Interreligious Comparisons in Religious Studies and Theology Comparison Revisited

Can religions be compared? For decades the discipline of religious studies was based on the assumption that they can. Postmodern and postcolonial reflections, however, raised significant doubts. In social and cultural studies the investigation of the particular often took precedence over a comparative perspective. Interreligious Comparisons in Religious Studies and Theology questions whether religious studies can survive if it ceases to be comparative religion. Can it do justice to a globalized world if it is limited on the specific and turns a blind eye on the general?

While comparative approaches have come under strong pressure in religious studies, they have started flourishing in Theology. Comparative theology practices interfaith dialogue by means of comparative research. This volume asks whether theology and religious studies are able to mutually benefit from their critical and constructive reflections. Can postcolonial criticism of neutrality and objectivity in religious studies create new links with the decidedly perspectival approach of comparative theology?

In this collection scholars from theology and religious studies discuss the methodology of interreligious comparison in the light of recent doubts and current objections. Together with the contributors, Perry Schmidt-Leukel and Andreas Nehring argue that after decades of critique, interreligious comparison deserves to be reconsidered, reconstructed and reintroduced.

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

Andreas Nehring is Professor of Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology at the University of Erlangen, Germany.

1. Introduction
Part 1: Comparison: Contestation and Defence
2. Comparative Methodology and the Religious Studies Toolkit, Paul Hedges, Associate Professor, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
3. Comparison in the Maelstrom of Historicity: A Postcolonial Perspective on Comparative Religion,
Michael Bergunder, Professor, University of Heidelberg, Germany
4. Modes of Comparison: Towards Creating a Methodological Framework for Comparative Studies
Oliver Freiberger, Associate Professor, University of Texas, USA
5. Comparison as a Necessary Evil. Examples from Indian and Jewish Worlds, Philippe Bornet, Senior Lecturer at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland
Part 2: Phenomenology and the Foundations of Comparison
6. Camouflage of the Sacred – Can We still Branch Off from Eliade's Comparative Approach? Andreas Nehring, Full Professor, University of Erlangen, Germany
7. The Singular and the Shared: Making Amends with Eliade after the Dismissal of the Sacred, Kenneth Rose, Full Professor, Christopher Newport University, Virginia, USA
8. Religious Practice and the Nature of the Human
Gavin Flood, Full Professor, Oxford University, UK
9. On All-Embracing Mental Structures: Towards a Transcendental Hermeneutics of Religion, Fabian Völker, Research Assistant, University of Muenster, Germany
Part 3: Reciprocal Illumination and Comparative Theology
10. Comparative Theology and Comparative Religion, Klaus von Stosch, Full Professor, University of Paderborn, Germany
11. Reciprocal Illumination, Arvind Sharma, Birks Professor, McGill University, USA
12. On Creativity, Participation and Normativity. Comparative Theology in Discussion with Arvind Sharma's Reciprocal Illumination, Ulrich Winkler, Professor, University of Salzburg, Austria
13. Christ as Bodhisattva – A Case of Reciprocal Illumination, Perry Schmidt-Leukel, Full Professor, University of Muenster, Germany
Bibliography
Index

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