Irving Hexham has been teaching religious studies over the last 30 years.

A general dissatisfaction with existing textbooks pushed him to writing his own -Understanding World Religions: An Interdisciplinary Approach.

The existing textbooks, he says, "take, as I say at the beginning of the book, this sort of Star Trek approach to religious studies where everything is nice and dandy and you just describe and there's no academic criticism."

"I read years ago actually Rodney Stark's Introduction to Sociology, which is the bestselling sociology textbook for many years, and in it he at the very beginning makes the argument that it's no good having a textbook that simply describes things and leaves it at that. You've got to present the arguments. You've got to look at critical issues. You've got to engage the student. When they're new to it, they're intrigued. If it's just described but they don't learn anything, they don't go on. You've got to challenge them."

And the idea of the book is to really challenge students who are interested in the area of religion.

Hexham started work at 15 as an apprentice gasfitter in Manchester, England. At 18 he experienced what he describes an "evangelical conversion" which got him interested in academics.

When he became a Christian, he was an atheist or at least agnostic. "I don't think I was sophisticated enough to know the difference."

He went out one Sunday evening and met some Christians who were holding an open air service. Through his conversion experience he became an Anglican.

He worked for nine years as a gas fitter and rose in the company to a manager's position.

When he went to Lancaster University to study philosophy and the history of science, a new program in religious studies was being offered and he took that as an option.

"I enjoyed it so much that I then transferred into the new religious studies program and I've been working in that area ever since. I think it's a very interesting topic. I think frankly a lot of religious studies is pretty boring, but what I've always looked at is the relationship of religion to society and to politics and issues like this," he says.

During his days as a student of religion, he studied and researched the beliefs of the hippie movement and the origins of apartheid.

He came to Calgary in 1984.

"Why on earth would anyone write yet another introduction to world religions?" he writes in the introduction of his book. "In the course of writing this book, I have asked myself this question many times. The reason is, however, fairly simple. I was dissatisfied with existing religious studies texts, which tend to be rather antiseptic works written on the basis of a 1960s Star Trek form of cultural relativism that is, frankly, dull. Like Captain Kirk and his crew, their authors appear to feel mandated to observe religious traditions without offering criticisms of any except Christianity. Such an approach attempts to present 'the facts' as neutrally as possible, but it fails to stimulate discussion."

Hexham writes that he hopes the book will stimulate debate and encourage a new generation of students to become involved in the study of religion and religious traditions.

mtoneguzzi@calgaryherald.com