God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World—and Why Their Differences Matter, by Stephen R. Prothero. New York: HarperOne, 2010, $26.99.

Boston University professor of religion Stephen Prothero has a beef with the prevailing viewpoint of many colleagues in his field. He is weary of the approach to the study of world religions that pictures all religious pilgrims ascending the same mountain. If Jews and Confucians and Hindus begin at different points in the foothills, they will eventually converge at the top. Best-selling champions of this view include Karen Armstrong, Joseph Campbell, and Bill Moyers.

Prothero presents an alternative perspective in this follow-up to Religious Illiteracy (his 2007 exposé of the shocking ignorance of world religions on the part of Americans). Neither book should be mistaken for a conservative Christian analysis of religion. Still, while he describes himself as a “religiously confused” Christian, Prothero provides much clarity in God is Not One, especially in the light of recent controversies on the proper conduct of inter-religious dialogue.

According to Prothero, this Enlightenment approach from which he dissents demands a condescending dismissal of the particularity of religious truth claims and practices. He finds this thinking common among his undergraduate students in religion. If the study of world religions demands a measure of winsome disagreement, his students characteristically excel at cordiality, but they fail in discerning genuine differences. While intentions may be conciliatory, the results are catastrophic. Religious tolerance makes the world a safer place, but false assertions of religious unity make it a far more dangerous place, Prothero insists.

He explains that “religion does not exist in the abstract” any more “than you can speak language in general” (9). Particular religions have different goals and aspirations, and he proceeds to analyze them in terms of problem, solution, technique, and exemplar. Christianity, for example, defines the human condition as sin, the solution as salvation through Jesus Christ, the technique (and here he aims to be inclusive) “some combination of faith and good works.” His exemplars range from the saints of Roman Catholicism to ordinary believers of Protestantism. In contrast, Muslims see humanity less in a “fallen” sinful condition than as wanderers from the straight path. The solution is submission to Allah, the technique is the practice of the five pillars, and the exemplar, of course is the great and last prophet, Muhammad.

Prothero goes on to survey eight major world religions, and the book as a whole is an engaging introduction, though not without its weaknesses. Even the ordering of his chapters, from the greatest religion to the smallest, will prove unsettling for the Christian reader, because he begins with Islam. Anticipating Christian objections, he provides this wake-up call. “To presume that the conversation about the great religions starts with Christianity is to show your parochialism and your age,” he counters. “The nineteenth and twentieth centuries may have belonged to Christianity. The twenty-first belongs to Islam” (63). After Christianity, he goes on to cover Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Yoruba Religion, Judaism, and Daoism.

His treatment of Islam is a helpful primer on its origins and history. He devotes careful attention to both the unity and the diversity in worldwide Islam. In the process he takes aim at the simplistic and sentimental claim that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. Irreconcilable differences separate the Father of Jesus Christ from the God of Muhammad. Christians and Muslims will live more cordially with each other only when they reckon with these differences and not deny them. (Note well, disaffected Wheaton College alumni and friends.)

Less reliable is the author’s treatment of Christianity. Reformed Protestantism is given the briefest of treatments, equal to that of Anabaptists and half of the attention devoted to Anglicans. Included among the myriad of Protestant denominations are Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christian Science.

One bonus feature in the book worth noting is his treatment of a ninth “world religion” in his final chapter, “A Brief Coda on the New Atheism.” While acknowledging the existence of “friendly atheists,” the focus falls on the angry take-no-prisoners rhetoric of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and others. Although they would strongly object to finding themselves in such company, Prothero considers them religious for several reasons. First, its advocates argue “with the conviction of zealots” (318) rhetorically matching “the dogmatism of their fundamentalist foes” (322). More significantly, atheism manifests the functional elements of a religion: it has a creed, an ethical code, a community, and a cultus (yes, they even have their own rituals). His insights are accompanied by a lively rhetoric as in this sample: “Like fundamentalists and cowboys, [new atheists] live in a Manichean world in which forces of light are engaged in a great apocalyptic battle against forces of darkness” (322).

By dissenting from both the mountain climbers that would commend the unity of all religions and the skeptical dismissal of anything religious by new atheists, Prothero promotes the cultivation of humility as an essential outcome of the study of world religions. Humility does not necessarily demand a relativism that erodes the certainty of one’s theological convictions. But it may make room for greater civility in a world where religious pluralism is dramatically intensifying. The author makes this appeal in his conclusion:

I too hope for a world in which human beings can get along with their religious rivals. I am convinced, however, that we need to pursue this goal through new means. Rather than beginning with the sort of Godthink that lumps all religions together in one trash can or one treasure chest, we must start with a clear-eyed understanding of the fundamental differences in both belief and practice between Islam and Christianity, Confucianism and Hinduism. (335)

John R. Muether, a ruling elder at Reformation Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Oviedo, Florida, is library director at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida, and historian of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Ordained Servant Online, February 2016.