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The Georgetown Companion to Interreligious Studies. Edited by LucindaMosher. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2022. Pp. xx, 544. $99.95.

2024; Wiley; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/heyj.14391

1468-2265

Peter Admirand,

Religion and Society Interactions

Terms and names can be notoriously fluid and subjectively defined. Christians were atheists to cultured first-century Romans (who also watched lions rip human beings to shreds) while for centuries, many Christians (supposed followers of a pacifist Jew) had few qualms owning slaves or fighting holy wars (which also included persecution and murder against their founder's lived Jewish faith). What counted as science, moreover, in 1200 BCE in Egypt or in fourteenth- or late nineteenth-century Padua or London greatly differed, as it does today with the scientific work underway in astrobiology or genetics. Likewise, theology, especially in terms of its methods, aims, presuppositions, worldviews, limitations, ethics, key texts, or agendas—has been in constant flux and contention. Such is seen not only in the discipline's fall and marginalisation in the Academy, but in the myriad ways, fields, and subfields that are accruing, sometimes amicably, sometimes less so. Allegiance in some circles, for example, to either theology or religious studies remains strong; likewise to whether one labels oneself in ethics, dogmatics, textual (biblical) studies, or (church) history; and how we perceive or promote the contestation (or embracing) of terms like religion, world religions, or worldviews. A marketplace demanding specialisation, even as it supposedly lauds interdisciplinary work, forces the further narrowing of interests and expertise. How we label ourselves can signal supposed liberal or conservative banners. As terms change, or the understanding of those terms change, or insights trickle into a discipline from the outside, an effort to rename or regroup what had previously, or perhaps, only sporadically been done, arises. Sometimes this new term or naming becomes standard, at least for a time, until it too morphs into something else. None of this is necessarily wrong, but it does raise some relevant issues which I'll return to in the conclusion, prompted by one of the most robust chapters (from Daniel Madigan) in the book under discussion. Leaving aside the question of terms, names, fields, and subfields, The Georgetown Companion to Interreligious Studies, boldly structured and edited by Lucinda Mosher, is required reading beyond its main aim: namely to establish, describe, argue for, and analyse, as the back cover notes, the 'history, priorities, challenges, distinguishing pedagogies, and practical applications of interreligious studies'. Let me first address and qualify my word choice of 'boldly', and then after a brief overview of the book's structure and key themes, and the handful of the fifty chapters I found particularly noteworthy or challenging, why this book can be more than just a companion to what is being called 'interreligious studies' or whatever later name or term supersedes it in the future. Editors of companions and handbooks shape and form their subject matter through their choices of authors and subthemes, and especially how and whether they allow for ambiguity, conflict, overlap, or elements of disharmony. Focusing especially on the 'inter' in interreligious (or interfaith) studies, Mosher celebrates and encourages the 'between'; not only among faiths, ideologies, and disciplines, but from the margins and the centres. She is not afraid of potential theological cacophony. Naysayers or doubters are not banned, but included (voices are given to key figures in various theological subfields who may or may not align themselves primarily as an interreligious [or interfaith] studies scholar). Some essays can seem 95% about that own scholar's preferred label or subfield while other contributions seek to establish and argue for the value of interreligious studies against the supposed failures or limitations of theology and religious studies, broadly defined. Again, Mosher acknowledges that interreligious studies is still an adolescent field, 'sometimes messy, sometimes muddy, and occasionally sludgy' (p.12). She is not afraid to highlight and allow ambiguity. She even ends the book with Timur R. Yuskaev's somewhat hard-hitting (and sometimes pompous) contention that interfaith studies, especially regarding the otherwise groundbreaking work of Eboo Patel, fails to provide proper critiques but is too often self-congratulatory. Yuskaev also bemoans the eagerness or ubiquity of scholars claiming interreligious studies as a field, questioning if it's 'a colonial gesture' (p. 506). He also claims 'he refuses to write dispatches' (p. 507), which seems odd if not pointed, as another foundational book in this adolescent field is the 2020 edited collection by Hans Gustafson, Interreligious Studies: Dispatches from an Emerging Field. Normally, the final essay in a handbook or