teaching world religions without teaching “world religions”

Teaching World Religions without Teaching“World Religions”

Reid B. Locklin, St. Michael’s College, University of TorontoTracy Tiemeier, Loyola Marymount UniversityJohann M. Vento, Georgian Court University

Abstract. Tomoko Masuzawa and a number of other contemporary scholars haverecently problematized the categories of “religion” and “world religions” and, insome cases, called for its abandonment altogether as a discipline of scholarly study.In this collaborative essay, we respond to this critique by highlighting three attemptsto teach world religions without teaching “world religions.” That is, we attempt topromote student engagement with the empirical study of a plurality of religious tradi-tions without engaging in the rhetoric of pluralism or the reification of the category“religion.” The first two essays focus on topical courses taught at the undergraduatelevel in self-consciously Christian settings: the online course “Women and Religion”at Georgian Court University and the service-learning course “Interreligious Dialogueand Practice” at St. Michael’s College, in the University of Toronto. The final essaydiscusses the integration of texts and traditions from diverse traditions into the gradu-ate theology curriculum more broadly, in this case at Loyola Marymount University.Such confessional settings can, we suggest, offer particularly suitable – if somewhatcounter-intuitive – contexts for bringing the otherwise covert agendas of the worldreligions discourse to light and subjecting them to a searching inquiry in the religionclassroom.

IntroductionIn her important study The Invention of World Religions, Tomoko Masuzawa offers agenealogical history of the categories of “religion” and “world religions” as discoursesthat emerged hand-in-hand with the rise of liberal universalism and the European colo-nial project (2005). While the rhetoric of religious pluralism and the scientific study ofso-called “great religions” or “world religions” typically positioned itself as a radicalalternative and decisive step beyond the religious intolerance of previous eras,Masuzawa argues, in fact it preserved the logic of European hegemony in a new form.In her conclusion, she writes:

What is at stake here is far more fundamental than the problem of border viola-tions between historical science and theology; rather it is a question of whetherthe world religions discourse can be in any way enlisted, and trusted, on the sideof historical scholarship. Or, put another way, whether the idea of the diversity ofreligion is not, instead, the very thing that facilitates the transference and transmu-tation of a particular absolutism from one context to another – from the overtlyexclusivist hegemonic version (Christian supremacist dogmatism) to the openlypluralistic universalist one (world religions pluralism) – and at the same time

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makes this process of transmutation very hard to identify and nearly impossible tounderstand. (Masuzawa 2005, 326–27)

In making the case for the cultural particularity of the contemporary discourse of worldreligions, Masuzawa is not alone: beginning at least with the seminal work of EdwardSaid (1979), many scholars in anthropology and religious studies have problematizedthe category of “religion” and, in some cases, called for its abandonment altogether as adiscipline of scholarly study (see, for example, Smith 1991; Asad 1993; King 1999; andthe useful survey in Dubuisson 2007).

Masuzawa’s study deserves special attention from educators, however, because ofthe prominent role played by world religions textbooks in the historical development shenarrates (see Masuzawa 2005, 2–13, 291–301). In this development, as in most fieldsof inquiry, questions of scholarship and questions of pedagogy are closely intertwined.The home of the discourse of pluralism Masuzawa traces is, above all, the college anduniversity, and it is in the classroom that it acquired its widest currency and most effec-tive vehicle: the world religions survey course. The questions posed for the educator inthe light of this critique are quite profound. Is it still possible to teach world religions ina credible, responsible way, one that accounts for the cultural particularity of the dis-course and the logic of hegemony it may covertly preserve? If so, how? In answer,scholars in the discipline have proposed thick historical or ethnographic accounts ofindividual traditions, limited thematic comparisons, or – as proposed by Laurie L.Patton and Vernon K. Robbins (2009) – “interactive interpretation” of sacred texts.

These questions are particularly pressing for those of us who teach in the religiousstudies or theology departments of historically Christian colleges and universities –caught, as it were, at the intersection of both discourses highlighted by Masuzawa andher fellow critics: “Christian supremacist dogmatism,” on the one hand, and “worldreligions pluralism” on the other. Yet, in the essays that follow, we suggest that thiscomplex and difficult location may ultimately represent not only a curse, but also a kindof blessing. For it may be that confessional institutions provide a particularly suitablesetting for bringing the otherwise covert patterns and agendas of the world religionsdiscourse to light and subjecting them to a searching inquiry in the religion classroom.In such environments, the particular subjectivities of teachers, students, and even theinstitutions themselves can be explicitly recognized in the educational process; and, inturn, the study of religious diversity may serve to implicate us more deeply in ourshared exercise of learning and interpretation, ideally rendering us accountable and evenvulnerable to the persons and traditions we study (see also Berling 2004; Locklin andNicholson 2010).

