5.7: For Further Reading

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Sensitive, empathetic, systematic assessments of quality of religious practice in published form are largely nonexistent, especially from a commonsense or interreligious basis. Or rather, the field is in its infancy. The following books are a good place to begin further study, though most are written within a largely Christian context.

Margaret P. Battin, Ethics in the Sanctuary (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990). Charles Davis, Temptations of Religion (New York: Harper & Row, 1973).
Ronald L. Grimes, Ritual Criticism: Case Studies in Its Practice, Essays on Its Theory

(Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1990). (Grimes here attempts to establish an academic field of ritual criticism, not only of religious ritual but also of ritual in drama and other areas of life. He is concerned with identifying what makes ritual come off well or badly, what makes it succeed, and what makes it fail.)

Hans Kung, in his Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic, trans. John Bowden (New York: Crossroad, 1991). (Kung develops his argument within an explicitly inter-religious context and does not hesitate to raise critical questions about practice within each religious tradition. His argument, however, remains at the level of generalizations and does not get down to many specifics.)

Julius H. Rubin, Religious Melancholy and Protestant Experience in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).

Gregory Max Vogt, Pathological Christianity: The Dangers and Cures ofExtremist Fundamentalism (Notre Dame, IN: Cross Roads Books, 1994).

Conrad W. Weiser, Healers-HarmedandHarmful(Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1994). Richard Wentz, Why People Do Bad Things in the Name of Religion, rev. ed. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1993).