Lawrence Cunningham - The Sacred Quest: An Invitation to the Study of Religion

Sixth Edition

The Sacred Quest

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Sixth Edition

The Sacred Quest

AN INVITATION TO THE STUDY OF RELIGION

Lawrence S. Cunningham

The University of Notre Dame

John Kelsay

The Florida State University

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cunningham, Lawrence.

The sacred quest : an invitation to the study of religion / Lawrence S. Cunningham,

John Kelsay. 6th ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-205-19131-4 (alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-205-19131-2 (alk. paper)

1. ReligionTextbooks.

I. Kelsay, John

II. Title.

BL48.C793 2013

200dc23

2011035630

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN 10: 0-205-19131-2

ISBN 13: 978-0-205-19131-4

CONTENTS

v

vi

Contents

Contents

vii

viii

Contents

This textbook derives from a generation of experience teaching undergraduates in

a course introducing the academic study of religion at the Florida State University. For well over two decades, that course has remained one of the most popular in the undergraduate curriculum. Some years ago, a team of faculty and graduate students wrote

up and duplicated the core lectures as an aid for the students. From that somewhat

modest beginning came the first edition of The Sacred Quest.

We are still convinced that the core of the course (reflected in the chapters of this book) remains valid. Nonetheless, some of our examples seemed a bit dated, we were need-lessly obscure in places, and our discussion materials needed freshening. We have tried to remain faithful to our original vision while taking into serious account the many useful suggestions and criticisms of those who have used the book in their own classes.

This book is brief by design. We know that we cannot replicate the readings that

an individual instructor might wish to use in class. Therefore, we trust that the individual teacher will flesh out what we have only hinted at and provide ancillary materials to enlarge the material base of the course.

Since the first edition appeared, Lawrence S. Cunningham has left Florida for

the more austere pleasures of northern Indiana, while John Kelsay has moved up in the academic ranks to become chair in the Department of Religion at Florida State. The

two graduate students who joined in working on the first edition, Roy Barineau and

Heather McVoy, have finished their degrees and moved into full-time careers.

This book has its origins in classroom lectures given by the authors to under

graduate students who took the course Introduction to Religion at the Florida State University twenty years ago. It has been found acceptable to some instructors in other institutions, for which we are grateful. While the core of the book remains unchanged, it is crucial to do new editions both as a response to helpful criticisms and our own awareness that student memories of certain past events means that examples used to

illustrate points must also change. As we undertook the task of doing this sixth edition, we remained faithful to its core approach but made the following changes:

WHATS NEW

We rewrote certain parts of the text for greater clarity. Each chapter has been rewritten in places for that precise purpose.

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At the suggestion of a number of reviewers we added to each chapter some

thought experiments (eliminated from the fifth edition) for two reasons: to

promote some class discussion and/or to allow for some useful topics for papers

or projects.

Some new examples were developed to illustrate certain issues that have become

crucial in our post-9/11 world.

ix

x

Preface

Certain discussions on individual topics (e.g., the way religion is defined; how to understand ritual) have been modified to take into account recent scholarship.

We have modified the suggested readings, given the vast number of Web

resources available today.

STUDENT AND TEACHER RESOURCES

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INSTRUCTORS MANUAL WITH TESTS ( 0205897932)

For each chapter in the

text, this valuable resource provides a chapter outline, preview questions, lecture topics, research topics, and questions for classroom discussion. In addition, test questions in multiple-choice and essay formats are available for each chapter; the answers are page-referenced to the text.

MYTEST ( 0205897940)

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their own personalized exams, to edit any or all of the existing test questions, and to add new questions. Other special features of this program include random generation of

test questions, creation of alternate versions of the same test, scrambling question sequence, and test preview before printing.

POWERPOINT PRESENTATION ( 0205897959)

These PowerPoint slides combine

text and graphics for each chapter to help instructors convey anthropological

principles in a clear and engaging way. In addition, Classroom Response System (CRS) In-Class Questions allow for instant, class-wide student responses to chapter-specific questions during lectures for teachers to gauge student comprehension.