Contents -- List of illustrations -- Preface -- I: INDIGENOUS RELIGIONS -- The dream of a lost paradise -- Native inhabitants in a false light -- 'Primitive man' - uncivilized? -- Let's stop talking about 'primitive' cultures -- The earliest traces of religion -- Even 'Stone Age people' have a cultural history -- Women economically independent -- Men are dominant in politics and ritual -- People without religion? -- 'Primal religion' - nowhere to be found -- The art of the Aborigines -- What is in heaven? -- And who formed the earth? -- 'Dreamtime' -- The eternal law: tjukurpa -- The fight between the snake woman Kuniya and the snake man Liru -- Why women paint their bodies -- What is totem and what is taboo? -- The initiation dance: primal time and primal law -- Unwritten ethical norms -- A primal ethic -- Colonization: Cook and the consequences -- Triumph for the whites - tragedy for the blacks -- Aborigines in the supermarket: the conflict between two cultures -- Keeping the old religion alive -- A question for native inhabitants throughout the world -- Primal times: Australia and Africa -- Human beings come from Africa -- We are all Africans under the skin -- The Late Stone Age revolution -- Guardian spirits - only African? -- Sacrificing goats even today -- Spiritual healing - not automatic -- Against witchcraft -- Africa's great centuries -- They were black Africans -- Oracle: 'What does the future hold?' -- Stagnation of the black African peoples -- Imperialistic colonization -- 'Southern Rhodesia': a prime example of colonialism -- The motives of colonialism and imperialism -- The churches share the responsibility -- Christ Africanized -- African creativity -- The African Independent Churches -- Land of stones -- A continent with a future -- Hope: the African contribution to a global ethic -- II: HINDUISM -- A joyful religion.

Krishna's dance -- Who is a Hindu? -- The eternal order -- Strengths and weaknesses -- Mother Ganga -- Why bathe in the Ganges? -- After the Indus culture, the Aryans -- A structured society -- Where do the castes come from? -- The spirit of the Vedas still blows today -- The holy scriptures of the Hindus -- The ritual of fire and the eternal cycle -- Reincarnation and belief in karma -- The crisis of the Vedic view of the world: the Upanishads -- The quest for unity -- The mystery of the fig: that is what you are -- Religion and eroticism -- Tantrism in the twilight -- The new high gods: Vishnu and Shiva -- The classical epics -- A Hindu trinity? -- Polytheism? -- How does God relate to the world? Three models -- Varanasi: the most holy of pilgrimage cities -- The bath of purification - not baptism -- Why burn corpses in Varanasi? -- Pilgrims, Brahmans, sannyasins, priests -- Temple and mosque -- Renewal instead of rigidity or loss of meaning -- India: the model of a democratic constitution -- India: economically backward and socially split -- Hindu ethics -- Spiritual renewal: Ramakrishna -- The encounter between the religions of East and West: Vivekananda -- The 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions -- The Ganges of rights rises in the Himalayas of responsibilities -- III: CHINESE RELIGION -- Lion dance -- Singapore: modern and traditional Chinese -- Men and women of different cultures live together -- Ancestor worship at the centre of popular religion -- Gifts for the dead -- The two sides of popular religion -- The question of ethical standards -- Confucianism or common values? -- Western criticism and the Eastern reply -- Ethnic and religious harmony instead of confrontation -- China: a continent in itself -- A state of many peoples with a common script -- Early Chinese society had a religious orientation -- Shamans and soothsaying.

No separation between monarchy and priesthood -- The ancient Chinese world-view -- Archaic elements live on in present-day popular religion -- The distinction between religion and superstition -- Conflict instead of harmony -- A third religious river system -- Ethical humanism -- Confucius: one wise man among many -- Comparison with another 'master' -- Confucius himself -- The central teaching: humanity -- Explication of humanity: the Golden Rule -- Basic human relationships -- Humanity: the basis for a shared fundamental ethic -- A single Chinese state: the first emperor -- China's classical period: the Han dynasty -- Confucian state religion: Confucius - the master -- Acupuncture: paradigm shift in medicine -- A holistic view of human beings -- What does 'dao' mean? -- Daoism: the anti-Confucian opposition movement -- Daoism: a religion -- The Daoist 'church' -- Yin and yang: to intervene or not to intervene? -- Daoism and Confucianism permeate each other -- The advance of Buddhism -- China's golden age: the Tang dynasty -- Religion from outside -- Buddhism Sinified -- A renewed Confucianism of the 'high Middle Ages' -- The end of the Chinese Middle Ages: Mongol rule -- Confrontation with modernity -- The strategy of an indirect mission from above -- A pedagogical-diplomatic adaptation -- The tragedy of Christian mission in China -- Reaction against the missionaries -- Five great revolutionary movements -- Is there still Christianity in China? -- A future for Chinese religion? -- Domination of the market? -- Latent religion breaks through -- The Temple of Heaven: harmony between heaven and earth -- The contribution of Chinese religion to a global ethic -- The Great Wall -- IV: BUDDHISM -- Archery: an exercise in attentiveness -- The Buddha: one of the great guides for humankind -- The Buddhist creed -- Gautama's way to enlightenment.

