Religion Among People [Hardcover]

At the deepest level religious traditions determine what goes on between one human being and another, between one community and another, and between human beings and whoever holds power over them. Kees Bolle's original, passionate scholarship veered away from things handed down and standard in our thought about religions. In this his final book, he explores how religious paradigms have given rise to particular structures of power, and how religious myths compel particular human actions: the possibility of interpretation, the necessity for recognizing religious forms where they appear, the relationship of secularization and sacredness. And at every turn, Bolle examines the notion that Western intellectuals are nonreligious. He confronts the responsibility mere scholarship bears for events--sometimes terrible events--in the real world. We move from David and Nathan to Antigone, from Brahmanism and Buddhism to the familial struggle between Christianity and Islam. The book concludes with Bolle's striking reflections on how modern man has become inherently religious in concurrence with modern manifestations of power. Bolle is a fascinating figure. He loved the immediacy of lessons found in Hasidic stories, and his own thought may be said to approach the wholeness, the immediacy, of religion. Religion among People is the culmination of a life-long career devoted to the understanding of religion written in a clear style devoid of fashionable jargon. Always an opponent of reductionist theories and of religion as personal inner experience, Kees Bolle's project has been the study of religion that sees individuals as inextricably rooted in their respective cultural-historic circumstances. Throughout the book he follows his dictum: to know just one religion is to know none at all. --William Malandra, University of Minnesota Kees Bolle's posthumous work, Religion among People, is a most appropriate summary of his thoughts regarding the theory and practice of the lãö