In the essays that follow, we highlight three such attempts to teach world religionswithout teaching “world religions” – or, to state it differently, to promote studentengagement with the questions and empirical study of a plurality of religious traditionswithout, insofar as possible, engaging in the rhetoric of pluralism or the reification ofthe category “religion” – all in one or another form of confessional setting.1 The first

1 These papers were originally presented as part of a panel of the same title at the annual meeting ofthe College Theology Society in June 2009. We are thankful to those present at that session and to JuliaLauwers – who presented with us – for their contributions to our discussion. We are also grateful for thecritique and helpful suggestions of two anonymous reviewers. We believe that our individual essays andour thinking about pedagogy in relation to these courses have been considerably strengthened as a result.

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two essays focus on specific, topical courses taught at the undergraduate level: theonline course “Women and Religion” at Georgian Court University and the service-learning course “Interreligious Dialogue and Practice” at the University of Toronto. Thefinal essay discusses the integration of texts and traditions from diverse traditions intothe graduate theology curriculum more broadly, in this case at Loyola Marymount Uni-versity. Though these are very different institutional environments, each presents uniquechallenges and opportunities for the educator wishing to teach world religions withoutsuccumbing to the Scylla of Christian dogmatism or its mirror hegemony, the Charybdisof world religions pluralism.

Women and ReligionJohann M. Vento

If you are not rooted in the specific and in the small, in the local, you can neversee the broader vision. You have to love a tradition and to be completely immersedin it before you can subvert it and transcend it. (Scheck and Tippett 2007)

This quote comes from Fatemeh Keshavarz, a scholar of the poetry of Rumi, in aninterview on the radio program, Speaking of Faith. Her words express well what my“Women and Religion” course might have to offer to the task of teaching world reli-gions in light of Tomoko Masuzawa’s provocative analysis. With a focus on feministtheology in the world religions, my “Women and Religion” course explores with stu-dents the experience of women who deeply love the religious traditions in which theyare rooted and who offer feminist critiques and reconstructions of their traditions. Inaddition, the course examines the experiences of “traditional” women who, aware ofand conversant with the feminist critiques, do not share them and do not seek feministtransformation of their traditions. Finally, the course considers new religious movementsthat attract women who decide to leave patriarchal traditions to invent new feministreligious spaces.

In each of these three areas, I find Keshavarz’s emphasis on the local to be key. Inorder to help students sense the passion with which women engage these controversiesand the complex nature of their identity negotiations, the course focuses on personalnarratives, in print, on film, and through student interviews. The attention to the specificand concrete, amid the discussion of the diverse perspectives and subject-positionsinvolved, helps, I think, to destabilize any sense that “religion” is one easily definablething or that religious beliefs and practices can be easily categorized, schematized, anddigested in textbook format.

Masuzawa superbly traces several of the cultural presumptions underlying the emer-gence of the world religions schema in the early twentieth century and convincinglyargues that the root system of this discourse includes beliefs about the religious, cul-tural, and racial superiority of Europeans and of the aptness of the colonial dominanceof Europe. She unearths for us the hidden biases of a discourse widely assumed to beneutral. My course, taught at a small Catholic women’s university, is not the typicalsurvey of “world religions.” But it is certainly not immune from the dangers of further-ing the Euro-hegemonic tendencies of the discourse of world religions. I hope, however,that the focus of the course on feminist theology at least helps to bring this and otheressentializing and universalizing tendencies of the study of “other” religions into sharperrelief for my students. I argue that these can be brought to the fore most effectively in a

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course that does not attempt any kind of academic neutrality, but rather acknowledgesthe biases of the texts, the professor, the students, and the various schools of thoughtintersecting the study at hand.

As a course about feminist theology in the world religions, our topic is about doctri-nal claims, their historical origins, their multiple interpretations within religious commu-nities, and their ongoing development. In the case of non-Western religions, this oftenincludes how the West has come to view the teachings and other practices of colonizedpeoples through the lens of the normativity of Protestant Christianity. As a course infeminist theology in the world religions, our subject-matter is about diversity of perspec-tives and contestation within given religious communities. It necessarily involves a criti-cal look at the colonial histories of these communities with specific reference to howwomen or “woman” was constructed in the colonial gaze, as well as the ways in whichwestern feminism has been critiqued in post-colonial studies. The following will drawout more what value theology and feminist critique might have in teaching a “worldreligions” course.

The role of theology. I have been trained in systematic theology in the Roman Catholictradition. I have not formally studied a religion other than my own nor have I ever donecomparative work. Indeed, I have never taken a world religions course! My theologicaltraining, however, has taken place in the context of inter-religious dialogue from thevery beginning. As a graduate student and through my doctoral studies, I first partici-pated as a student and then facilitated for many years an inter-seminary program amongJewish, Christian, and Muslim seminarians and graduate students. My current service onthe think tank of the Elijah Institute’s Board of World Religious Leaders provides mewith an ongoing opportunity to think theologically together with other Christian, Jewish,Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh theologians. As my Hindu colleague in this worksays, this experience is unlike the typical, perhaps often shallow, inter-religious gather-ings over “sandwiches and samosas”; rather, we delve deeply into theological issuesinter-religiously. I have been privileged, then, to have my early and ongoing theologicalformation shaped in these two explicitly inter-religious “schools” of theology.

