Rating: 
Summary: excellent work with two concerns
Review: As a student of Dr. Kimball at Wake Forest University, I thought it important to submit a review of his most recent book from that perspective. I have read other works by Dr. Kimball, but this one is by far the best. It is timely in its publication, yet scholarly in its approach. Too many books have been published on terrorism since Spetember 11, 2001 that are nothing more than fluff, riding the wave of capitalism on the wallets of the ignorant. However, Dr. Kimball's work analyzes religion and the nature of faith when it becomes corrupt, explaining how the process works and the end results it has the potential to produce. Of all the books out there on this same subject, of which I have read many, Dr. Kimball's is numbered among the best. I have only two concerns about it, the first of which is minor; often Kimball cites himself, which comes off as pompous. The second concern is that he cites both John Esposito and Samuel B. Huntington as positive examples of other scholars who have written on the same subject. In conversation with many Arab Muslims recently, they have warned me of these two authors saying that their approach to Middle Eastern studies is far too Western and lacks real understanding of complex issues. I have not read Esposito, but I concur with this assessment of Huntington's work (Clash of Civilizations). However, Kimball's book is well written, erudite, concise, and above all, informative. In this day and age of uncertainty, books such as this serve to enlighten those of us who know little, but thirst for more.
Rating: 
Summary: Evil in All Religion
Review: Charles Kimball cogently organized his symptoms of evil in religion, the five signs to "watch for". I agree with his analysis as far as it goes, but because of the nature of religion, no religious person would ever think that the standards to which he refers would apply to their practices.
It's more important to remember that it is the very nature of religion to be evil, by definition.
The only certainty about the nature of God that all religions share is that the material world, i.e. nature, and that would include our physical beings, is a manifestation of God, that God is the creator.
As soon as we take one step away from that appreciation we distance ourselves from God. And when religion is based on dim and ancient memories of something that may or may not have happened a very long time ago, an established tradition not confirmed by the realities of God's creations that surround us daily, then we indulge in a very real evil. This happens all too often. A culture's selfish traditions become rooted in that culture's prevailing religion with an appalling inevitability because religion by definition means to "hold to" -- not to change and grow.
Analyze your religion honestly. Just what percentage of it is actually spent in an attempt to experience God, through prayer or meditation? How much of it is social? How much of it is devoted to discussion of God -- and remember, that God can never be experienced through intellectual thought. And how many practices have devolved in your religion which actually do harm to God's earth, whether to other humans, through their death or exploitation, or through a willing destruction of the earth.
All of Kimball's five warning signs certainly apply here, but he wields them a little too tenderly to be useful today. All religions need to be called on the carpet all the time.
Rating: 
Summary: When Religion becomes Evil, read SB 1 or God by Maddox
Review: Charles Kimball explores subjects of separate religions we all have some awareness of, brings that to light which most of us know. Someone in all those religions has to be wrong causing failure. Human failure which has reached unacceptable proportions. It doesn't take much of a genius to conclude how wrong, but what do you do about it when there are 911 related wrongs. I would say that this book was prompted by 911, even though Charles has for years devoted his time to the subject of religion causing problems, he is claiming 9 11 as a source of evidense not brought to this level of awareness before. I must comment, how much more evidense does one need when the perpetrator of this 911 attack (Osama) praised his god for it? I agree with Charles, it is time we concentrated our true humanity in the direction of what is more realistic, we have to at some point define a non crossable line in freedom of religion when it causes such humanitarin hinderence. A absolutely astounding book that goes much further than this and has proved success is SB 1 or God.
Rating:
Summary: Beware of Mad Cows, be a Vegetarian
Review: Dr Kimball is a professor in comparative religion. So in its best tradition, he recommends a politically-correct and pragmatic approach to everyday life; Live and let live. Sure we must, but its a cop out if in doing so we had to deny that there is anything near the Absolute Truth that only can be of God. His book diagnoses 5 warning signs "When RELIGION becomes evil", one of which is the absolute truth claim. Sad to say, the book would better be retitled "Blind religious zealots groping the Elephant" with Dr Kimball himself to claim "I can see that's what they are doing, and that's the Absolute Truth". If Jesus is not the incarnate Son of God who died for the sins of the world - to people all over the world i.e. both believers and non-believers, then Christianity is not even a partial truth but a lie and false. It would not be worth believing must less to live on. So any religion is already evil as long as it idolises any other personality other than worshipping God in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Would comparative religion based on a relativist humanism worldview or philosophy of multiple realities be the right place to adjudicate God? Surely this would end in futility. There are misguided and self-serving Christians and also those who misuse the name of the Lord. But even if there is just one Gandhi, who lived life in a Hindu culture and yet could see and believe in the truth of Jesus Christ, God is indeed bigger than religions. If in the name of tolerance and we pray to God to just leave people where they are, then the Devil will have the last laugh over our own stupidity. Have we become kinder by being vegetarian if our doing so is because we are afraid of mad cow disease? That seems to be the thesis of "When Religion Becomes Evil" as the disease with the 5 warning signs as the preventive prescription. My view is that the doctor diagnosed the disease wrong.