companion circles back to earlier texts generally with praise, so I applaud Mosher for ending the book on a somewhat discordant note. It shows there's a lot more work to do. I noted the breath of the book, fifty chapters, but there is also great depth not just because interreligious studies can seem to examine everything under the sun (at least as long as there is some link to the spiritual or religious), but also because of the individuals chosen (many of them recognised authorities) across the world, with a conscious attempt to bring in sometimes overlooked or marginalised voices or perspectives. This means, for example, that essays focus across the wide scope of faiths from the so-called major world religions/worldviews, to those voices sometimes overlooked as in Sikhism, Jainism, or Ruism. Importantly, Mosher also includes humanist voices and certainly sees various humanist contributions as part of the scope of interreligious studies. The book is divided into seven parts. Part one seeks to provide a shape and context to the meaning, concerns, and aims of the new field, guided by Mosher's opening essay celebrating 'between-ness' (p. 12). A standout of the collection is Pim Valkenbergs's contribution assessing distinctions and also tensions between interreligious studies and comparative studies, and especially how 'dialogue', once perceived as a threat or as not academic enough by mainstream theologies, is sometimes deemed tepid or additionally problematic, and so now requiring an emancipation after dialogue (p. 25). He traces the same perceived decline with the term 'interreligious', though that term is maintained in the title of Mosher's book. (In this regard, confer the dual-name title of the 2018 seminal book, Interreligious/Interfaith Studies: Defining a New Field, edited by Eboo Patel, Jennifer Howe Peace, and Noah Silverman—Patel and Peace also have separate contributions in this collection). Regardless, it is worth quoting Valkenberg's final sentence: 'In any case, the matter of power relations and of the possible misuse of interreligious dialogue, comparative theology, and interreligious studies to perpetuate existing power relations requires constant attention' (p. 29). As a Catholic, Valkenberg draws on Nostra aetate to contend that we Catholics (and here I include myself as also involved in many of these dialogues and discussions) might 'step aside and facilitate others' (p. 29). Part two, 'Interdisciplinarity', touches the surface of the limitless potential of, to put it mildly, any discipline or field, because none are islands onto themselves. Religious studies can thus pair with any discipline as a potential fruitful study (and the religious is steeped in the non-religious, anyway). As an aside, if anyone is reading Cormac McCarthy's recent novels, see how mathematics can be brought into dialogue with literature (and ethics and philosophy). Here, the between-ness turns to other fields such as ethnography, history, interfaith pilgrimage, and law, for example. Overall, I found this section the strongest, especially the first four contributions (from Devaka Premawardhana, Alan Brill, David Thomas, and Aaron Rosen), and including the second of my five standout essay selections, namely William Dyrness and Alexander E. Massad's aim to 'attempt to present the power of nontextual religious experiences as examples of the overlooked transformative power outside centers of power within Western Christianity' (p. 125)—namely, 'the aural world of Islam, the performed history of American Black religion, and the visual projection of the Zapatista communities of southern Mexico' (p.117). In the margins at the end of the essay, I scrawled: 'Should be a book (is it?)'. Part three, 'Intersectionality', in addition to an excellent essay from the always thought-provoking Amy-Jill Levine, has my third standout essay, Tracy Sayuki Tiemeier's assessment of privileging intersectionality in interreligious studies, which, like Valkenberg's essay, is interested in the use, misuses and allocation of power. Tiemeier contends interreligious studies must focus on 'the most vulnerable persons and populations' (p. 154), thus taking what I would label a more liberationist approach (though again confer recent discussion on decolonial or postcolonial terminology). Part four, 'Prioritizing the Margins', picks up on Tiemeier's plea. Though I would have preferred urgent voices from the liberation theology tradition, especially regarding the poor and displaced, to be included here, I appreciate the focus of Oddbjørn Leirvik's essay on humanism and secularity in relation to interfaith studies. Leirvik's 2014 book, Interreligious Studies: A Relational Approach to Religious Activism and the Study of Religion, is another early touchstone in the field, and there's a great need to focus on theist-atheist dialogue and engagement. The fifth part, 'Interreligious Dialogical Close Reading', is bracketed by two more of my five standout essays in this book. It begins with another masterclass essay by Frank Clooney, whose joy of teaching and learning