These are truly “experiential” forms of learning, through which I have been humbledto witness and participate in the deeply passionate, devoted intellectual engagement ofother theologians with their traditions. These experiences are the foundation of what Itry to do in “Women and Religion.” As much as possible, I try to teach this course asan encounter with lived theologies. I expose my students to the complexities involvedin negotiating religious identity through the narratives of actual people for whom thisis a consciously chosen, passionately pursued, frustrating, and rewarding quest.

For her part, Masuzawa indicts the role of Christian theology in the development ofthe world religions discourse. This led to a situation where, by Troelsch’s time,

historians strive to recover the unique genius of each “tradition,” where comparat-ivists attempt to demonstrate diversity, plurality, and affinity among “traditions,”and where theologians seek to confess and to confirm the absoluteness of theirlimited particular “tradition” when they are among their own kind, and, when withothers, speak the language of ecumenical empathy. (Masuzawa 2005, 320)

Though Masuzawa admits at the end of her book that she does not know or understandthe contemporary field of theology, she certainly implies that “theological assumptions”



themselves have this tendency to preserve the Christian supremacist stance (Masuzawa2005, 328).

I would say that indeed contemporary Christian theological comparativists, as wellas those of us who teach some version of the “world religions” course, should take thiscritique seriously in our work. At the same time, I would argue that inter-religious theo-logical engagement has developed beyond that state of internal triumphalism and exter-nal politeness. Although it might still be rare, interreligious theological method hasflowered over the past fifteen years in ways that avoid such triumphalism. There may beways in which the theologically engaged person, through theological dialogue with theother, may enter into the experience of the other, may glimpse that love that Keshavarzspeaks of, that the other has for her or his faith practice, in more effective ways thanthe supposedly objective overview of a world religions textbook, even in the hands of adynamic instructor dedicated to “scientific” neutrality, can provide. Ursula King, in heroverview and challenge to the field of Religious Studies at the turn of this century, simi-larly suggests that the road leading away from the reification of and sense of supremacyover other religious communities may very well run right through theology, among theo-logically engaged persons in dialogue, rather than around it. “Interfaith encounter anddialogue,” she contends, “can be experienced as a liberating praxis freeing partners indialogue from oppressive, narrow boundaries of their own standpoints, revealing thelimited positions of their respective religious and cultural traditions, through which theworld has been mediated to them” (King 2002, 377).2

The role of feminist critique. Ursula King’s challenge for the future of ReligiousStudies also highlights the vital methodological contribution of feminist studies to thefield, “because the study of religion and gender is a self-reflexive process that leadsto a new, more differentiated consciousness on the part of those undertaking it; ittherefore also implies the critical examination of one’s own beliefs, attitudes, andexperiences” (King 2002, 373). The “Women and Religion” course at Georgian CourtUniversity relies on this self-reflexive process and on the function of the feministcritique to make visible the diversity within religious communities as well as thepost-colonial critique within feminist thought itself. All of this provides another wayto teach about “world religions” while taking seriously the ways in which its foundingdiscourse is rooted in Euro-hegemonic thought – which is also, of course, patriarchalthought.

I assign one textbook, Mary Pat Fisher’s Women and Religion (2006), along with acollection of primary texts in feminist theology in various traditions, edited by ArvindSharma and Katherine K. Young, Feminism in the World Religions (1998). I supplementthese with selected internet sites, and, whenever possible, with films directly addressingfeminist struggles in the religions. The course centers on feminist theological critiqueand reconstruction arising from within specific religious traditions. It is my hope that,through this course, students will come to glimpse the theological reasons why somewomen choose to stay within traditional religions as feminists, why others do not findmany feminist critiques compelling, and why others opt for creating new religiousspaces and practices.

2 For a few examples of theologians utilizing (and innovating) inter-religious theological methods,see Eck (1993); Knitter (2009); Clooney (2010a); Clooney (2010b).



This way of framing the treatment of world religions is already laden with valuejudgments that, as a feminist theologian, I have no desire to escape. I try to be honestwith my students about my own perspective and its relation to those of others. I discussfeminism’s roots in western Enlightenment ideals, its ongoing internal debates aboutWestern, white hegemony, about who gets to speak for whom, and about the thirdwave’s embrace of the value of the particular and concrete. From that starting pointwe can broaden the conversation to feminist and non-feminist charges of imperialisttendencies in Western feminism, as well as larger post-colonial debates about who getsto define religion, who gets to name certain practices as patriarchal, liberating, and soforth. Because the course is framed as a course about debates about gender in worldreligions, the political questions of who gets to define what for whom are at the rootof the course.

I use essays of feminist interpretation by practitioners of the various religions treated.While admittedly exercises rooted firmly in Western academic discourse, these piecesmodel for the students one of the major learning objectives of the course: exposureto concrete experiences of loving and appreciating a tradition, while also seeking itstransformation on feminist grounds. These essays do not attempt to hide their alle-giances, and I try to make clear to students both their particularity and their inheritanceof Western feminist values. This becomes easier to highlight through writings – mostlyon the web – and films that present the perspectives of women who choose more tradi-tional forms of religious life.

