Special Issue "European Perspectives on the New Comparative Theology"

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Francis X. Clooney
Harvard Divinity School, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Website: http://www.hds.harvard.edu/faculty/clooney.cfm
E-Mail: fclooney@hds.harvard.edu
Phone: +1 617 384 9396
Interests: Classical Hinduism in the Sanskrit and Tamil traditions; comparative Christian-Hindu theology; Christian missionary encounters with Asia religions

Guest Editor
Dr. John Berthrong
School of Theology, Boston University, One Silber Way, Boston, MA 02215, USA
Website: http://www.bu.edu/academics/sth/faculty/john-h.berthrong/
E-Mail: jhb@bu.edu
Phone: +1 617 353 6136
Fax: +1 617 353 3061

Dear Colleagues,

Comparative theology is a field with a lineage as long as the earliest efforts by believers to engage, understand, learn from and critique other religions. In the 1980s and 1990s, scholars revived the field as timely in light of today’s religious diversity. They have given it some new characteristics, tried new methods, and argued for fresh implications, and thus in a real sense reinvented the discipline, affording new energy to the study of religions in practice and in the particular, without undue a priori attention to theoretical presuppositions and issues of method. Now younger theologians in different traditions have further interrogated its presumptions and practices and brought it into conversation with post-colonialism, gender studies, ethnographic research, and a (re)turn to theologies of religious pluralism. This thematic issue focuses on the European context to see how this new field has been received, understood, and critiqued among scholars writing in Europe.

Helpful recent secondary sources include Francis X Clooney’s Comparative Theology (2010), and his edited volume, with contributions from younger scholars, The New Comparative Theology (2010).

Prof. Dr. Francis X. Clooney
Dr. John Berthrong
Guest Editors

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• comparative
• theology
• religious reading
• practice
• particularit

Title: Comparative Theology as ‘World Theology’
Author: Rose Drew
Affiliation: University of Glasgow, UK; Email: rose.drew@glasgow.ac.uk
Abstract: Noting differences in how comparative theology is presented by its protagonists, I will argue that it is best conceived along the lines of what Wilfred Cantwell Smith called ‘world theology’, i.e. as contributing to the ongoing attempt to give intellectual expression to the faith of us all.  While Keith Ward’s conception of comparative theology is consistent with this vision, others conceive of its task along quite different lines.  James Fredericks, for example, sees comparative theology as replacing theology of religions (and so replacing any concern with evaluating others’ truth claims).  And there is also a tendency among some to construe comparative theology as essentially an internal, say, Christian or Hindu exercise, despite its supposedly interreligious nature.  The avoidance of questions of truth and the attempt to limit the scope of comparative theology can be seen as symptomatic of post-modern scepticism regarding meta-narratives and the possibility of neutrality.  Yet, as I will argue, the broader project envisaged by Smith and others depends not on some supposedly neutral perspective but on the possibility of gaining—as far as possible—an ‘insider’ perspective on another tradition.  Finally, I will explore how this kind of theology challenges traditional distinctions between theology and religious studies.

Title: A European (German) View to Comparative Theology
Author: Ulrich Dehn
Affiliation: Hamburg University, Hamburg, Germany
Abstract: For the last couple of years, particularly after publication of the (German) book “Comparative Theology” by Bernhold Reinhardt and Klaus von Stosch, there was a significant attentiveness of German scholars to this subject. For many this was the for a long time looked for antithesis to the pluralist theology of religions – which it may be only as a side product - , for others it has been an appropriate way to express their desire for a substantial interreligious dialogue in a theologically responsible way. This paper tries to review some of the major German contributions (being read over against international ones) and reactions to Comparative Theology and search for the motive behind its sudden popularity in some circles. It will also try to reconstruct the possibilities of Comparative Theology within the wider setting of the process and development of religious traditions as they grow and change in neverending interaction and communication within the history of religions, ideas and society.

Title: Tradition with a New Identity: Thomist Engagement with Non-Christian Thought as a Model for the New Comparative Theology in Europ
Author: Martin Ganeri O.P.
Affiliation: Heythrop College, University of London, UK
Abstract: British theologians have criticised contemporary comparative theology for privileging learning to the exclusion of challenge and transformation in the Christian encounter with the thought of other religions.Moreover, a wider concern in Britain about contemporary expressions of theology in the academy, including comparative theology, is about their accountability to the ecclesial communities to which theologians belong. This paper aims to retrieve the Thomist engagement with non-Christian thought as a model for contemporary comparative theology that also addresses these concerns.The paper outlines Aquinas’ understanding of Christian theology’s engagement with non-Christian thought as being one of transformation, using the Biblical image of water changing into wine to illustrate what is involved.Such a model, the paper argues, is indeed true to what takes place when one tradition does appropriate the thought of another.The paper points to historical examples of Thomist encounter with Indian thought and suggests some new applications.Using the Thomist model for contemporary comparative theology is a case of tradition coming to have a new identity, one that balances learning with challenge and transformation, one that bridges the divide between the academic and the ecclesial exercise of theology.

