Religious Studies: textbook and practical course for academic baccalaureate. Edited by A. Yu. Rakhmanin, R. V. Svetlov, S. V. Pakhomov, M. Yu. Smirnov, D. V. Shmonin, and M. Yu. Khromtsova, Moscow: Yurayt, 2016, 307 p.
Today, the educational and methodological discourse of religious studies is significantly diversified: there are dozens of textbooks and manuals, educational dictionaries and anthologies, and this variety of texts and approaches is often difficult to navigate not only for students, but also for teachers. Sometimes there is also such a phenomenon: the authors of textbooks in the pursuit of originality present not so much the generally accepted provisions of scientific religious studies, but various original, not yet established and therefore polemical theories and hypotheses, scientific opinions of individual schools and trends. As a result, "classics" are sacrificed to "modernity". Obviously, a certain balance must be observed here, which will allow the student to form an idea of both the fundamental foundations of scientific religious studies and its current state. And it seems to me that the main advantage of a peer-reviewed textbook is that the authors managed to find and maintain this balance. This was largely possible due to the strict and consistent structuring of the textbook content.

The textbook consists of three sections that relate to:

1. with the theoretical provisions of religious studies;

2. with what the authors have designated as the "subject field of religious studies";

3. with modern problems of religious studies, both theoretical and practical, related to the study of modern religiosity and the dynamics of the religious situation.

Such a three-part structure should be recognized as successful, since it allows us to form a comprehensive view of religious studies as a set of dis-

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tsiplin and methods of studying religion, forming a kind of "unity".

The textbook is quite large - about 24 printed pages, well structured-it highlights sections, chapters and paragraphs. Retelling the content is not part of the task of reviewing - I will focus primarily on what distinguishes this textbook from a number of other textbooks on religious studies and what are its advantages, as well as those points that can be perceived and evaluated in different ways.

It is obvious that the content of the textbook, the principles of presentation of the material, the placement of accents, etc. depend on the purpose of the book, on the tasks that it can be involved in solving. Who is this tutorial intended for?

I believe that its potential audience can be quite wide. These can be students of liberal arts universities who study religious studies as one of the core disciplines. Accordingly, the study of religious studies by them is not only aimed at the formation of a "cultured person", but also involves the formation of sufficient competencies related to the use of religious studies material in historical, philological, and sociological research. For students of technical universities whose curricula sometimes include religious studies or the course "History of Religions", this textbook will be quite difficult, since it is focused on professional, rather than" educational " training.

Of course, the textbook will be in demand not only for students, but also for all those who are seriously engaged in their own self-education, who want to understand the current religious situation, the influence of the religious factor on social and political processes, and the specifics of religious conflicts.

The analysis of the current state of the educational and methodological discourse of religious studies allows us to conclude that often textbooks of religious studies are built in accordance with one or another classification of religions. As a result, the main part of the textbook is devoted to the description of individual religions and beliefs, a detailed description of ritual practices, the specifics of mythological subjects and theologemes. Because of this, the student is lost, loses vision of the subject, drowns in details. As a result, such a religious study turns into a description of individual religions.,

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a kind of dictionary-encyclopedia of religions of the world.

This remark is not applicable to the textbook edited by A. Y. Rachmanin. The first theoretical section forms the initial competencies necessary not only for further study of factual studies, but also creates clear ideas about the essence of scientific religious studies, which is not limited to fixing facts and describing discourses of various religions.

A rather detailed chapter devoted to the principles and methods of religious studies deserves special mention. Earlier, I repeatedly (in the form of opposition, conference presentations, and publications) had to draw the attention of colleagues to the fact that modern Russian religious studies is experiencing a crisis of methods - modern religious scholars are not sufficiently trained for research, source criticism, and analysis. And although, as the textbook rightly notes (p. 109), "there is no single method of religious studies research and cannot be in the current state of this science, the researcher is required to adhere to strictly scientific methods of a multidisciplinary approach." However, it is not entirely clear what the authors mean by the statement that "every study of religion"... specific ideological tasks" (p. 109), but I believe that the authors ' idea does not at all imply an a priori ideological orientation of the religious studies discourse. And in conditions when the views expressed in religious studies examinations become a stumbling block not only for religious scholars, but also for publicists, politicians and lawyers, consideration of the issue of ideological and ideological connotations of religious studies requires special accuracy of terms.