One example of how the course gets at the critique of “world’s religions discourse”by means of feminist critique and revalorization is an essay I assign about Hinduismby Vasudha Narayanan (in Sharma and Young 2004). She argues in the beginning ofher article that there is a problem with the way most western scholars have studiedHinduism and especially the roles of women in it, because they focus on history, texts,and priesthood, while that is not the experience of the faith for most Hindus, includingwomen. She does not deny that patriarchy exists within the tradition, but she focuses onthe areas of Hindu life where women are active and where most Hindus learn about reli-gion: the home, weddings, the temple, and funerals. According to Narayanan, when thisbroader set of topics is considered, we can see that women have a greater role than thereligious texts alone indicate. She argues: “Although Hindu traditions are portrayed,and quite correctly in some instances, as being patriarchal, the system has built-inmechanisms to allow for dynamic re-interpretation” (Sharma and Young 2004, 14).3

Another way that the course raises these issues is through personal narratives, onfilm, of women negotiating religious restriction and cultural identity. In treating Islam,for example, I use two films, one which presents a discussion among young Muslimwomen in the U.S. about their own relationship to the practice of wearing hijab (or notwearing it), and the other, called Me and the Mosque, about a Canadian Muslim womanwho goes on a tour of mosques in the U.S. and Canada to survey and challenge thepractice of separating women and men during prayer (Wearing Hijab 2003; Nawaz2005). These films work well on many levels. The filmmaker of the latter, who wearshijab, is the daughter of immigrants from Pakistan, and her interview with her ownmother gives viewers a glimpse of another particularity: an older woman raised in a

3 See also King on the function of feminist studies in religion to bring about “the liberation of textsand their necessary decentering in the study of religions” (2002, 373).



different culture and with very different expectations and demands about Islam than herdaughter’s. The filmmaker also explores Islamicization as a political reaction to West-ernization in Pakistan and in diaspora communities, tracing the increasing use of separa-tion of men and women in her own lifetime as an example of Islamicist action againstwesternization. Taken together, the two films provide students with diverse appreciativeand critical views and their varied manifestations in these women’s practices. Whenbrought into dialogue with the reading from the textbook, the excellent essay by RiffatHassan (in Sharma and Young 1998), and the web readings about women and Islam,these films connect students with women’s own narratives in a way that allows themto countenance the complex religious identities of young women who seek to negotiatewhat they understand as faithful observance of tradition as contemporary women.The students encounter concrete, local, lived interpretations of religion.

Conclusion. Teaching world religions through this specific issue – through feministcritiques from within each religion – sets the tone from the beginning of the course thatreligions are complex, living sets of practices that change throughout time, that arenamed and interpreted from a variety of perspectives, and that have varied local formsin any given space and time. Contestation is a presumption from the beginning. Criticalreflection on women’s narratives provides the forum for emphasizing the complexity ofreligious identity, the diversity of expression and interpretation, and the need to beginwith and return to the local to counteract our inevitable reliance on essentialisms. It alsohas the potential to connect with students’ own experiences in ways that open up newunderstandings. It begins to tap into the power of dialogue itself, which is probablythe best way to learn about anything – that is, through relationship – and which is sodifficult to replicate in the classroom.

World Religions and Service-LearningReid B. Locklin

At the heart of many major criticisms of the interpretive categories “religion” and“world religions” stands a significant point of tension, insofar as they often combine:(1) strong advocacy for a more critical engagement with those diverse traditions andpractices that have been classified as “religious” in modern discourse; and (2) a seriouscritique of one of the devices usually used to introduce these traditions to undergraduatestudents: the world religions survey course. Particularly when treated under the rubricof a purportedly self-evident collection of “great religions” or, worse, of archetypically“Western” and “Eastern” religions, such survey courses may function as much to bluntauthentic engagement as to foster it.

This essay is an account of one of my own attempts to address this critique at Uni-versity of Toronto through the yearlong service-learning course “Interreligious Dialogueand Practice” (SMC218Y), which I designed and taught as part of the interdisciplinaryChristianity and Culture program for the first time in 2008–2009. Like other courseswhich employ site visits and other forms of experiential learning (see, for example,Carlson 1998; Berling 2004, 101–106; Delaporte and Wiersma 2010; King 2010), thecourse employed students’ lived experiences with religious persons and institutions toenhance their engagement with the theories of religion and proposals for dialogue dis-cussed in the classroom. More than this, the relationships formed through service ledthem to complicate, and in many cases to critique, these same theories and proposals



from a position of deep personal investment. The result was, in my judgment, notmerely a more personal engagement with questions of religious diversity, but also amore critical, informed, and self-reflexive one.

Some premises. Though I probably would not have articulated them this way initially, inretrospect it became clear that three premises were fundamental to my approach in thiscourse. Two of these I take to be relatively straightforward inferences from the scholarlyliterature:

• Premise #1: There may not exist a general, sui generis thing called “religion,” butthere certainly do exist particular religious persons;

• Premise #2: There may not exist well-delimited, major “world religions,” but therecertainly do exist well-delimited traditions of scholarly study and interreligiousdialogue.

