Michael’s mother gave us So What’s the Difference? by Fritz Ridenour for Christmas. It was very thoughtful of her, she knows we’re really getting into religious studies. I tend to enjoy books that explain differences between religions, so I thought this could be a good addition to that collective.
I gave Ridenour the benefit of the doubt, he might be a Christian but there are plenty of Christians in the world who know about other religions and can discuss and write about them in an intelligent manner. Unfortunately I quickly realized that he’s either ignorant or he’s really into pushing Christian propaganda, and quite possibly both.
Now I realize that it might be slanted toward Christianity, and the Bibilcal references that contradict what other religions proclaim are perfectly appropriate since the book is about looking at other religions and comparing them to Christianity. I understand that in a book of this size you can’t go in depth about anything.
But it is completely inexcusable for some of what he says about these other religions to be COMPLETELY FALSE. It’s inappropriate for him to throw around the word “Cult” which so obviously has negative associations in our culture – I follow a definition of “cult” that drops every organized religion into it, but in an objective review of other religions I won’t start saying so, it just upsets people.
This book has had “Over One Million Copies Sold” – since the target market is fundamentalist christians, I’d say most of the buyers actually believe what is presented here. I don’t think I’d be stretching too far to say that many of these people might not even look further than this book (or exerpts read to/shared with them at Church) for understanding of other religions. Just reading the Amazon.com reviews shows me a bunch of Christians who say how great this book is for “Witnessing to others” and how it’s such a great teaching tool.
Sigh. It makes me sad to see such misinformation be so popular.