Summary
Title: Sin and Salvation in the World Religions: A Short Introduction
Author: Harold Coward
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
ISBN: 1851683194
Pro:
• Very insightful way of comparing different religious traditions
• Places the religious notion of salvation and transcendence at the center of attention
Con:
• Coverage of more religions might have been nice
Description:
• Analysis of how various religions deal with notions of “sin” and “salvation”
• Explains how different religions conceptualize the human condition and offer solutions
Book Review
It’s unusual for a religion to treat this world and this life as good things that we should enjoy. These days, at any rate, it seems much more common for religions to lament the evil and hopelessness we experience and offer some sort of future release that will take us to an existence where everything will be better. It is in this diagnosis of the “human condition” and the preference for some future solution where religions tend to have a great deal in common.
As a matter of fact, this may be one of the most important aspects of religion that a student or scholar can focus on. There are all sorts of claims as to what constitutes the irreducible ground of “religion,” distinguishing it from all other aspects of human culture, but most of them fail miserably. The one possible candidate for this, and something that most amateur analyses tend to ignore, is the drive for transcendence.
Whether new or traditional, theistic or atheistic, naturalistic or supernaturlastic, the one thing that seems to drive most religions is the idea there is something wrong/inadequate/awful about this world that we can and must strive to overcome. It isn’t simply a matter of helping justice triumph over injustice, however; instead, it’s a matter of overcoming this very existence itself: one strives for heaven, nirvana, or perhaps another planet entirely.
To focus on “sin and salvation” as Harold Coward does in his book Sin and Salvation in the World Religions might appear to some to be a form of overreaching. Because these precise terms and concepts do not appear elsewhere, isn’t this an example of trying to impose Christian frames of reference on other religions, thus distorting their message?
That’s not an unreasonable concern but I don’t think that it’s an error that Coward makes — or, at the very least, if he is guilty of it then it’s only in very minor ways. At no point does he try to describe other religions as if they were merely imperfect copies of Christianity; instead, he makes it very clear where and how they differ from Christianity. They provide different analyses of what is wrong in the world, different explanations for why this is so, and promise different sorts of release in the future.
Christianity, of course, teaches that this is a fallen world where sin has taken hold; only through the grace of God and the saving ministry of Jesus Christ can we overcome the grip of sin, transcend this world, and make it to heaven. In Judaism the focus is on the “redemption” for individual Jews and the Israel generally as God’s chosen people. In Islam one speaks of najat, or deliverance from the punishment in hell to the pleasures of paradise.
Sin and Salvation in the World Religions
Eastern religions, like Hinduism and Buddhism, offer radically different visions of life and transcendence. Rather than “sin” that may be punished, they talk more about “ignorance” that we need to be delivered from — or, more accurately, that we need to deliver ourselves from. These religions don’t rely on the grace of any gods and instead insist that our future deliverance from the pains and suffering in this world lies in our hands and our ability to escape the ignorance or bad karma we have accumulated.
What makes Coward’s book so interesting is that it isn’t merely an exploration of a few parallel and similar doctrines in various religions. Instead, these doctrines are used to illuminate a whole spectrum of how these religions are perceived and lived by their adherents. An unusual but enlightening perspective is created that helps the reader not only understand each religion individually, but also its key differences from or similarities to other faiths.
