Coming in 2010

What is Religion? emphasizes that for most people in most places, religion has been experienced much more through the senses than through reason. In contrast to many introductory texts that stress beliefs and scriptures, What is Religion? dunks students in the sights, sounds, smells, and actions that are the lifeblood of religion.

The larger first section of the book is organized by sense.

• "Religion is Seeing" introduces students to four main subjects: the sacred in nature (such as celestial bodies, mountains, rivers, lakes, cities, animals); the way the body symbolizes the divine or is used in worship; sacred architecture; and sacred art. Sidebars discuss the nature of myth, the theology of icons, and the meaning of mandalas.
• "Religion is Hearing" concentrates on prayer (spoken, chanted, or sung); story-telling; drumming; and instrumental music. Sidebars discuss scripture, altered states of consciousness, and shamanism.
• "Religion is Tasting and Smelling" focuses on food offered to deities or celebrated in feasts; on the control of diet; on the use of hallucinogens; and on the use of smoke. Sidebars discuss vision quests and rites of passage.
• "Religion is Feeling and Acting" is primarily concerned with dance; movements such as bowing, hand gestures, and pilgrimage; asceticism; and love and community. Sidebars discuss sacred time, religious ethics, and types of religious organization.
• "Religion is Thinking" concentrates on theology, debating, and divination.

In order to provide more coherence to this approach, five phenomena that each have multiple rich sensory dimensions are examined in each of the chapters: Navajo medicine chantways, Buddhist deity yoga, the Hindu puja, the Eastern Orthodox Eucharist, and Dagara (West Africa) funerals.

The final section of What is Religion? (which instructors might include or skip depending on their course goals) introduces students to several prominent methods for the study of religion.

• "The Phenomenological Approach" focuses upon the typologies of Eliade and other historians of religion, using examples such as sacred mountains or fertility rituals, and Ninian Smart’s seven dimensions of religion (myth, ritual, doctrine, etc.).
• "The Social Approach" introduces Peter Berger’s sociology of religion.
• "The Psychological Approach" uses the approach of Carl Jung and his successors.

The methods are all brought together in a final chapter in which they are applied to the five phenomena frequently described in Part I, such as Navajo medicine chantways.

The text is sprinkled with color pictures and hyperlinks to religious art, stories, sound files, and video clips. A guide for teachers suggests projects for students, including classroom demonstrations of ceremonies.