Abstract

Since this book is an "invitation to religious studies," its content and style reflect the author's conception of what religious studies are. Religion he describes in several ways, though usually in a broad sense. "Religion is the acting out of a vision of personal identity and human community. Religion is constituted by the most ultimate, least easily surrendered, most comprehensive choices a person or a society acts out." Again, "religion is a conversion from the ordinary, given, secure world to a world of nothingness, terror, risk--a world in which nevertheless there is strange healing and joy." In the light of this latter description, Novak describes religious studies as calling "for an attitude of fresh awareness, a new sensitivity to others, to nature and to oneself, and a series of conversions in one's way of life." The book begins with a consideration of religion as autobiography. Employing categories which will be familiar to readers of his other recent writings, Novak describes human life as the adoption of successive standpoints ; "a story links these points in time." This section concludes with provocative discussions of the aesthetic, moral and religious stages of human life, and of the meaning and range of reason. Convinced that human identity is cultural as well as personal, Novak then devotes the major part of his book to discussions of culture, institutions, and organizations. In regard to institutions he argues the proposition "that man is a political animal; and that institutions are both his natural habitat and the chief instruments of his growth in liberty." His discussion of organizations includes sections on liturgy, types of religious groupings, the place of sacred writings and of theologies within religions. One senses throughout the book the effort of a professor of religious studies to articulate what his task is and a concern to reach his students. For example, he argues often and at length for the importance of the subject in humanistic knowing, by contrast to the objective standpoint of the scientist. In this his arguments may seem a bit simplistic and repetitious to one familiar with contemporary philosophical thought. Similarly, there are enough summary generalizations that any reader is likely to find some to quarrel with. Finally, his prose style will at times strike some readers as somewhat overwrought. Nevertheless, the book is a provocative one, of interest to anyone concerned with religious studies or the philosophy of religion.--H. F.