The tree of enlightenment -- The wheel of teaching -- An ethic of unselfishness -- An answer to primal questions: Four Noble Truths -- Striking parallels -- Buddhist and Christian monasticism: similarities -- Monasticism: central only to Buddhism -- A community made up of monks and lay people -- Monastic schools: learning and debating -- Helps towards meditation: mandalas -- The basic obligations of Buddhists -- The first paradigm shift: original community to mass religion -- The Emperor Ashoka - the model Buddhist ruler -- Buddhism - a religion of state and cult: the 'Little Vehicle' -- The split in the Sangha -- The 'southern route' of Buddhism: Sri Lanka and lower India -- A Buddhist 'Middle Ages': justification by works -- The 'northern route' of Buddhism: China-Korea-Japan -- The second paradigm shift: the 'Great Vehicle' -- A tension between monastic and lay existence -- From the religion of an élite to a two-class religion -- Buddhism becomes Japanese, Shinto is 'Buddhified' -- The more-than-earthly Buddha -- Several eternal Buddhas -- Confrontation with modernity -- Three Buddhist options -- Calligraphy: 'Zen' -- Buddhist meditation: sitting in contemplation (Zen) -- Discipline, work, everyday life -- The Zen garden: the emptiness of all things -- Buddhist faith: trusting invocation of the name of Buddha (Shin) -- Buddhist liturgy -- Social and political Buddhism: establishment of the Buddha kingdom (Nichiren) -- Social commitment lived out -- Buddhist ethic and global ethic -- Transition to a new global constellation -- Archery: a demand on the individual -- V: JUDAISM -- A Jewish wedding in New York -- The riddle of Judaism -- Jewish dress? -- A community of fate -- The homeland of the Jewish people -- A people which did not always exist -- Abraham: an immigrant -- Abraham: the first leading figure of the prophetic religions.

Strife over Abraham -- Against commandeering Abraham -- The hour of the birth of the people of Israel: the exodus -- Moses: a second leading figure of the prophetic religions -- The covenant on Sinai: the centre of Jewish religion -- The solution to the riddle -- The Sinai covenant presupposes a covenant with humankind -- The Decalogue - the basis for a shared fundamental ethic -- Israel: first of all a tribal society -- Israel becomes a state -- David: a third leading figure of the prophetic religions -- The prophets in opposition to priests and king -- The downfall of both kingdoms: the end of the monarchy -- Israel becomes a theocracy -- The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple -- Why Judaism survived -- The Jewish Middle Ages -- The formation of Orthodox Judaism -- Anti-Judaism in the Christian church -- The Jews in medieval Germany: Worms -- Jewish secret teaching: Kabbala -- Jewish Enlightenment: Moses Mendelssohn -- Exit from the ghetto -- Modern Reform Judaism -- The dispute over trends -- Every individual has a name -- A future for Jews in Germany -- The complicity of Christians -- The rebirth of the state of Israel -- The Palestine question -- Two olive branches -- Judaism between secularism and fundamentalism -- The Decalogue as an ABC of human behaviour -- What will the future be? -- VI: CHRISTIANITY -- Is Christianity to be despaired of? -- A living Christian community -- Liturgy and social commitment -- What is the essence of Christianity? -- Witnesses of faith -- A joyful message -- A dramatic fate -- Appointed son of God -- The common roots of Judaism, Christianity and Islam -- The great dispute in the earliest church -- The loss of Jewish roots -- Christianity becomes Greek -- The hierarchy is established -- A silent revolution 'from below' -- Constantinople: the second Rome -- From Christian faith to orthodox dogma.

The Slavonic world: religious and cultural split.