from his students is illuminating and deeply inspiring. Like the section's other stellar essay by Daniel Madigan (which I'll return to in the conclusion), Clooney's emphatic or explicit embrace of interreligious studies as a separate field is not addressed. He simply describes what he does as a scholar and teacher under the 'general term' of comparative theology (p. 281). Was this an essay in interreligious studies, too? Clooney never really says, except to emphasise how much we all have to learn. Part six, 'Interreligious Educational Design', is a clear link to Clooney's contribution and includes twelve essays, while part seven, 'Trajectories', has four essays, highlighted by John Thatamanil's essay arguing for his preferred terminology, namely a 'Comparative Theology of Religious Diversity', another example where Mosher lets these experts speak and articulate their positions and concerns, even if the reader is left to discern whether and how there is a clear overlap and symmetry with interfaith studies more broadly or a parallel move carving out a separate, autonomous but linked space. Finally, incorporating his participation in the Building Bridges seminars (Mosher is an editor of many of their published collections), Daniel Madigan's subtitle speaks volumes: 'Interrogating the Category of Interreligious Studies'. Here Madigan tries to find names or terms to describe the work his fellow scholars have been doing, even as it doesn't quite fit a particular box. He writes: 'My sense is that the field of interreligious studies is being populated and mapped partly by people dissatisfied with religious studies' disengaged interrogations and theorising who are mitigating in the direction of theology because they recognise the value of commitment to seeking truth. However, they hesitate to go all the way because so much theology is only concerned about a defense of its own systems' (p. 342). He also refers to those in interreligious studies who want to stay invested in the search for truth as in theology but see religious studies' openness to many ways as more enriching and valid. He closes his essay with a plea for those in theology or religious studies not to 'set themselves up as a separate field in between' but to work within theology or religious studies to expand awareness and learning with the so-called religious other in the case of theology and to 'engage more deeply with human religiosity' if in religious studies (p. 342). This was my 'Amen' moment in the book, frustrated in part by various inadequate descriptions of theology's limitations or rigidness (p. 436). Madigan thus echoes some of my positions. I would label myself as a deeply interdisciplinary Catholic theologian guided by the option for the poor, and invested and involved in various forms of dialogue, especially Jewish-Christian and theist-atheist dialogue. I am sceptical of so-called objectivity or neutrality, believing all people and faiths are inherently subjective, and my faith system and all faith systems are deeply flawed and fractured, and so in need of humility and one another (but still with the possibility of distinctions or evaluations). This, too, is theology (and also overlaps with interreligious studies). Regarding terms and names, the priority, echoing Paul Knitter or liberation theologians, is to advocate for, partner with, and learn from those on the margins and the outcast, especially those oppressed by economic, racist, sexist, and classist structures—and to invest in combatting the reality and horrors of our ecological crisis (which furthers those divisions and oppressions). Where, then, does one draw the line and demarcate theology, religious studies, interfaith or interreligious dialogue, comparative theology, social justice work, interreligious studies, and so on, in such a messy, sometimes sludgy position—to borrow some of Mosher's words? Labels and names are ways of identifying, and it's important to seek new terms and challenge old terms and then revisit the old terms and challenge the new terms. Interreligious studies is a lot of how I envision what theology should be—but so are claims from liberation, feminist, indigenous, and decolonial voices—too many, in fact, to list. Perhaps the most telling and useful phrase to draw from the book is the Zapatista slogan, highlighted in Dyrness and Massad's chapter: 'We desire a world that contains many worlds' (p. 123). In this sense, carving out a field like interreligious studies that can be open to so many apparently discordant voices, including even those who would prefer this was not the case, is certainly worth supporting. My only caveat is when trying to show what is new or special about interreligious studies, be careful what you say or imply about theology (or religious studies). This is partly on account of the chapters from Valkenberg, Clooney, and Madigan, but also because, inevitably, there will be a movement to replace interreligious studies as a term or field. At some point, seeking what is new partly by denigrating or undermining what is old can only go so far.