Both of these premises engage in a kind of subterfuge, by designating persons and tradi-tions as “religious” or “interreligious” without defining or even conceding any sharedreality – “religion” – by which they could be so characterized. But I would maintainthat this is endemic to the conversation. When Talal Asad or Daniel Dubuisson trace thehistorically contingent genealogies of “religion,” for example, they narrate the historyof a readily identifiable scholarly conversation. And when Richard King and TomokoMasuzawa extend this critique to expose common oppositions between the merely“ethnic” traditions of ancient Israel and truly “universal” world religions like Christian-ity or modern Buddhism, they concede the existence of persons and traditions that canbe defensibly categorized as “Israelite,” “Christian,” “Buddhist,” and so on. The concreteexistence of these persons, traditions, and scholarly conversations grounds the critiqueas a whole.

My final premise is, perhaps, more idiosyncratic:• Premise #3: Traditions of study and dialogue (premise #2) should be evaluated in

light of relationships with religious persons (premise #1), rather than the other wayaround.

In articulating this premise, I judge that I stand in the tradition of contemporary com-parative theology, which Tracy Tiemeier will develop further in the next essay. FrancisX. Clooney and James Fredericks, in particular, have argued for a moratorium on the-ologies of religions, insofar as even the most pluralist such theology tends to distortthe claims of particular traditions in the service of the reigning theory (Clooney 1996,295–304; Fredericks 1995, 67–87; Knitter 2002, 203–5). Whether or not one grantsevery aspect of this argument, it does suggest that provisional preference should begiven to particulars over universals, and to concrete relationships with religious othersover theories about them (see Knitter 2002, 224–37; Tilley et al. 2007; and especiallyFeldmeier 2008, 253–70).

Constructing a service-learning world religions course. The occasion to apply thesepremises in the world religions classroom arose at a faculty meeting for the Christianityand Culture program. At the meeting, one of my colleagues suggested that I propose analternative to the introductory survey course offered in the Religion Department, cogni-zant of the unique position of our program within both the confessionally Catholic St.Michael’s College and the secular, pluralistic University of Toronto. Within hours ofaccepting the invitation, I settled on the idea of constructing this study by focusing oninterreligious dialogue and by adopting a service-learning model.



Why service-learning? First of all, as pointed out by many of its proponents,service-learning represents a form of activist pedagogy, connecting the university tohuman needs in the wider community and aiming for long-term transformations instudents’ career choices, civic engagement, and democratic participation (for example,Astin et al. 1998; Astin et al. 2000; Rhoads 1997; Warchal and Ruiz 2004; Wingeier-Rayo 2010). Service-learning at its best also represents a kind of postmodern teachingstrategy, in which service experiences force students to cross cultural boundaries andto disrupt familiar constructions of social and religious others (Rhoads 1998; Butin2005). Finally, based on my own previous experiences with another program, I hadcome to appreciate the effectiveness of service-learning as a means of implicatingstudents directly in the issues raised in class and empowering them to subject theseissues – and the theoretical tools used to study them – to self-reflexive examination(see Locklin 2010). For all these reasons, a service-learning method seemed the idealtool for the job.

By definition, such a method implies a partnership between the university and oneor more community partners. One of the most difficult aspects of establishing a service-learning partnership involves finding a suitable match between meaningful service andcourse objectives. For this course, it was vitally important that students’ placementsimplicate them in close relationships with persons from traditions other than their own –however these particular students, colleagues, or clients might self-identify. With theinvaluable assistance of the University of Toronto Centre for Community Partnerships,we managed to locate three suitable placements. The largest, a long-term care facilityserving a primarily Jewish constituency, sought volunteers to help facilitate a bi-weeklyShabbat celebration, as well as a special lecture program for Holocaust survivors. Inaddition, two offices on the University of Toronto campus invited my students to assistwith the coordination of events explicitly directed to fostering dialogue and conscienti-zation around issues of racism, inequity, and genocide.

The coursework itself was divided into three parts: direct service, shared readingsand discussion, and critical reflection. The service, already discussed, placed studentsinto close contact and collaborative relationships with religious others (see premise#1, above). The shared reading and discussion, on the other hand, aimed to familiar-ize them with ongoing scholarly conversations (premise #2). In a first unit, weexplored the “idea of religion,” initially as formulated within a particular tradition,through Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s magnificent meditation on the Sabbath(1951), and then from the point of view of scholarly “analysis,” as defended in WillDeming’s short, incisive Rethinking Religion (2005). In a second major section ofthe course, we added a further layer of complication with Diana Eck’s popularautobiographical account of boundary-crossing, Hindu-Christian dialogue, and whatshe delightfully refers to as an interreligious “theology with people in it” (1993, 16).Eck’s book, in turn, nicely paved the way for the spring term, wherein we took upthe question of interreligious dialogue more explicitly through a study of selecteddocuments of the Catholic Church, the Catholic-Muslim Forum, and the WorldCouncil of Churches in Unit III and the reciprocal proposals of the National JewishScholars’ Project (see Frymer-Kensky et al. 2007) and the Shi’a scholar and dialogistMahmoud Ayoub (2007) in Unit IV.