Rating:
Summary: Accessible and well reasoned : an excellent book
Review: Everyone concerned about destructive fanaticism manifesting itself in the world's major religions should read this important book, praised by Publisher's Weekly as "Top Religion Book of 2002." Kimball, whose grandfather was Jewish, is an ordained Baptist minister, a committed religious liberal, and a Harvard-educated scholar of religious history, especially of the "Abrahamic" faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He loves all three of these faiths with a deep-rooted passion and is also an admirer of Buddhism and of Gandhi. For years he has served the cause of cross-cultural understanding and human rights as speaker, writer and National Council of Churches diplomat. Dr. Kimball was ideally situated to write a book clarifying the troubling issues raised by 9/11 and other recent events worldwide. The book's primary theme is to find out why certain followers of religion enslave themselves to doctrine, and why they dehumanize, even demonize, those who follow other paths. It begins with a head-on discussion of whether religion itself is the problem, concluding, as most of us would, that genuinely transcendent religious faith -- like Martin Luther King's and Gandhi's -- provides history's cutting edge for good, but that coerced religious practice is intrinsically evil. More than once he writes that "freedom from religion is a corollary to freedom of religion." The chapters are broken into his choice of the five most dangerous tendencies of religious belief, which are listed below along with a few of the subtopics. In some ways this is a weak structure, since many of the topics and subtopics overlap, but sorting them into five broad areas aids the reader in focusing on important issues: Absolute truth claims -- misunderstanding and denigration of other faiths, idolatry of sacred texts and/or hierarchies, the difficulty of defining deep religious concepts in words Blind obedience -- requiring adherents to "disconnect their brain" (Kimball's phrase), not only within cults like Jonestown and Aum Shinrikyo, but also troubling manifestations within all the major world faiths Establishing the "ideal" time -- Millennialism, Israel-Palestine, televangelism, the Taliban The end justifies any means -- Hindu-Muslim conflicts, Bosnia, murder of abortionists, cover-ups of child-molesting priests Declaring holy war -- Christian crusades and inquisitions, Islamic and Jewish fanaticism, cynical use of religion for political ends, the real meaning of "jihad." Although I've read the Qu'ran a couple of times, that was some years ago and I learned so much about the nobler aspects of Islam from Kimball's book that I intend to reread that faith's sacred text. Kimball's final chapter, on inclusive belief, is cautiously hopeful, and ends in a quote from the Qu'ran, Surah 5:48, which is more latitudinarian than anything I recall from either the Judaic or Christian scriptures: "If God had so willed He would have created you one community, but [instead] . . . compete with one another in good works." As Kimball sees it, the sublimest aspect of religion is its vast and infinite diversity, providing all varieties of competition for good, which in time may overwhelm the evil tendencies of religious narrowness. Keep this impressive book on your shelf next to Eric Hoffer's classic on political fanaticism, The True Believer.
