The religious landscape of America has changed much in the past half-century, as Muslim mosques, Hindu ashrams, and Buddhist meditation centers now stand alongside churches and synagogues in our cities. Globalization, immigration, and media advances have broadened American life beyond its Judeo-Christian origins.

The best way to gain a basic knowledge of this variety in print is, of course, J. Gordon Melton's incomparable two-volume Encyclopedia of American Religions (Gale, 1998; quadrennial). No single web site is as broad, but the web provides multiple ways to approach that variety: via gateway sites as well as more specialized sites that help explain beliefs, texts, music, art, and architecture.

Religious Tolerance
http://religioustolerance.org
Date Visited: 1/8/01
Developer/Provider: Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance (OCRT)

Religious Tolerance provides thorough profiles of 53 belief systems. These include the 12 "world religions" (defined as those having over three million adherents) and 23 "other non-Christian religions," plus "neopagan faiths," cults, and "other ethical groups." The summations of creed, history, and relationship to other beliefs are well presented by the four volunteers of OCRT.

To explore individual religions, go to the upper left-hand corner. Directly under Christianity, click on Other Religions. The profiles, drawn from (and linked to) various authoritative sources, include beliefs, practices, history, significant divisions or schisms, and annotated Internet resources.

Extensive, well-organized links from the start page lead to sections of news and discussion on such religion-related areas as abortion, assisted suicide, and science vs. religion. The emphasis is on interdenominational relations, both current and historical, and the importance of a balanced approach. One example is extensive coverage of government prosecution of Jehovah's Witnesses who refuse blood transfusions for their children. Religious Tolerance also offers a bulletin board and the opportunity to chat with an OCRT representative.

A search and table of contents are available on the homepage, as well as from buttons at the bottom of other pages. Advertisements with "dancing graphics" mar the pages.

The Bottom Line: Though Religious Tolerance does not profile as many faiths as the Encyclopedia of American Religion, it provides the best single net gateway to a broad examination of religion. It has intrusive advertising, however.

BeliefNet
http://www.beliefnet.com
Date Visited: 1/8/01
Developer/Provider: BeliefNet

A privately funded, all-purpose gateway to religion and spirituality, BeliefNet presents an overstuffed, chaotic start page offering both a left-side menu bar and an unwieldy central roster of links, articles, discussions, and more.

Use that left-side menu to navigate. Click under Religions to find sections devoted to 16 world religions (plus four under Christianity). These pages include news, features, community messages, and -- on the left-side menu -- texts and links. There's no easy explanation, however, for newcomers to each religion.

BeliefNet is notable for its broad approach to faith, including on the left-side menu sections devoted to Spirituality, Morality and Culture, and Inspiration. Each links to news articles, reviews, and polls. Advertising is ubiquitous.

The site's strength is its extensive selection of columnists. Under the Expert Advice link within Spiritual Tools, columns cover such issues as Religion Q&A, Raising Children, Grief and Dying, and Politics. Columnists include rabbi/author Shmuley Boteach, theologian Harvey Cox, essayist Thomas Lynch, and veteran religion reporter Kenneth Briggs. Ask the Expert allows registered users to posit a question to a Tibetan Buddhist Lama, an Imam, an Eastern Orthodox priest, and a rabbi. Archived responses are posted.

The Bottom Line: This lively site more than reflects America's developing religious pluralism, but it is both confusing and ad-stuffed. BeliefNet's many excellent columnists tackle a broad range of religious questions.

The Pluralism Project
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~pluralsm
Date Visited: 1/8/01
Developer/Provider: Committee on the Study of Religions, Harvard Univ.

Insofar as Boston can serve as a religious microcosm of the United States, The Pluralism Project's fourth online edition of World Religions in Boston serves as a good introduction to America's leading major belief systems. A "selective portrait of 81 religious communities in the greater Boston area" representing 13 religious traditions, the project was initiated in 1991 by the Harvard Divinity School and Harvard College.

Using the web version (there is also a free PDF version and a book for sale), a click on each religion's button -- at upper left -- displays links to online centers of that tradition in or near Boston. Not surprisingly, the number of links varies greatly. More useful is the Introduction to each section, which both profiles the religion and explains how its adherents have formed local communities.

From The Pluralism Project's homepage, the fourth and fifth sections in the right-hand column are particularly good. Public Square consists of links related to religion in the public arena, while Selected Links produces a lengthy, well-chosen list of annotated links to primary sites representing various belief systems, as well as Interfaith Sites, Academic Societies and Resources, and News and Journals.

The Bottom Line: While the number of religions treated could be broader, this site serves as an authoritative introduction to religious pluralism in a local (Boston) context, rather than a national one. Also, it's a superb source of links related to religion, without intrusive advertising.

