xviiThe Encyclopedia of World Religions series has
been designed to provide comprehensive coverage
of six major global religious traditions—Buddhism,
Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Roman Catholicism,
and Protestant Christianity. The volumes have
been constructed in an A-to-Z format to provide a
handy guide to the major terms, concepts, people,
events, and organizations that have, in each case,
transformed the religion from its usually modest
beginnings to the global force that it has become.
Each of these religions began as the faith of
a relatively small group of closely related eth-
nic peoples. Each has, in the modern world,
become a global community, and, with one nota-
ble exception, each has transcended its beginning
to become an international multiethnic com-
munity. Judaism, of course, largely defines itself
by its common heritage and ancestry and has an
alternative but equally fascinating story. Surviving
long after most similar cultures from the ancient
past have turned to dust, Judaism has, within the
last century, regathered its scattered people into a
homeland while simultaneously watching a new
diaspora carry Jews into most of the contempo-
rary world’s countries.
Each of the major traditions has also, in the
modern world, become amazingly diverse. Bud-
dhism, for example, spread from its original home
in India across southern Asia and then through
Tibet and China to Korea and Japan. Each time
it crossed a language barrier, something was lost,
but something seemed equally to be gained, and
an array of forms of Buddhism emerged. In Japan
alone, Buddhism exists in hundreds of different
sect groupings. Protestantism, the newest of the
six traditions, began with at least four different and
competing forms of the religious life and has since
splintered into thousands of denominations.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the six
religious traditions selected for coverage in this
series were largely confined to a relatively small
part of the world. Since that time, the world has
changed dramatically, with each of the traditions
moving from its geographical center to become a
global tradition. While the traditional religions of
many countries retain the allegiance of a majority
of the population, they do so in the presence of the
other traditions as growing minorities. Other coun-
tries—China being a prominent example—have no
religious majority, only a number of minorities that
must periodically interface with one another.
The religiously pluralistic world created by
the global diffusion of the world’s religions has
made knowledge of religions, especially religions
practiced by one’s neighbors, a vital resource in the
continuing task of building a good society, a world