It is worth noting that, speaking about the origin of religious studies (this issue is currently not unambiguously resolved among religious scholars), the authors believe that its institutionalization took place in the 60-70s of the XIX century, while in different countries this process proceeded differently (p.25). Section 1.3. "Periodization and main stages of development of religious studies"is devoted to the problem of the development of scientific religious studies. From the point of view of the methodology of teaching religious studies, familiarizing students with the history of science, its classics, whose

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names will continue to be mentioned on the pages of the textbook - an important and relevant task. Probably, in religious studies, its significance is primarily due to the fact that many problematic provisions of religious studies, such as, for example, the definition of the term "religion", the concept of "religious faith", etc., are solved at the level of author's approaches and interpretations. And if so, then you need to have an idea of the corresponding "authors".

By the way, about the problem of defining the term "religion". This deserves special mention. At one time, I justified the need to distinguish two levels in the problem of definition - scientific and methodological 1. At the level of scientific research, the most unexpected and extravagant definitions are acceptable, as long as their validity and productivity are justified by convincing arguments. But the task of the textbook is different - to form a sufficient understanding of its subject for the student who has started studying the course. And here it is naive to believe that everyone already knows perfectly well what religion is. Rejection of the normative definition, no matter how clear it may be from the point of view of a scientific approach, reducing it to scientific pragmatics does not contribute to the achievement of the methodological and teaching goal. The authors quite reasonably believe that " since the research objectives differ, it is impossible to formulate a universal definition of religion. In this case, universalism is excluded because religion is inevitably presented differently to researchers in different contexts" (p. 47). But how much does this approach contribute to the student's assimilation of the material? Which should I give preference to-methodological and teaching expediency or scientific accuracy? This problem is not new and does not have an unambiguous solution. Of course, the choice between" bad definition " and refusal to define at all cannot be decided unambiguously in one direction or another. I admit that the path chosen by the authors of the reviewed textbook is close to me, but we must also recognize the right to a different point of view and, accordingly, criticism.

The textbook specifically notes that if the emergence of religious studies took place in historical and theological contexts, then as far as

1. Prilutskiy A.M. The term "religion" in scientific and methodological literature.: Bulletin of the Herzen University. 2013. N2. pp. 87-92.

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As a result of institutionalization and academic independence, religious studies becomes an independent field of knowledge. The problem of the relationship between religious studies and theology, which is becoming increasingly important today in the context of the ongoing "official institutionalization" of theology in the modern Russian legal and academic spaces, is discussed in more detail in the second section of the textbook. But not everything here seems to me successful. So, if the statement about " the convergence of theology and philosophy, which meet in a certain new space of the post-secular world "(p. 168), seems generally quite fair (although the phrase "a certain new space" is not clear enough), then the definition of the tasks of theology as a systematization of the whole set of provisions and elements of religion, which can become the basis for justification and the defense of religious teaching (p. 182), clearly unsuccessful from the point of view of the content and style of the text. In any case, the interpretation of theology through the prism of apologetics significantly impoverishes the subject field of theology, in particular, almost unconditionally excludes apophatics from it.

Another point that follows from the structure of chapter 4 concerns the specifics of the selection and categorization of the material contained in it. There are three sections in this chapter - "Religious Thought of India", "Religious Thought of the West", and "Philosophy of Religion". It is not entirely clear what causes such a selection of material, which actually excludes from consideration all other areas, including Russian religious philosophy. Section 4.1.3 deals with the cult side of Hinduism. It is very good that in the context of the ongoing "passion for India" students will get acquainted with reliable information about the relevant religious traditions. But no less important is the task of forming a student of religious studies an idea of the cult practices of world religions, which have not received sufficient coverage here.

In conclusion, I want to share my impressions: it was interesting to read a peer-reviewed textbook. I believe that it will be no less interesting and informative to study religious studies in the format of a university course. It can perform all the functions of a basic university textbook quite successfully. And most importantly, brilliant

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the presentation of the material can encourage the student to continue studying religious studies after completing the lecture course.

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