Alternate Sites
Adherents.com
http://www.adherents.com 
Adherents.com is an encyclopedic collection of over 50,000 statistics related to more than 4200 religions, churches, denominations, religious bodies, faith groups, and movements. Data presented are gleaned from both primary research sources such as census reports, statistical sampling surveys, and organizational reporting and citations from secondary literature. One list of statistical records is arranged alphabetically by country, then region or province, except for the United States, where the entries are state:city or state:county. The other list is arranged alphabetically, by name of denomination or religion. The start page offers a few interesting bonuses, listing the religious affiliations of United States Presidents and "History's 100 Most Influential People."

CESNUR, the Center for Studies on New Religions
http://www.cesnur.org/testi.htm
Religion and Ethics Newsweekly
http://www.thirteen.org/religionandethics/index.html
RNS (Religion News Service)
http://www.religionnews.com
Web Sites for Journalists: Online Religion Resources
http://www.toad.net/~andrews/jrelol.html
The huge online library of "texts and documents" maintained by CESNUR, the Center for Studies on New Religions in Torino, Italy, links to hundreds of full-text news articles, grouped alphabetically by name of sect or religion. While there are some gems, about half of the articles are in Italian or French. WNET-TV maintains a site complementing its show Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. Useful features include an annotated list of upcoming religious holidays, a viewer's guide, and an archive of free online transcripts. RNS provides "today's news," a weekly feature story, a weekly commentary, and an archive covering the broad spectrum of religions. Along with dozens of denomination-specific news links, Web Sites for Journalists: Online Religion Resources also provides dozens of pointers to institutions of religious education (primarily Christian and primarily in North America) and many useful links to Religion References Online.

David Wiley: Religious Sacred Texts
http://davidwiley.com/religion.html
The Internet Sacred Text Archive
http://sacred-texts.com/index.htm 
World Scripture: An Anthology of Sacred Texts
http://www.ettl.co.at/uc/ws
Educational psychologist David Wiley presents links to sites containing the complete texts not only of the major world religions but also to such esoteric writings as the Gnostic Pistis Sophia. His Divrei Torah link opens a treasure chest of Judaic resources. The Internet Sacred Text Archive not only provides links to all of the standard religious texts but adds an astounding array of sacred texts such as the Theosophical Book of Dzyan, Arthurian legends, and Neolithic cave art thought to be religious in nature. The online version of World Scripture: An Anthology of Sacred Texts (edited by Andrew Wilson, Paragon House, 1991) is organized by chapter (e.g., God), topic (e.g., The Ultimate Reality), and subtopic (e.g., Traces of God's Existence). Under each subtopic, Wilson presents -- in a parallel structure and with documentation -- ten to 20 relevant excerpts from the scriptures of various religions.

Blue Mountain Arts
http://www.bluemountain.com
Today's Date and Time
http://www.ecben.net/calendar.shtml
Blue Mountain Arts, an e-greeting card company, provides an ongoing guide to chronically proximate festivals of a broad spectrum of religions. The blue strip at the left border of its start page lists upcoming and recently celebrated holidays and holy days. Clicking on the name of the festival will summon a screenful of free personalizable e-cards but unfortunately no background information. Today's Date and Time links to a good array of sites with religious, historical, and celestial calendars, including a list of World Holidays calendars.

GHEN (Global Hindu Electronic Network)http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_pictures/ temples/temples.shtml
Japanese Temples & Shrines
http://members.iex.net/~mcgarity/sh/shrines.htm
Mosques Around the World
http://islamicity.com/culture/mosques
Orthodox Resources on the Internet
http://cygnus.uwa.edu/au/~jgrapsas/pages/Resources.htm#6
Splendors of Christendom
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/splendors/splendors.html
TempleNet
http://www.indiantemples.com
The GHEN (Global Hindu Electronic Network) site contains hundreds of photographs of Hindu temples (but without much textual support), while TempleNet presents the thousands of temples in India. Temples are grouped by deity and also by geographic region. Each page-long description comprises the temple's history, tradition, and a discussion of the architecture. A worthy gallery "tour" of Shinto temples, Japanese Buddhist temples, and Zen gardens is mounted at Japanese Temples & Shrines, produced by an American student in Japan. Mosques Around the World links to photographs of hundreds of mosques. Orthodox Resources on the Internet, maintained by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia, offers links to historic churches, icons, and more. Splendors of Christendom, in addition to its primary list of links to Catholic religious architecture, also includes many other Catholic links.

Bill Piekarski (billpiekarski@hotmail.com) is Information Literacy Librarian at Villa Maria College of Buffalo, NY.