In case you hadn't noticed, the ICJS deals with "arguably the most powerful and pervasive force on earth." That's what Charles Kimball calls religion in the first sentence of When Religion Becomes Evil.

Now, in the wake of September 11, bookstore shelves groan under the weight of tomes about religion gone bad and world affairs. Kimball's bestseller is a welcome addition to this crowded but important field.

He pulls no punches: ". . . more wars have been waged, more people killed, and more evil perpetrated in the name of religion than by any other institutional force in human history." But he does more than belabor the commonplace observation that religion appears to produce more violence than good.

Kimball brings a rich personal history to his work. This Baptist from Oklahoma calls his Jewish paternal grandfather "the most wonderful person I knew." His grandfather had emigrated from the Poland-Russian border in the 1880s. In Boston he became a vaudeville song and dance man. Kimball's maternal grand-mother was a Presbyterian chorus girl in the vaudeville show. It is no accident that with his background Kimball eventually earned a doctorate at Harvard in the history of religions.

He has served as Director of the Middle East Office at the National Council of Churches, based in New York, and has made more than thirty-five visits to the Middle East. Kimball visited Iran in 1979 to work on communication with the militant students who were holding hostages at the U.S. embassy. In the past twenty years Kimball has worked closely with Con-gress, the White House and the State Department. He is currently chair of the Department of Religion at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. Kimball's field of expertise is comparative religion, with a specialization in Islamic Studies. He is author of three other books about religion and the Middle East: Striving Together: A Way Forward in Christian-Muslim Relations; Religion, Politics, and Oil: The Volatile Mix in the Mid-dle East; and Angle of Vision: Christians and the Middle East.

Since September 11th, Kimball has been interviewed by some 200 TV and radio stations as well as major newspapers and broadcast outlets throughout the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, France, Australia and South Africa.

Kimball calls on religious people to look deeply into their tradi-tions for teachings that support peacemaking rather than war, reconciliation rather than retaliation. He resonates with ICJS interests when he writes, "We need new paradigms, new ways of understanding and living out our particularity in the midst of pluralism."

The heart of the book is his discussion of the five warning signs of corruption in religion -- absolute truth claims, blind obedience, establishing the "ideal" time, the end justifying the means, and declaring holy war. No tradition is exempt from corruptions. Using examples from major world religions, Kimball shows both their tragic history of evil actions and their rich resources for self-correction: "Whatever religious people may say about their love of God or the mandates of their religion, when their behavior toward others is violent and destructive, when it causes suffering among their neighbors, you can be sure the religion has been corrupted and reform is desperately needed. When religion becomes evil these five corruptions are always present. Conversely, when religion remains true to its authentic sources, it is actively dismantling these corrup-tions . . ."

Kimball is not writing just for other academics in the field of world religions. When Religion Becomes Evil is a kind of self-help book for laypersons on contemporary world religions, suitable for use in congregational adult study groups. I asked members of such a class if they found Kimball's book accessible and useful. "It's dense -- not beach reading," was the initial response, but all appreciated how he exposed "our shockingly thin knowledge of other religious traditions." "I learned a lot," another said, "especially about how varied Islam is and how easily we stereotype it."

Kimball has a knack for taking extremely complicated historical, political, religious, and social issues and making them compre-hensible without oversimplifying them. Others will have to decide how fair and focused he is in dealing with their own traditions. I found him to be even handed in dealing with the rich but troubled Baptist heritage I share with him. He writes, "I remain a Baptist in the South (which is no longer synony-mous with being a Southern Baptist)."

Kimball writes not only with careful scholarship but also with gentle humor and irony. He suggests that if Simon Peter could find ongoing theological education helpful in Acts 10, surely Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Franklin Graham could benefit as well. He points out that while the Qur’an allows Muslim men to marry up to four women, they are required to treat each wife equally. Thoughtful Muslims conclude this latter require-ment nullifies the provision for four wives since no man can ultimately treat two or three or four wives equally. He quotes fellow Baptist Bill Moyers: "Baptists are a lot like jalapeño pep-pers. One or two make for a tasty dish. But when you get a bunch of them together in one place, it is sure to bring tears to your eyes!"

I have few criticisms of When Religion Becomes Evil. Surveying in summary form so many of the strengths and weaknesses of world religions pushes the author at times into writing in the "on the one hand . . . and on the other hand" mode. A bibli-ography and index would be useful. Perhaps the forthcoming paperback edition will have them. The footnotes are not to be ignored. I smiled when I saw a citation from an ICJS publi-cation but groaned when I saw a typo that misspelled "Baptists" as "Zgotist."

Kimball calls for visible, vocal, principled leadership for peace. This is difficult and risky business. It means more than "wishful thinking or holding hands, lighting candles, and singing, ‘We Are the World’."

Kimball calls his last chapter "An Inclusive Faith Rooted in Tradition." The roots metaphor is a persistent image. Early in When Religion Becomes Evil he quotes Thomas Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree. The olive tree "represents every-thing that roots us, anchors us, identifies us, and locates us in the world." Kimball adds, "Religion, in my view, is the largest and deepest root, anchoring and sustaining the life of the tree." In the last chapter he cites Diana Eck's call to encounter people of different faith traditions and to define faith not by its borders but by its roots.