I mainly planned to read this book because it was doing the same thing I'm doing in the book I'm writing and hope to publish. I thought it was written by some nice, probably obscure, professor who did what university professors tend to do: publish books that are good, but not widely known.

Boy, was *I* wrong. Charles Kimball got his Harvard Th.D. in comparative religion, specializing in Islamic studies, and is an ordained Baptist minister. He lived 20 years in the Middle East, working with the World Council of Churches and also government-related organizations. He met most big players in the Middle and Near East during that time (including the Ayatollah Khomeini, who met with him because he was one of the few Americans who really knew Islam). He continued to work with the WCC and interfaith organizations when he returned to the U.S. He is now the Chair of the Department of Religion at Wake Forest University.

And does he know his stuff! He believes the core of every religion is the push for social peace and mercy, but claims there are five warning signs for religion instead becoming evil: 1) absolute truth claims; 2) blind obedience; 3) establishing the "ideal" time; 4) end justifies the means; 5) declaration of holy war. He can trace histories of how these ideas corrupt religions and turn them violent, from the Crusades to Sikh/Hindu conflicts, to the Israeli/Palestinian situation, to the current American Religious Right.

I'm not sure he gave quite enough credence to the fact that rigidity and violence do always tend to accompany almost every religion, no matter how much it preaches peace. He might turn the question back on me, and ask if I've known any major non-religious world view, with lots of adherents, that didn't have a similar problem; perhaps the problem is the human heart rather than the belief system.

But his analysis is deep and detailed, and compassion runs through this book as its lifeblood and energizing force. It was humbling to encounter someone of such experience, who still views the world with hope and compassion even after all he has seen. ( )