Rating:
Summary: This book should be translated into many languages
Review: Everyone concerned about destructive fanaticism manifesting itself in the world's major religions should read this important book, praised by Publisher's Weekly as "Top Religion Book of 2002." Kimball, whose grandfather was Jewish, is an ordained Baptist minister, a committed religious liberal, and a Harvard-educated scholar of religious history, especially of the "Abrahamic" faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He loves all three of these faiths with a deep-rooted passion and is also an admirer of Buddhism and of Gandhi. For years he has served the cause of cross-cultural understanding and human rights as speaker, writer and National Council of Churches diplomat. Dr. Kimball was ideally situated to write a book clarifying the troubling issues raised by 9/11 and other recent events worldwide. The book's primary theme is to find out why certain followers of religion enslave themselves to doctrine, and why they dehumanize, even demonize, those who follow other paths. It begins with a head-on discussion of whether religion itself is the problem, concluding, as most of us would, that genuinely transcendent religious faith -- like Martin Luther King's and Gandhi's -- provides history's cutting edge for good, but that coerced religious practice is intrinsically evil. More than once he writes that "freedom from religion is a corollary to freedom of religion." The chapters are broken into his choice of the five most dangerous tendencies of religious belief, which are listed below along with a few of the subtopics. In some ways this is a weak structure, since many of the topics and subtopics overlap, but sorting them into five broad areas aids the reader in focusing on important issues: Absolute truth claims -- misunderstanding and denigration of other faiths, idolatry of sacred texts and/or hierarchies, the difficulty of defining deep religious concepts in words Blind obedience -- requiring adherents to "disconnect their brain" (Kimball's phrase), not only within cults like Jonestown and Aum Shinrikyo, but also troubling manifestations within all the major world faiths Establishing the "ideal" time -- Millennialism, Israel-Palestine, televangelism, the Taliban The end justifies any means -- Hindu-Muslim conflicts, Bosnia, murder of abortionists, cover-ups of child-molesting priests Declaring holy war -- Christian crusades and inquisitions, Islamic and Jewish fanaticism, cynical use of religion for political ends, the real meaning of "jihad." Although I've read the Qu'ran a couple of times, that was some years ago and I learned so much about the nobler aspects of Islam from Kimball's book that I intend to reread that faith's sacred text. Kimball's final chapter, on inclusive belief, is cautiously hopeful, and ends in a quote from the Qu'ran, Surah 5:48, which is more latitudinarian than anything I recall from either the Judaic or Christian scriptures: "If God had so willed He would have created you one community, but [instead] . . . compete with one another in good works." As Kimball sees it, the sublimest aspect of religion is its vast and infinite diversity, providing all varieties of competition for good, which in time may overwhelm the evil tendencies of religious narrowness. Keep this impressive book on your shelf next to Eric Hoffer's classic on political fanaticism, The True Believer.
Rating:
Summary: Important topic; flawed conceptuality
Review: How should we understand religions' connections to political and military goals? Can we tell when religions become "evil"? What are the central claims of religions? Religion professor Charles Kimball attempts to shed light on these questions in his wide-ranging, but ultimately, disappointing. Kimball believes the well-established religions should be respected, despite evils committed in their name, because they all "converge in teaching both an orientation toward God or the transcendent and compassionate, constructive relationships with others in this world" (p. 39). However, this does not imply that "all roads lead up the same mountain" (p. 25). Religions may defect from their "authentic sources" and thus even become evil in several ways. Remember, "evil" is a moral category not available to relativists. For example, religions may make "absolute truth claims," require "blind obedience," "establish an 'ideal time'" (attempt to set up a utopian theocracy), teach that "the end justifies the means" or "declare holy war." Kimball addresses these matters in the context of various religions (ancient and modern), such as providing insights into the dynamics of doomsday groups such the Branch Davidians and the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo, which required total commitment to irrational beliefs that led to destructive behaviors. He also attempts to explore the religious motivations of Osama Bin Laden and his followers, but spends less time on this than expected. Kimball rightly observes that truth claims are foundational for religion. But, he claims that believers err when they hold their religious beliefs in a "rigid" or "absolute" manner. So, when some Christians criticize the Islamic view of God (Allah) as deficient, they reveal their ignorance and bigotry. Kimball asserts that, "there is simply no ambiguity here. Jews, Christians, and Muslims are taking about the same deity" (p. 50). This is because the Qur'an claims that Allah inspired the Hebrew prophets and Jesus. Moreover, the Arabic word "Allah" means "God." Is this true? While Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all monotheistic, they differ considerably in their conceptions of God. Islam denies the Trinity and the Incarnation, both of which are well-established Christian doctrines. But God cannot be both a Trinity (Christian) and not a Trinity (Islam). This is a matter of logic, not religious intolerance. Moreover, these religions' different concepts of God explain why Muslims and Christians try to convert each other. If mutual understanding is key to tolerance, then disagreements between religions should not be dismissed by deleting "absolute" truth claims from their "authentic sources." It is certainly possible to tolerate someone who holds religious views quite contrary to one's own. America, at its best, excells at this. Kimball wants to soften biblical claims about the uniqueness and centrality of Jesus by saying that they should be taken as pious exaggerations (p. 68-70). However, such affirmations are plentiful in the New Testament (see John 14:1-6; Acts 4:12) and have historically been seen as objective descriptions, not embellishments. The major creeds of the Christian church makes this clear. Kimball seems to be calling for a revision of Christianity's "authentic sources," not a return to them. Likewise, most Muslims would reject this kind of revision of the Qur'an. Muslims claim that Muhammad was the last and greatest of the prophets, not just one among many. Being "rigid" on this doctrine is necessary to Islam. Mortimer Adler's short but incisive study, "Truth in Religion" (1990), is a better guide on the issue of conflicting truth claims. In addition, Kimball never really faces the possibility that a religion's "authentic sources" themselves may contain moral and theological errors that encourage evils. He also tends to overemphasize the abuses of Christians--such as the Crusades--while underemphasizing similar abuses by Muslims, such as dhimmitude: an institution that places heavy restrictions on non-Muslims in Islamic nations (p. 201). On this, see the work of Bat Ye'or. Kimball's ambitious book highlights the need to make reasoned and well-informed judgments on religions and their ethical implications. However, we still await a book that adequately handles this controversial topic in the wage of September 11, 2001. A better book on the dynamics of religious pluralism globally is Vinoth Ramachandra, "Faiths In Conflict" (InterVarsity Press, 1999). Douglas Groothuis
Rating:
Summary: A Plea For Sanity in a World Gone Mad
Review: I cannot recommend this book highly enough. The author has a wide range of education AND experience. I learned a lot about Middle East problems and Islam. I already believed that Christianity is also prone to "evil" outcomes. One only need look at history to know that. Until we all accept the fact that there are many paths to God and that all religions have merit, we will never stop killing each other. GET THIS BOOK!
