If you are a Religious Practitioner, Spiritual Person, Student of Theology, or just love understanding how people make sense of the world and their purpose in it, I have a resource for you!
When teaching about Global Religions and Spiritual Movements, I love getting students to compare the ideas, ideals, and practices of different Paths. No matter whether one takes an exclusivist view of religion (my Path is the only right Path), or pluralist view (all Paths are equally valid), or an inclusivist view (what is good and true in other Paths leads to my Path): It is essential to actually study what other Paths believe and practice, and see how that converges and diverges from our Path. Only then can one make mature decisions about how we practice spiritually, and who we practice with.
As religion scholar Max Müller once said “Those who know only one religion know none”. Thus, we only really learn what we think and value when we learn other's thoughts and values in conversation with ours. And we really only attain proficiency in our practice only when we are able to explain and embody our Path to others who are not on our Path. Thus, a big part of my classroom experience in theology, religions, scripture, and philosophy is oriented around projects that get students to explore their own Path in relation to other Paths.
No other tool helps me with Comparative Religion projects quite like "WORLD SCRIPTURE: A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts" edited by Dr. Andrew Wilson. It includes short texts drawn from all major Global Faiths which are compared and contrasted in nearly 200 different topics, each with a short introduction and footnotes inviting further comparison. It is not a perfect book, and it is marked by the particular views of its editors. However, it is honest about its bias, and immensely helpful to help students dive into comparative religions. I have used the Paperback and free Website version of this book for years, but they were very clunky for classroom use. I have always lamented there is no genuine eBook version of it. But recently I found an adapted version of it in ePub format, as well as PDF, and editable Docx formats. These are large files which may not view easily in your browser, so hit the download button on top right.
As far as the digital adaptation goes, the Digital Compiler's preface sums it up nicely:
"The compiler is a Trinitarian Christian who takes an inclusive, expansive view of what the Triune God is doing across the history of human culture and spirituality that is inspired by the work of Comparative Theologian Keith Ward [links added]. Although I disagree with much of the doctrine specific to the Unification Church found in this anthology, I find this a uniquely helpful tool for comparing and contrasting world spiritual paths. As a teacher of World Religions, Philosophy, and Scripture studies in college prep schools, I have found no other product offers a similar textual basis for topical analysis, with a comparable depth and breadth...
As a result, I have reproduced the text here based on the text freely available on the internet with only a few changes: First, to enhance the comparative reading experience, I have moved each chapter's inter-textual notes to the end of the chapter. Second, I have added subchapter numbers to make the book easier to navigate digitally... Finally, a handful of additional Scriptures have been added which illustrate various themes.
I am incredibly thankful to Dr. Wilson and his team for this anthology, and I hope it will allow us to see Christ's Light shining in each other's spiritual traditions, even if we have minor and major disagreements about how to interpret this Light. As Dr. Wilson quotes the poet Rumi in "Enlightenment": "The lamps are different, but the Light is the same."
So, if you are interested, here is "World Scripture" available in:
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