Akasha Lonsdale. Do I Kneel or Do I Bow? What You Need to Know When Attending Religious Occasions. London: Kuperard, 2010. 336 pages.
This book sets out to help people understand different religions, with an emphasis on the practical–how to behave at “religious occasions.” Written from a primarily British perspective, it covers eight religions: Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Orthodox Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Skihism, and Buddhism. Each religion’s section is divided into explanations of what its followers believe, what to expect in places of worship, the religious calendar (festivals and holiday), and rituals and ceremonies, with an additional glossary of important terms.
Overall, the book is adequate, giving readers a basic idea of what to expect when attending religious ceremonies. But it’s hampered by the author’s “one faith-many paths” approach, which is a bit misleading and possibly condescending. She claims, for example, that Hinduism “contrary to appearances, is a monotheistic faith,” (212) which seems a gross over-simplification, if not an outright distortion. It doesn’t square with what I’ve read about Hinduism in other comparative religion books, to say the least. Then again, it’s difficult to capture the nuances and complexities of any faith in a few paragraphs, ]so I’d take the book’s theological discourses with a grain of salt, and focus on the practical guide to how to behave.
Essentially, it all comes down to: do what others around you are doing (standing or sitting), and if in doubt, ask. This is sensible advice under any circumstances, but doubly so in a religious context.
I’m not enough of any expert in comparative religions to judge the book’s accuracy, but I noticed more than one error in the section on Judaism. For example, Lonsdale claims that all of the Jewish holidays “with the exception of Rosh Hashana” fall on fixed dates. “Confusingly,” she writes, “Rosh Hashana is celebrated in Tishrei, the seventh month of the ecclesiastical year.” I don’t understand how this is confusing: in the Western tradition the fiscal year starts on July 1, the school year in September, baseball season in April. And Rosh Hashana definitely has a fixed date: the first of Tishrei. So it might be bad proofreading, but it’s definitely not true that the holiday has no fixed date.
Basically, this might be a good start for understanding what’s going on in other faiths, but is hardly the last word.