Following Kathleen Maas Weigert (1998, 5), two of the key elements of effectiveservice-learning include, on the campus side, “some form of reflection” on serviceexperience, as well as assessment and evaluation of such reflection in light of course



objectives. So too, in premise #3 above, I suggested that scholarly conversations andinterreligious initiatives should be evaluated in light of concrete, lived relationshipswith religious persons, rather than the other way around. Hence, it was very importantin “Interreligious Dialogue and Practice” that I give students ample opportunities forstructured reflection on their service experiences and application of this experience toour shared study. On nine occasions throughout the year, for example, students tookthirty minutes to write responses to questions posed in the previous class, discussedthese responses in small groups, revised and posted the reflections to an online discus-sion board, and offered mandatory feedback to their peers.4 Then, in two major writingassignments, students drew on these reflections to assess the adequacy of different treat-ments of a particular religious tradition in standard world religion texts, in one case, andto propose a relevant and viable topic for scholarly research, in the other. Finally, onequestion on the final examination asked students to choose one assigned source from thecourse and to demonstrate how the service experience enriched, clarified, or challengedthe arguments advanced in that source, or vice-versa.5

Some recurrent themes. In his article entitled, “Academic Service Learning: ACounternormative Pedagogy,” Jeffrey P.F. Howard (1998) suggests that successfulservice-learning shifts both teacher and student from the “traditional classroom,”dominated by the teacher’s authority and what Paulo Freire called the “bankingmodel” of education, toward a more polycentric, integrative, and participatory “syner-gistic classroom.” This has been largely confirmed in my experience with SMC218Y.Not only did students quickly surpass my own expertise in their placements, but theconfidence they gained from their experience and reflection meant that they largely setthe direction of class discussions and even my short lectures. Several issues recurredoften in our discussions and, in my judgment, nicely reveal the benefits of usingservice-learning to offer a richer and more critical engagement with religious diversityin the contemporary world.

Much teaching about world religions focuses on similarities and differences amongdiverse religious traditions. In “Interreligious Dialogue and Practice,” however, after aninitial period of making comparisons between traditions, students tended to becomemore intrigued by the internal diversity of these traditions themselves (cf. Patton andRobbins 2009, 44–45). One student, upon witnessing a spirited argument about Israelipolitics in the lecture and discussion program for Holocaust survivors, reflected thatit had never before occurred to her that Jews held diverse, conflicting views about theZionist project. Another student working at the same placement found herself inter-rogating her own Catholic identity and the history of anti-Semitism among the Catholicmajority in her family’s home country . . . all the while working closely with personswho had suffered enormously from that history, in that country. In her final reflection,empowered by Mahmoud Ayoub’s willingness to take sides in intra-Muslim debateswith transparency, seriousness, and respect, this student proclaimed, “I have acceptedthat I am a Catholic against other Catholics.”

4 I have drawn selectively on some student reflections in the following exposition, after receivingfull, written permission from the students in question. Some details have been changed in order toprotect the privacy of the students and the persons with whom they worked in their placement settings.

5 This final assignment was stolen, with wild abandon, from Robert Masson (2002).



A second, closely related theme that emerged repeatedly over the year was students’growing awareness of the complexity of personal identity. Many of the students in thelong-term care facility found themselves asking the question, “Who counts as a Jew?”for a very simple, unexpected reason: namely, that all the student volunteers, regardlessof ethnicity, home tradition, or surname, at some point found themselves identified byJewish residents and staff as fellow Jews. Along similar lines, another student, havingfacilitated a number of interreligious dialogues on campus, observed that the strongestconnections were often forged not among co-religionists, but along gender, generational,and cultural lines. One Jewish, Christian, and Muslim musical exchange, in particular,convinced this student that the key to crossing religious boundaries had more to dowith shared politics, shared struggles, and even shared harmonic structures than withanything specific to “religion.”

The unitive power of song also relates to a final recurring theme: namely, the centralimportance of basic human values. Those coordinating Shabbat and other celebrationswith senior citizens reflected frequently upon the risk and the joy of taking part in folkdances with the residents in their care; for several students, this willingness to leavetheir comfort zones became an apt metaphor for dialogue itself. For others, issues weremore basic, and not metaphorical at all. Two quite different students offer a case inpoint. One sharply criticized what she perceived as the fundamental disingenuousnessof the 1998 Vatican statement on the Shoah (Commission for Religious Relations withthe Jews 1998), which she contrasted against the extraordinary personal integrity of herplacement supervisor, a Muslim, who served as a diversity officer for the University.Another appeared to take rather the opposite ideological position, becoming more andmore critical of many proposals for interreligious dialogue insofar as they appeared toequivocate on core Christian beliefs.

