David Cheetham - Understanding Interreligious Relations

UNDERSTANDING INTERRELIGIOUS RELATIONS

EDITED BY

David Cheetham, Douglas Pratt,
and David Thomas

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DAVID CHEETHAM, DOUGLAS PRATT, AND DAVID THOMAS

DAVID CHEETHAM

JEFFERY D. LONG

ED KESSLER

ELIZABETH J. HARRIS

PERRY SCHMIDT-LEUKEL

DAVID THOMAS

ANDREW WINGATE

MARIANNE MOYAERT

PETER C. PHAN AND JONATHAN Y. TAN

DOUGLAS PRATT

ANNA HALAFOFF

NICHOLAS ADAMS

MARIO I. AGUILAR

CATHERINE CORNILLE

DAVID R. VISHANOFF

PAUL WELLER

DAVID CHEETHAM, DOUGLAS PRATT, AND DAVID THOMAS

Nicholas Adams is a lecturer in the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, UK

Mario I. Aguilar is Professor of Divinity and Director, Centre for the Study of Religion and Politics, University of St Andrews, UK

David Cheetham is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Philosophy, Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham, UK

Catherine Cornille is Professor of Comparative Theology at Boston College, Massachusetts, USA

Anna Halafoff is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia

Elizabeth J. Harris is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theology, Philosophy and Religious Studies, Liverpool Hope University, UK

Ed Kessler MBE is the Founder Director, Woolf Institute, Cambridge and Fellow of St Edmunds College, Cambridge University, UK

Jeffery D. Long is Professor of Religion and Asian Studies, Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania, USA

Marianne Moyaert is Professor of Comparative Theology and Interreligious Dialogue at the Free University of Amsterdam, and is concurrently a postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Theology, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium

Peter C. Phan holds the Ignacio Ellacuria Chair of Catholic Social Thought, Theology Department, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA

Douglas Pratt is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Waikato, New Zealand, and is Adjunct Professor of Theology and Interreligious Studies at the University of Bern, Switzerland

Perry Schmidt-Leukel is Professor of Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology at the University of Mnster, Germany

Jonathan Y. Tan is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Theology, Australian Catholic University, Sydney NSW, Australia

David Thomas is Professor of Christianity and Islam and Nadir Dinshaw Professor of Inter Religious Relations, University of Birmingham, UK

David R. Vishanoff is an Associate Professor in the Religious Studies Program of the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma, USA

Paul Weller is Professor of Inter-Religious Relations, University of Derby, and Visiting Fellow in the Oxford Centre for Christianity and Culture, Regents Park College, University of Oxford, UK

Andrew Wingate OBE is a consultant, teacher, and theologian in interfaith relations, and was the founding Director of the St Philips Centre, Leicester, UK

DAVID CHEETHAM, DOUGLAS PRATT, AND DAVID THOMAS

The ways in which religious communities interact with one another, both historically and in the contemporary world, is now a major focus of scholarly research and teaching. Issues of interfaith engagement, inclusive of interreligious dialogue more specifically, and interreligious (or interfaith) relations more generally, together with issues pertaining to intra-religious engagement, attract widespread interest and concern among scholars and other specialists in religion, as well as also many others who have regard for the role of religion in todays world.theological studies is symptomatic of this new awareness. And increasingly through the media the wider public is being exposed to issues and events that involve the interaction of one religion or religious community with another.

Interest in interreligious relations is undoubtedly growing, and so the aim of this volume is to provide a reference work of relevance to students and scholars, as well as to a wider public. It comprises two main parts. The first provides an introduction to, and expositions and critical discussions of, the ways in which the other has been construed, addressed, and related to, in the major religious traditions. The second provides analyses of select key issues and debates in which interreligious relations are seen to be an integral constituent. It has thus been the intention of the editors to assemble an authoritative and scholarly work that discusses perspectives on the religious other, and on interreligious relations, that are typical of the different religious traditions; and to elicit substantial original chapters from a cross-section of emerging and established scholars on main debates and issues in the wider field of interreligious relations.

As has been often said, ours is an age of increased global religious diversity. Of course, in some parts of the world religious plurality has been the order of the day since time immemorial; in such situations, people have long been used to relating positively and pragmatically to their neighbours of other faiths. Interfaith harmony has had a long-standing pedigree. But equally clashes between religions, or religious groups, have also ebbed and flowed throughout human history, and in our day religion presents as a very pressing issue globally as well as regionally and locallyas seen in evidence of rising mutual anxieties if not outright antipathies between communities of Christians and Muslims. Contemporary flash-points of communal conflict with significant interreligious components are many and include such diverse settings as Thailand, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, and Myanmar. And religions other than Islam and Christianity are also involved. In respect to many socio-political and cultural situations today, religion has a tendency to make things worse even as it can be a force to make things better. Ameliorating what makes things worse, and promoting whatever makes things better, is a challenge and task that not only confronts the religions and their leaders but also impacts upon, and is increasingly taken up by, governments that previously, from a secularist position, had resiled from even admitting religion within the body politic.