Religion

RELIGION 475 C'est un ouvrage technique fort utile aux specialistes des relations du travail qu'a commence II publier Ie professeur J.--Gaston Desc6teaux sous Ie titre de Repertoire de decisions en application du Code du travail, tome 1, accreditation et questions connexes (Eds de I'Universite d'Ottawa, 526, $21.00). Le second tome portera sur les congediements. Comme I'ecrit dans la preface Ie juge Robert Sauve du tribunal du travail, « il s'agit d'un ouvrage concret, tres utile extremement pratique ». Gerard Dion a publie un Vocabulaire fraru;ais-anglais des relations professionnelles : Glossary of Terms used in Industrial Relations (English-French) (Les Presses de l'universite Laval, 304, $10.00) qui a ete prepare scientifiquement et qui sera fort utile. Dans les traductions, signalons Counter-Blast (Eds Hurtubise/HMH, 144, $3.75) de Marshall McLuhan dans une bonne traduction fran~aise de Jean Pare. L'editeur de la version fran~aise a bien reussi, comme Ie voulait l'auteur, It • faire composer de la prose ou des vers en caracteres de titres •. Sous Ie titre L'Appel du Nord dans la litterature canadiennefraru ;aise (Eds HMH, 249, $4.75) Jean Simard a donne une excellente traduction de The Long Journey, par Jack Warwick, publie en 1968 par University of Toronto Press. (JEAN-CHARLES BONENFANT) RELIGION In some quarters the e"1"'ctation is still widespread that 'religion' books are 'religious' books. The field of religion isseen as advocacy, as the putting of the case for a particular doctrinal or moral commitment. Some books, which are written in the context of a community's particular identity or commitment, indeed are; but many books about religion entail viewpoints or methods of inquiry derived from or shared with other fields of the liberal arts. The overlap is considerable. To the social scientist, religion can be treated as a factor in society; to the religion scholar, society is a factor in religion. The data and the analyses of one field can serve as data for another. To round up Canadian writing on religion, then, is to look into the work not only of profeSSional theologians but of authors in other fields such as historians, philosophers, and social scientists. Such a definition of the scope of our inquiry parallels the establishment, principally within the past decade, of a comprehensive approach to religion 476 LETrERS IN CANADA in the arts and science faculties of many Canadian universities. Often called 'religious studies' in contrast to the work in theology or divinity long sponsored by particular religious communities, this approach is explicitly diverse in the range of traditions it seeks to treat as well as in the range of methods or disciplines of inquiry On which it relies. Documenting this trend, Charles P. Anderson of the University of British Columbia has compiled an extensive inventory of religion course offerings in Canadian universities and theological institutions, Guide to Religious Studies in Canada (Corporation for the Publication of Academic Studies in Religion in Canada, 313, $4.95). In introductory chapters , the recent growth of the field is described by Anderson for the English -language universities, by Michel-M. Campbell of the Universite de Montreal for the French, and by Bruce C. Porter of McMaster University for community colleges. Anderson concludes that the dominant strength continues to be in the study of the western Christian tradition, but appropriately so in the light of its importance in our culture; he sees no dominance but rather a healthy pluralism emerging as regards methods of inquiry in the field. A major need which this developing field could profitably strive to meet is for the wider understanding of the post-biblical Jewish tradition among the population at large. This rich and distinctive heritage is all too often a closed book to Gentiles, not SO much for lack of literature (it abounds) as for lack of means to get the measure of it. A useful guide is The Study of Judaism: Bibliographical Essays (New York: Ktav for the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, 229, $12.50), with contributions by Richard Bavier and five others. It is at its best on Judaism in New Testament times and on modern...