howe burrows. >>> we have a real treasure and treat for you this morning. dr. houston smith is with us this morning, author of the standard textbook on the world's religion. for three decades, students and people who have an interest in religion have been reading dr. smith's book. he's revised it and come to talk to us about that. welcome. >> i appreciate that. >> welcome to mosaic. it is truly a joy to have you. let's begin by talking about the book you wrote nearly four decades ago. tell us about it. >> let me start just a little before that, mainly with my birth, in china, a missionary parent. in a way you can almost say that this book was in my genes because here i was, nurtured in a christian home, but we were the only westerners in the town and all of my contacts with china and chinese and their indigos religions, so one can say that this might be seen as the blossoming of the way that i came into the world. >> what part of china? >> inland, worrel, 70 miles from shane high. >> what time period, if you don't mind me asking. >> not at all. being chinese, n