Traveling Light: The Shared Wandering Way of Jesus and Other Spiritual Pioneers

The New York Times bestselling author and renowned religious scholar asks: what would it mean to reclaim the notion of wandering—the trust in strangers, the rejection of materialism—a principle foundational to most of the world's major faiths?

In the spirit of other 'big think, big picture' books like Sapiens, Traveling Light examines a fascinating religious commonality among Christianity, Buddhism, Daoism, and other faiths: Each began with its founder wandering from civilization to pursue the true worship of God on the road, without destination. Stephen Prothero, author of eleven acclaimed books including the equally expansive God Is Not One and Religious Literacy, brings his renowned scholarship and deep knowledge of the world’s faiths to explore what that renunciation meant in its deepest sense.

Prothero reveals how these spiritual pioneers—Jesus, Buddha, Laozi and more—meant their departures to be revolutionary statements about the confines of cities and towns and a critique of a sedentary agricultural life within empires. These founders embraced lives of personal transformation.

But, over time, their followers institutionalized their spiritual practices into rigid, power-driven structures, constructing monastic institutions, political alliances, and systems of material accumulation, thus straying from the radical lifestyles and teachings of their founders. Prothero explores:

• Why the renunciation of family was particularly painful and countercultural in Jesus' time
• The wealth divide in that era and the debates that raged about how to respond to poverty
• Wandering as an act of trust in fellow man versus an act of never returning home

Traveling Light offers an eye-opening perspective on religious evolution, appealing to readers disillusioned with organized faith but eager to deepen their connections to its origins, spiritual wanderers, and history enthusiasts examining ancient cultures.