Our library in Hewett Centre is open every Sunday after service during Coffee Hour in Hewett Centre, and our Library Team offers related reading lists based on the topic of Sunday service. Here is their list for the upcoming service featuring Rev. Shawn Gauthier on Sunday, June 1, 2025 at 11 a.m. All are welcome in Hewett Centre after the Sunday service to check out some books and to have coffee and conversation.
VanU library books related to this Sunday’s sermon:
1. Children of the Same God: The Historical Relationship Between Unitarianism, Judaism, and Islam, by Susan J. Ritchie, 2014, 289 RIT [From Amazon: “… makes the groundbreaking historical argument that, long before Unitarianism and Universalism merged in the United States, Unitarianism itself was inherently multireligious. She demonstrates how Unitarians in Eastern Europe claimed a strong affinity with Jews and Muslims from the very beginning and how mutual theological underpinnings and active cooperation underpin Unitarian history but have largely disappeared from the written accounts. With clear implications for the religious identity of Christians, Jews, and Muslims as well as Unitarian Universalists, and especially for interfaith work, Children of the Same God illuminates the intertwining histories and destinies of these traditions. …”].
2. Unitarians and India: A Study in Encounter and Response, by Spencer Lavan, 1991, 289.1 LAV [The Julian Fears Library. From Amazon: “Compelling history of Unitarianism in India, including pioneer missionaries William Roberts, William Adam, Charles Dall, etc.; early Indian Unitarians including Rammohun Roy and Keshub Chunder Sen; contemporary Unitarian supporters of Gandhi, much more.”].
3. Buddhism, Unitarianism, and the Meiji Competition for Universality (Harvard East Asian Monographs), by Michel Mohr, 2014, 289.1 [From LibraryThing, provided by the publisher: “This book spotlights the debates between Unitarianism and Buddhism in Japan since the late 1800s. Focusing on the events triggered by the missionaries of the American Unitarian Association in Japan between 1887 and 1922, this study investigates this formative time in Japanese religious and intellectual history”].
4. This Very Moment: A Brief Introduction to Buddhism and Zen for Unitarian Universalists, by James Ishmael Ford, 1996, 294 FOR [Published by Skinner House Books. From LibraryThing: “An elegant primer, This Very Moment includes basic teachings of the Buddha, the historical development of Zen Buddhism, Zen meditation practices, koans and more. Ford also highlights the spiritual and political connections between Zen Buddhism and Unitarian Universalism, demonstrating the harmonious balance that can be struck between the two.”].
5. Buddhism and Whiteness, by George Yancy, 2021, 294 YAN [This is an important book on the adaptations of Buddhism in North America from the point of view of people of colour, and the Meiji adaptation of Buddhism in confrontation with Western categories of thought.].
6. Emerson: The Mind on Fire, by Robert D. Richardson Jr., 1996, 814 RIC [From LibraryThing: “… This is not merely a study of Emerson’s writing and his influence on others; it is Emerson’s life as he experienced it. We see the failed minister, the struggling writer, the political reformer, the poetic liberator. The Emerson of this book not only influenced Thoreau, Fuller, Whitman, Dickinson, and Frost, he also inspired Nietzsche, William James, Baudelaire, Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, and Jorge Luis Borges. Emerson’s timeliness is persistent and striking: his insistence that literature and science are not separate cultures, his emphasis on the worth of every individual, his respect for nature. Richardson gives careful attention to the enormous range of Emerson’s readings – from Persian poets to George Sand – and to his many friendships and personal encounters – from Mary Moody Emerson to the Cherokee chiefs in Boston – evoking both the man and the times in which he lived. Throughout this book, Emerson’s unquenchable vitality reaches across the decades, and his hold on us endures.”].
7. Hinduism: The Rig Veda (Sacred Writings, Volume 5), by series Editor Ralph T.H. Griffith, 1992, 294.592 [From LibraryThing: “The Rigveda (Sanskrit: ऋग्वेद rgveda, a compound of rc “praise, verse” and veda “knowledge”) is an ancient Indian sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns. It is counted among the four canonical sacred texts (śruti) of Hinduism known as the Vedas. Some of its verses are still recited as Hindu prayers, at religious functions and other occasions, putting these among the world’s oldest religious texts in continued use. The Rigveda contains several mythological and poetical accounts of the origin of the world, hymns praising the gods, and ancient prayers for life, prosperity, etc. …”].
8. Buddhism: Religions of our Neighbors: Volume 3, by Sid Bentley, 1983, 294 BEN [Published by the Province of BC, Ministry of Education].
9. The Wisdom of China and India, by Yutang Lin, 1942, 181 YU [From GoodReads: Summary of “A very extensive collection of excerpts from Indian and Chinese Buddhist texts such as Rigveda, Upanishads, Ramayana, Panchatantra, Dhammapada, Tao, Confucius, and much more. …”, and a review by John Engelman which states “… The section on Hinduism begins with the Rigveda. This resembles the Psalms of the Jewish and Christian Bible. The Upanishads concerns creation, and consequently is equivalent to the first eleven chapters of Genesis. … There is a misconception among many in the West that Buddhism is somehow an atheistic religion. In the sections in this anthology gods are mentioned, including several Hindu gods, and reincarnation is taught as what happens to the soul after death. …”].
10. The Masks of God: Oriental Mythology, by Joseph Campbell, 1986, 291.13 CAM [The Julian Fears Library. From LibraryThing: “In this second volume of The Masks of God, …, the pre-eminent mythologist looks at Asian mythology as it developed over the course of five thousand years into the distinctive religions of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, and Japan.
The Masks of God is a four-volume study of world religion and myth …. On completing it, he wrote: Its main result for me has been the confirmation of a thought I have long and faithfully entertained: of the unity of the race of man, not only in its biology, but also in its spiritual history, which has everywhere unfolded in the manner of a single symphony, with its themes announced, developed, amplified and turned about, distorted, reasserted, and today, in a grand fortissimo of all sections sounding together, irresistibly advancing to some kind of mighty climax, out of which the next great movement will emerge.”].
11. God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World, by Stephen Prothero, 2011, 200 PRO [From LibraryThing: “… argues that persistent attempts to portray all religions as different paths to the same God overlook the distinct problem that each tradition seeks to solve. Delving into the different problems and solutions that Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Confucianism, Yoruba Religion, Daoism and Atheism strive to combat, God is Not One is an indispensable guide to the questions human beings have asked for millennia-and to the disparate paths we are taking to answer them today. …”].