It’s no easy feat to condense the subject of religion, much less comment on its themes, within 256 pages. Similar efforts like Stephen Prothero’s God Is Not One and Huston Smith’s The World’s Religions have done so at nearly twice the length of A Little History of Religion. But Richard Holloway, retired head of the Scottish Episcopal Church, takes the challenge in stride. From Anglicanism to Zoroastrianism, he aims to provide a broad introductory survey while promoting the value of faith. And in a world haunted by secular and religious misapprehension, Holloway certainly has the best of intentions. Yet, for the beginner, does his book actually meet these two goals?
Well, yes and no. On the one hand, he deftly makes his knowledge accessible to the public: Starting with the origins of faith, he uncovers its symbols, its frameworks, and its psychological narratives. Emphasizing themes over chronological order, he covers the next 5,000 years, musing on everything from Krishna and Scientology to violence, authority, and the possible end of religion. In so doing, Holloway vastly improves upon his predecessors. Touching innumerable faiths and denominations, he goes well beyond both Prothero and Smith, including not only the major religions but also the minor cults of Mithras and Eleusis. Where belief and ritual may be emphasized over history (or vice versa), he attempts to balance all three, covering the good and bad alike. Holloway also engages the reader as narrative intertwines with narrative, all the while grounding the cerebral in ordinary, and sometimes deeply personal, experience. On the other hand, he overlooks key points that could help seekers grasp today’s religious landscape. It is nearly impossible, of course, to survey the breadth (or depth!) of thousands of traditions. But although his text tries to maintain a holistic approach, Holloway applies it unevenly from one faith to another. By dividing primarily between East and West, he is forced to leave out substantial segments, such as African traditions, which don’t fit within his spectrum. And his overviews of the Indian and Abrahamic religions—as well as more modern faiths—fare better than those of East Asia. For while he covers the various beliefs of Confucianism, Taoism, and Shinto, he overlooks their ritual and customary aspects, summarizing the latter as merely “a love for the spirit of the land.”
These are minor points, however, compared with his underlying approach. While not fully explored until the very end, he asserts that a true appreciation of religion requires three principles: a critical mind, a radical openness, and an acceptance of the unity of all believers. Building upon the parable of the blind men who argue over an elephant without perceiving it in its entirety, he laments that people “confuse what is seen [God] with the one who is doing the seeing.” Denouncing fundamentalism as “a tantrum,” he views it as a rejection of humility and rational progress. And he believes that, without these three principles, such notions prepare the way for violence as people “[hide] God behind the thick fog of [religion’s] own cruelty.”
By minimizing theological division, however, Holloway obscures the complex relationship between faith and modernity. While he correctly warns the reader against blind obedience, he oversimplifies the liberal/fundamentalist divide as one of open-mindedness versus obstinacy. But if truth is timeless, then each religion constitutes a different structure of reality that cannot be easily dismissed in the name of social irrelevance. And this downplays the question of whether the faithful can avoid rigidity without following the elephantine tale to its extreme. As Stephen Prothero has noted, “What we need . . . is a realistic view of where religious rivals clash and where they can cooperate. . . . Both tolerance and respect are empty virtues until we actually know [what] we are supposed to be tolerating or respecting.”
Richard Holloway has nevertheless done a great service for students of religion. This is no dry textbook: With its conversational prose and density of information, it is a pleasure to read. A Little History of Religion may fall short on religious understanding, but the inquirer should use it as a factual resource—a starting point, not the final word.
Tatiana Lozano is an editorial assistant
at The Weekly Standard.