Interestingly, neither student made what might seem to be the obvious next move,lauding the integrity of Muslim tradition at the expense of the Church, on the one hand,or more traditional Catholics at the expense of more progressive Jews and Christians, onthe other. Instead, both concluded that honesty, integrity, and dignity themselves muststand at the center of any interreligious dialogue. Jews should remain true to Jewish tra-ditions, Catholics to Catholic traditions, and Muslims to Muslim traditions, but all must,more fundamentally, strive to become human beings in the fullest sense possible. Thus,from quite different presumptions and positions, both students insisted upon the centralimportance of basic human values and human dignity to any relationships, includinginterreligious ones.

Clarifications and conclusions. In the final weeks of “Interreligious Dialogue andPractice,” I asked students to consider a summative question for their regular in-classand online reflection: “Take 10–15 minutes to review your reflections and responsesto peers from September 2008–March 2009. Looking back over your work and reflec-tion during these months, what do you think has been the most significant change inyour understandings and responses to religious and/or ethnic diversity?” This question,modeled on the “Most Significant Change” technique of program assessment devel-oped by Rick Davies and Jess Dart (2004), was intended not only to elicit thoughtfulreflections from the students but also to clarify for myself what I intended for thecourse.

The student responses to this question were profound, and many reaffirmed theimportance of the themes already highlighted above. One student, however, reflected



on how his placement experience and his reading of Diana Eck had provoked a ratherdramatic and direct attitudinal change toward the sheer fact of religious diversity:

Overall I believe that I have undergone a three step transformation. I started off asan exclusivist, then transformed into an inclusivist, and finally ended my journeyas a pluralist. Through the course reading and the many hours at [my placement]I find myself open to the possibility of numerous paths leading back towardsGod. . . . Perhaps we are all destined to a different path that leads to a similardestination. After all God works in mysterious ways, ways that go beyond ourunderstanding, we all have a different path which I believe returns us to theultimate reality of God.

This is obviously a very significant shift, and the student in question was able to reflectfurther on it with some sophistication. When I pointed out, for example, that his frame-work and many of the common beliefs he highlighted in his reflections might reallymake him more of an inclusivist than a genuine pluralist, he conceded the point. But,on his final examination, he insisted that his core insight remained firm: that, in Eck’sterms, “we might actually learn something new about the one we call God from thefaith of our neighbors” (1993, 53).

This student’s reflections were, as I have already indicated, both sophisticated andprofound. Nevertheless, as I continued reading, I found my own intentions for thecourse clarified. For, reflecting on her experience at the same placement, anotherstudent wrote:

Looking back at my first few reflections, I see more of a trend of conceptual analy-sis of the Sabbath in relation to my tradition, discussion of how the Jewish peoplemight view Jesus’ judgment of the Pharisees, etc. Gradually, however I notice moreof a trend towards discussing the people I meet and their stories . . . Now I see thatwhat is central to dialogue is coming to get to know the microcosm that each personis – their stories, their faith, and their very person. One can also come to know howtheir stories have in turn come to affect their faith . . . my experience at [this place-ment] has been one in which the deep sense of history that pervades these people’slives shines and is brought out in the open. I have come to really appreciate thisdeep sense of individual and collective history.

Now, measured simply as “change,” this student does not report anything more dramaticthan the previous student. This student has, nevertheless, taken a step beyond the catego-ries of religion, religions, or theories about them. She has turned from the universal tothe particular, and was as a result able to demonstrate – through this reflection, throughher research paper, and through the subsequent final examination – a more situated,critical, and appreciative engagement with religious diversity itself.

In the previous essay, Johann Vento suggested that the study of religion can andshould focus on what is, in the words of Fatemeh Keshavarz, “rooted in the specificand in the small, in the local.” Service-learning, I believe, represents one very usefultool to foster such an awareness, through immersion in the local, specific realities ofdiverse religious persons, and one valuable way to teach students about the rich realityof world religions in a context and with a depth that sets it quite apart from thestandard survey.



World Religions and the Graduate Theology CurriculumTracy Tiemeier

Tomoko Masuzawa’s deconstruction of “world religions” is indeed troubling, as sheexposes the hidden hegemonies at work behind the European visions of the “great” or“world religions” – hegemonies that “went on to America and entered every religiousstudies classroom here” (Bell 2008, 115). Nowhere are these hidden hegemonies asevident as in world religions textbooks, which are far from the value-free presentationof traditions they have historically purported to be. While Christianity is frequentlyportrayed in these textbooks as “dynamic and growing” (Kalawar 2006, 14) – and theextent to which Christianity, conquest, and violence have co-existed and reinforced eachother are minimized (Kalawar 2006, 13) – other traditions are often essentialized andpresented as generally unchanging, even backward. Thus, the world religions textbookand survey course can serve Western Christian dominance, rather than dismantling it.

