As the academic study of religion continues to make its publications, expertise, and skills more accessible to the public, many authors are increasingly writing for a non-scholarly audience. Peter Moore’s Reinventing Religion: Beyond Belief and Scepticism successfully condenses complex, (and sometimes multi-volume) works into a single clear and concise book that can be read by anyone. The aim of this book, Moore writes, is “to excite interest in the subject and to encourage people to ask constructive questions about it” (9).
Moore takes seriously the goal of enabling everyone interested in religion to engage with it because of the power and influence that religion exerts in society and human lives every day. And since scholars of religion are often making a case for or against the term and category, and are not writing for a wide readership, religion is more challenging to engage with than other areas of human society. As Moore notes, “my general rule of thumb is that religion should be treated in the same way…as any other sphere of human interest or activity” (7). For Moore writing this volume was a chance to create a resource enabling everyone to engage with some of the current and popular arguments and ideas in religious studies. By reading this book, both proponents and critics of religion, as well as those who stand somewhere in between, will strengthen their ability to think about and engage with religion in both critical and creative ways.
Reinventing Religion is written as an introductory text that explores twelve different “misconceptions about religion” (9) that Moore sees as integral in understanding why conflict, skepticism, or claims of belief occur. Accordingly, the chapters cover common introductory arguments, like the problem of defining religion and whether religion is about belief or practice, but they also address common arguments that often arise between religious and non-religious people, like the conflict between science and religion and why people leave religions. In each chapter, Moore talks through each misconception and the different ways its key considerations are viewed. He examines the topics through the lens of religious believers, atheism, and skepticism, as well as engages the academic arguments and evidence that surround historical and ongoing conversations about religion. Readers may appreciate the examples he uses from multiple religions, often drawing upon Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism in particular. In his chapter titled “Religion as Theory,” for example, Moore discusses the importance of myth to religion by not only using classic examples from Greek mythology for his argument, he also drawing examples from Buddhism to explain the importance that he sees in the communication of truths and realities (84). Through his inclusion of multiple understandings of these subjects, Moore invites his readers to think about, question, and contribute to the conversations he is introducing to his readers through multiple viewpoints.
For Moore, religion needs to be reinvented in the minds of the public because they have internalized the pluralistic syncretistic thought on religions, that all religions are the same, though Moore also falls prey to this common assumption. Despite how Moore discusses the various assumptions, controversies, and popular understandings of religion in the world, by the last page of the book his internal goal of wanting tolerance and peace between religious groups cuts through the major academic work he is condensing. Because of the Western, Christian lens that Moore uses in the book to connect with new readers of religious studies more easily, he is better able to accomplish his goal of making religious studies arguments accessible. However, to the more adept and cautious reader or religious studies literature, it can be seen that Moore occasionally slips back into the stereotypes that he seems to be trying to problematize in other parts of his book, thereby potentially distancing his piece from the minds of advanced readers and scholars.
Although the language and assumptions made in the book may not be challenging enough for a collegiate religious studies classroom, Moore’s choices and the book’s style will surely draw in a wide readership of people who might otherwise find scholarship on religion to be too opaque. Moore makes no judgements as to whether one should become, remain, or give up their religiosity, but, rather, seeks to help people in each group gain a wider understanding of a topic that many claim is central to their own identity. Thus, Reinventing Religion succeeds at its goal of providing a resource to expand these conversations by including new voices and opinions on the issues that Moore, as well as many others, would likely say are central to religion and its place in the world.
Trevor Linn is a master’s student in the Religion in Culture program at the University of Alabama.
Trevor Linn
Date Of Review:
March 4, 2024
