Does a good World Religions HS textbook exist?

[Drewbiedoo]

I’m a Catholic high school teacher who is responsible for teaching a semester-long World Religions course, generally covering Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Islam. We currently use this textbook from St. Mary’s Press, which is fairly sketchy - at best. There is a single short paragraph about the Eucharist and a picture of the first Episcopal priestess when talking about vocations. I’ve developed a lesson plan to avoid the crazy stuff and present some Catholic philosophy against the other. (Un)fortunately, the books are getting fairly torn up and it’s time to order a new batch.

I’m looking for decent Catholic textbooks that:

1. Teach the major religions of the world
2. Aren’t heterodox

Midwest Theological Forum has an Ecumenism textbook coming out, but it only covers the Abrahamic religions. The Eastern religions are enough of the semester that I can’t justify the purchase of a book that I’ll discard for such a long period of time.

Any ideas?

Any ideas? Should I forget the formal textbook and

 

[triumphguy]

That’s the same one I use to teach WR. I think it’s a good textbook. But I do have the kids do their own research on the different religions too, as well as speakers from the different faiths. We don’t use this book to teach the Catholic faith though.

And to be fair to the book - the photo of the female episcopal bishop comes under the section on Protestantism, not Catholicism (or vocations).

“Barbara Harris was ordained in 1989 as the first female bishop in the Episcopal Church” p.242
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/1/?u...1&disp=thd&realattid=1433130100853833728-1&zw

IMNSHO think it’s an orthodox Catholic Textbook: For instance, it has a very nice reflection by a student about her experience of the Eucharistic in the section on Catholicism. p.243

The only error I see is where they call a Franciscan (OFM) a “monk” rather than a friar. But lots of Catholics make that mistake.

 

[LoyalViews]

Good luck to you.

The local school here uses a completely, factual-only book published by Oxford Press. It’s not too bad.

But the teacher, is a “religious-is-only-an-opinion” type, so it’s no good. However the book is alright, because it relies only on the historical facts though the section on Christianity has a few errors on the Eucharist, and it uses the NIV bible.

 

[Joe_5859]

Short answer: not really.

Are you sure the forthcoming MTF book only addresses Abrahamic religions? I would be surprised if they didn’t mention Eastern religions at all.

If their coverage of Eastern religions is sparse, that’s probably because it’s sparse in the USCCB’s Doctrinal Elements of a Curriculum Framework. Of the 5 page outline, Eastern religions only takes up about 1/4 of one page – which translates to about 5% of the whole outline.

Of all the sketchy Catholic high school textbooks out there, I think this topic inspires sketchiness more so than any other. I am looking forward to MTF’s book. I cannot think of any on the market right now that I feel 100% comfortable with. If someone knows of one, I too would be very interested in hearing about it.

If you look at the USCCB Conformity List, there are currently no “World Religion” books on the list. Part of the reason for that is because there’s not a whole lot about other religions in the Catechism, so the USCCB doesn’t really review those books. But the Conformity Subcommittee has added a section on the Conformity list for High School Doctrinal Framework texts. So maybe that will change things.

The problem is, a lot of publishers so far haven’t really focused much on the electives found in the Framework (except for Scripture and Church History – because they already had plenty of those books). SMP’s World Religions book predates the Framework and wasn’t really written with it in mind. MTF’s book – most likely – will follow the Framework very closely.

Now that the Framework has been out 5 years and most of the major publishers have released their new books based on the core curriculum, I am hoping that we will see some new offerings on the electives, especially this one that has been overlooked so far.

 

[Drewbiedoo]

Call it a “dynamic equivalent” of the spirit of the book.

That’s the same one I use to teach WR. I think it’s a good textbook. But I do have the kids do their own research on the different religions too, as well as speakers from the different faiths. We don’t use this book to teach the Catholic faith though.

And to be fair to the book - the photo of the female episcopal bishop comes under the section on Protestantism, not Catholicism (or vocations).

“Barbara Harris was ordained in 1989 as the first female bishop in the Episcopal Church” p.242

IMNSHO think it’s an orthodox Catholic Textbook: For instance, it has a very nice reflection by a student about her experience of the Eucharistic in the section on Catholicism. p.243

The only error I see is where they call a Franciscan (OFM) a “monk” rather than a friar. But lots of Catholics make that mistake.

 

[SalesianSDB]

That is the text book my alma mater used! I took Peer Ministry class instead so I never got to use the books so I can’t say one way or the other.

Last semester I took an Intro to Christianity course and my professor used John Haught’s What is Religion? to teach us a little about the differences between Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity. It was an interesting book (and the professor is the most devout professor I’ve ever had).
amazon.com/What-Religion-Introduction-John-Haught/dp/080913117X