Title: Comparative Theology: Between Theology and Religious Studies
Author: Reinhold Bernhardt
Affiliation: Professur für Systematische Theologie / Dogmatik, Universität Basel, Theologisches Seminar: Nadelberg 10, CH-4051 Basel, Büro: Heuberg 33, CH-4051 Basel, Switzerland; E-Mail: Reinhold.Bernhardt@unibas.ch
Abstract: In the German-speaking academy there is not only a split but sometimes a harsh sibling rivalry between the disciplines of theology and religious studies. The term "Comparative Theology" provokes suspicions from both sides: Does it 'theologize' the comparative method of religious studies ("Religionswissenschaft") and thus push back the emancipation of religious studies into the very theology from which it escaped in the twentieth century? On the other hand, does it reduce theology to cultural studies, abandoning the truth claim of Christian faith? Is "Comparative Theology" primarily a method which can be applied to every religion? - Against these linked  suspicions, in this article we will ask: What does "theology" mean in "Comparative Theology"? How does "Comparative Theology" differ from "Comparative Studies of Religions" ("Vergleichende Religionswissenschaft"), as it was inaugurated in the 19th century by Friedrich Max Müller? Does "theology" point to the material, which is to become compared: religious ideas, texts, rituals and so on? Or does it indicate the epistemic position from which - and the perspective in which - the comparison is performed? If this is the case then there will be different forms of "Comparative theologies": Christian, Muslim, Jewish and so forth. How do these various "comparative theologies"  relate to each other? And how do the respective truth-claims of the faith-traditions come into play?  In order to deal with those questions I will compare "Comparative Theology" with other theological approaches such as "dogmatics in the context of world-religions"

Title: “The Self-Contradicting Nature of Reason and Spirituality: A Comparative Perspective within European Philosophy and Theology.”
Author: Claudia Bickmann
Affiliation: Universität zu Köln, Germany; E-Mail: Claudia.Bickmann@Uni-koeln.de
Abstract: My paper sets the task of analyzing the idea of the self-contradicting nature of reason and spirituality as developed within major traditions of European philosophical and theological systems. By reference to the Platonic, Aristotelian, and Neo-Platonic traditions and then to German Idealism, including Husserl and Heidegger, I will indicate the way in which the concept of reason – on the one side - depends on the horizon of spirituality (by searching for the ultimate ground within us and the striving for the highest good); and inversely – in how far the idea of the divine or our spiritual self can only be achieved, understood and transmitted by reference to reason and rationality. While conceptual analysis is dependent on its pre-rational fundamentals; spirituality – irreducible to the concept of the divine – remains dependent on the explanatory power of our thoughts. Even the negation of reason or rationality – as it is the case within the traditions of Negative Theology, Buddhism, Daoism or Hinduism - depends on a systematic method in order to pave the way for the non-rational dimensions of our existence. But while philosophical or theological analysis aims at the universal dimensions of spirituality or the divine (as in Plato's idea of the 'highest good', the Aristotelian 'Absolute substance' (Spinoza), the 'Oneness of the One' (Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists) or the Hegelian 'Absolute spirit'), - the dimension of spirituality or divinity in the field of religion mediates between the universal and our individual existence (symbolized by a sacred person – such as Jesus, Brahman, Buddha or Mohammed). Therefore as surely as religion does not lose its specificity by comparative analysis, theology or philosophy is able to enhance the vital dimensions of the very same spirituality. All religious systems are based on the irreducibility of our personal, always individualized search for access to the divine and hence may be understood as a variety of answers to the universal, never ending human inquiry into the sources and goals of our natural and spiritual existence. Thus, as I hold, comparative analysis does not reduce the different religions to some vague characteristics, but may indeed open a path to a better understanding for their irreducible specificities.

Title: Comparative Theology and Religious Studies in a Non-Religious Environment
Author: Jacques Scheuer
Affiliation: Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium ; E-Mail : jacques.scheuer@uclouvain.be
Abstract: The intellectual landscape of Europe bears the marks of a long history of cultural perceptions of and scientific approaches to religions. The sciences of religions had to conquer their autonomy versus Churches and theologies. However, the cultural context and the institutional set-up of ‘laïcité’ did not foster the development of comparative religion, much less comparative theology. But this situation may have an advantage : it should discourage the exercise of comparative theology as a sectorial endeavour apart from broader anthropological perspectives and concerns. Comparative theology should not become the last refuge for religious nostalgia. In Europe, interreligious relationships (and hence comparative theologies) should not be isolated from simple or more sophisticated forms of indifference, agnosticism, or atheism. The active presence of a non-religious environment is a continuous challenge to comparative theology : its contents, its methods, its intended audience.