise the different world faiths. As will soon become clear, my aims are far simpler. I hope to encourage understanding, tolerance, and appreciation of the five great world religions. I also hope to expose a couple of the Chardonnay myths about religion that have become popular in broader secular society.

I hope you will take a seat on your comfortable mental lounge and join me as a welcome guest as we sample the feast of ideas found in the worlds great religions.

There is a bewildering array of English translations of the various scriptures of the world religions. I have tried to give readers the clearest rendition of any given text under discussion, and so I have employed a range of standard translations.

Doniger, Wendy. The Rig Veda. Penguin Classics, 1981; Goodall, D. Hindu Scriptures. Berkeley: University of California, 1996; Sutton, N. The Bhagavad Gita: A New Translation and Study Guide (Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies). San Rafael, Mandala Publishing, 2020.