World Religions and Cults 101: A Guide to Spiritual Beliefs

by Bruce Bickel, Stan Jantz

Why are there so many religions? Do they basically teach the same thing? Bruce and Stan address these questions and more as they take a close look at some of the world's major religions and belief systems. From Islam to Jehovah's Witnesses and from New Age Spirituality to Atheism, Darwinism, and Naturalism, World Religions and Cults 101 features— Readers will also discover why spiritual searching is universal, how each religion compares to Christianity, the characteristics of cults, and what makes Christianity unique. Formerly titled Bruce & Stan's® Guide to Cults, Religions, and Spiritual Beliefs

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, Reference, Christian, Education, School

272 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2005

Reviews

[Bobby H]

4 1/4 stars. Does a good job giving brief history and beliefs of major world religions, LDS and JW, New Age thought, mind science and non-thesist schools of thought.
The writing style reminds me of Dummies and Idiots books with pull-out boxes throughout.
Since it is part of the Christianity 101 series expect a Christian bias, but the authors try to be fair to other faiths.

[Gabrielle Houweling]

Read with a book study in 2013. I still reference it today- I like how it compares/contrasts other religions with Christianity in a factual, non-judgemental way

[Jonny Grubbs]

I had to read this book for school. It’s not very scholarly at all. There are good reasons to refute some of the claims of the Roman Catholic Church, but they just gloss over them and make a “just because we’re Protestant” type argument.

I also don’t like books that purport this us vs. them mentality when it comes to Roman Catholics.

I am a Protestant, and the Theological books I have loved the most from Protestants always refer to Catholic doctrine in terms of “what our Catholic Brothers and Sisters believe”.

This irked me about the other world religion book I read this year: Revisionist Church history that discounts Catholics.

I do think that by-and-large they do give a good overview of the world religions and it does provide a basic understanding of each.

That’s why I rate it right down the middle.

It’s not useless source, just not a premium one.

[Kimberly]

Good book if you want to know more of the basic beliefs about different religions. And even though it is written by Christians (a fact they don't hide from) I felt they did a good job of fairly explaining the different beliefs.

[jeff]

It had pretty shallow treatment of many religions, but that can only be expected of a book of this size.

[Tiffany]

ON hold.....

[Mel]

This book was informative and very easy to understand.

[Scott]

The fact that people might actually use this book to provide an understanding of the religions of those around them scares me.

[Linda]

This has a definite Christian slant, but it was very interesting reading. It has lots of information I didn't know before.

[Becky Rivers]

A fluffy overview of religions and "general idea" cults such as the New Age and Mind Science groups. Certainly not Josh McDowell.

[Jack Oughton]

You can't write an objective guide to religious beliefs through this strongly a Christian interpretation - it just comes across as spiritual propaganda.