Types of Religious Experience: Christian and Non-Christian

xvi, 275 pp. In this work a distinguished theologian considers a basic phenomenon--the nature of religious experience--in the light of several disciplines: theology; philosophy, history, sociology, and the history of religion. Convinced that a vital faith stands only to gain by studying and interacting with other religions, Joachim Wach explores a variety of religious experiences to determine the qualities that distinguish them from other types of experience. Professor Wach begins with a study of the structures of religious belief and the ways they can be compared. He goes on to investigate the history of several non-Christian religions, including the mythological concepts of man in Near Eastern religions; the nature of Islam as revealed in the theology of Al Hujwiri and others; and the sacred writings of Mahayana Buddhism. In the last section are four essays on the history of Christianity covering the sociology of Christian groups, schisms, and heresies; the theologies of Casper Schwenckfeld and Alexis de Tocqueville; and more recent trends in religious study, especially the experimental, cultural, and sociological aspects.