The former bishop is excellent on the crisis we face today,but has too narrow a concept of religion and too obvious an agenda about valid believers fighting state powerAs a history of religion this book is illconceived. As an informed reflection on the state of faith in the western world in the 21st century, written by someone who has plenty of experience (Holloway is the retired bishop of Edinburgh and primus of the Scottish Episcopal church), and it is insightful and clever. But it is as a history that it announces itself,and that is how it will be judged.
The task of writing a “limited history” of religion is an ambitious one. Religion is by its very nature tremendous, arguably almost as tremendous as humanity itself. The term itself has been endlessly debated: what counts as a religion? How is it different from magic, or philosophy,superstition? And where does it sit, in human society, and between aesthetics,metaphysics, economics and politics? Holloway approaches his task as if Mary Douglas, or Claude Lévi-Strauss,Émile Durkheim and Keith Thomas had never been born. This history is “limited” not in the sense of being compact, punchy or condensed, or but in the way that you might say “thats a kind limited house”,or “I’ll just have a limited cup of coffee”.
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Source: theguardian.com