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Summary: The seeds of hope within . . .
Review: I received this book in proof edition from one of my Religion Editor friends. She has done me a great service. I found the thought process and information provided by Kimball to be most compelling. The book is well laid out and well written with concise expression of ideas. I have long believed that religion as we know it today has become corrupted by men (and I do mean men since the religions are mostly controlled by men, not women). But Kimball puts into eloquent words those ideas and concepts which I found I could only hold in my mind and not express. Like so many books in this genre, When Religion Becomes Evil was scheduled for publication on the one year anniversary of the 9/11/01 tragedies. It could not have been timed better or be more relevant and important. For it not only points out the five basic corruptions that manifest themselves in each of the major religious traditions, but it holds out hope that each of those religions has within it the wherewithal to root out and correct those flaws. Yet we must be willing to hold ourselves and our faith institutions accountable for the intolerance we practice. Kimball states that religion is arguably the most powerful and persuasive force on earth and that yes, it is the problem. It is the problem because each seems to hold that it alone has the absolute truth, demands blind obedience, and justifies the means used by the end goal (presumably salvation or "right living.") Somehow, Kimball has reinvigorated the often used argument that the basic teaching of the world faith traditions (Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and Buddhist) have been used for corrupt ends, yet are in themselves the seeds for healing. "The complicity of religious persuasions in global conflicts today is undeniable, but understanding this complicity requires that we clearly grasp the difference between what we have called corrupt forms of religious commitment and the authentic forms that offer hope." The message of this book, so eloquently and convincingly written, is one that all lay people should embrace. We must hold ourselves and our faith institutions accountable for our actions in the world. For "a segregated group in which the thinking and critical decisions reside with one or a few people, particularly where there is apocalyptic teaching involved, is a disaster waiting to happen."
Rating:
Summary: Great book with one major flaw
Review: I visited the campus of Wake Forest University and the book store featured this book by Dr. Kimball, a noted faculty member. I bought it and discovered that, although Dr. Kimball is an ordained Baptist minister, he is not a fundamentalist. In fact, fundamentalism is one of the main causes of religion turning bad. Dr. Kimball points out that religion is not bad, it is good. Unfortunately, religion is often perverted, causing it to become evil. It is the perversion of religion, not religion itself, that is evil. Although a Christian, Dr. Kimball examines Christian, as well as Muslim examples of evil, such as the Crusades. A major cause of religion turning evil is the belief that one's religion is the truth and other religions are false, ie, exclusivity. This is a problem among some Moslems and Christians, and to a much lesser extent, among some Jews. Other perversions of religion include a belief that an ideal time is upon us (remember the group that committed mass suicide when the Hale Bopp Comet arrived?) and a blind alegience to a leader. In all, Kimball sets forth five perversions of religion which are warning signs of possible evil. I have one concern with this otherwise excellent book. Dr. Kimball is a great theologian but not that good a politician. Therefore, as a good man of God, he attempts to take an evenhanded approach to the Mideast, blaming Israel for not extending its democratic institutions to Arabs and Palestinians. First of all, to a great extent, Dr. Kimball is wrong in that Israel does provide a great amount of feeedom to all citizens. Secondly, with constant terror attacks against it, Israel has no choice but to protect itself. Giving potential enemies, too much freedom is a prescription for terrorist attacks to continue unabated. Despite this serious flaw, I still give the book 4 stars since Dr. Kimball is not malicious, but rather acting as a theologian who seeks even handedness rather than dealing in "realpolitik." In fact, through most of the book, he demonstrates attitudes that shows he is not at all anti semitic. In fact, he comes down harder on other religions than he does on judaism as examples of religion turning evil. With my one caveat, I highly recommend this book.
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