Masuzawa has been critiqued for her lack of attention to recent work by scholars ofreligion to problematize the field (Monius 2006) and by her own failure to see the morecomplex dynamics of identity in the history of the “world religions” discourse (Schmidt2006). Nevertheless, Masuzawa makes clear the extent to which interpretation and ideol-ogy are inherent to the project of the study of religion (Curtis 2005) and therefore to theproject of teaching religion (Bell 2008). Indeed, a number of scholars have re-examinedthe world religions survey from a variety of angles, taking into account the problems ofrepresentation, ideology, and the privileged stance of the teacher-scholar. Attention tothe history of colonialism and post-colonial theory have led some to take up the ques-tion of representation within the world religions survey and emphasize lived communi-ties and diverse sources and voices (Ramey 2006; Southard and Payne 1998). Othersargue for an interdisciplinary approach, bringing together a survey of world religionsand a concern for social justice and building solidarity (Van Doorn-Harder 2007;Schmalz 2005). Even where there are not overt post-colonial or justice concerns,scholarship of the world religions survey emphasizes student encounter and diversitywithin and among traditions (for example, Patton and Robbins 2009).

In light of Masuzawa’s argument, however, we must also consider the possibilitythat graduate Christian theology programs that intentionally add world religions in theircurricula with an eye toward rejecting Christian exclusivism may be unwittingly parti-cipating in a problematic history of cultural and religious hegemony. In the context ofa dynamic and rich program in Christian theology, there is a very real possibility ofunwittingly contributing to perceptions of Christian superiority in the face of static cari-catures of the religious other. Indeed, the risk of an unhelpful, even counterproductive,program in world religions in graduate theology curricula is great.

But the risk of sending Christian ministers, teachers, and theologians into their fieldsof work unequipped to meet the demands of a religiously diverse world is even greater.As Judith A. Berling argues, “learning other religions is a requirement for living asChristians . . . [It] is a way to cultivate appropriate knowledge and relationships withoutrunning immediately into the theological walls of Christian exclusivism or treating thedogmas that form us as static ideals . . . [and it] can create a foundation for informedand ongoing theological reflection” (Berling 2004, 17). Therefore, a world religionscourse (ideally a series of courses) is an important part of the graduate theologycurriculum. To avoid the perils of unwitting hegemony, however, I would argue thatthe approach to world religions in a graduate Christian theology program must be



post-colonial, interdisciplinary, integrative, and relational. Through this more engagedapproach, students will be more adequately equipped to address the vast religious diver-sity of today’s globalizing and globalized world.

I situate my reflections in the graduate (M.A.) programs in Theology and PastoralTheology at Loyola Marymount University (LMU). These programs serve a broad rangeof students interested in teaching, ministry, and further academic studies. Most studentsare Catholic and working full time. Our graduate programs require forty-two units andtherefore do not have a lot of space for additional requirements in world religions.Because of these limits (which many graduate programs share), I believe LMU providesa good test case for thinking realistically about approaches to world religions ingraduate Christian theology.

Post-colonial. Masuzawa’s study reveals the extent to which world religions discourseis entangled with the European Christian colonial project. If a graduate theology coursein world religions is to avoid contributing further to Christian hegemony, it mustexamine the history of western Christian domination, including the complex interplayof imperialism, violence, and Christian missionary efforts, and expose the extent towhich a facile pluralism or inclusivism reinforces exclusivity, rather than undermines it.Employing post-colonial theory in a world religions course “prompts us to examine therepresentation of religion from multiple subjectivities, by attending to multiple voiceswhich describe a multiform reality too complex to be appreciated – or homogenized –by a single authority” (Southard and Payne 1998, 51). By addressing the history ofChristian domination and the problem of representation in the study of religion, empha-sis can be on particularities and diversities within and among religious communities(Southard and Payne 1998).

Like Johann Vento’s undergraduate “Women and Religion” course, discussed above,the graduate “Feminist Theology (World Perspectives)” course at Loyola MarymountUniversity has its foundation in the life practices of religious women around the globe.Students read a number of articles in feminist postcolonial religious studies. Moreimportantly, they read Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, and Muslim feminists reflecting on theirown traditions theologically (Donaldson and Pui-Lan 2002; Sharma and Young 1998).They also read Asian women’s theology in conversation with Korean Shamanism andAfrican women’s theology in conversation with African traditional religion (Chung1991; Oduyoye 1995). Finally, they read a feminist Buddhist-Christian dialogue (Grossand Ruether 2001). These feminist approaches ground “the religions” in a theologicalcontext, in personal narrative and life experiences, and in socio-political and culturalconcerns. This interrelational and intercultural grounding can provide a powerful contextfor self-critique and respect for difference; it can also build bridges for understandingthrough shared life stories.

Interdisciplinary. Programs in graduate Christian theology must bring together thedisciplines of religious studies, comparative theology, and interreligious practice, if theyhope to impart to students a basic knowledge of religious traditions, the ability to thinktheologically about them, and value the depth of their spiritual paths. Religious studiesis the most “objective” educational strategy. It does not presume faith, and instead“explores the relationships, conflicts, and interconnections among religions” (Lefebure2006, 88). Utilizing this approach in graduate theology programs allows for a morevalue-neutral approach than the traditional apologetic approach. It also is an important



tool for giving students basic knowledge of the religiously plural world around them.For some, it would be important training to become world religions teachers. However,religious studies in and of itself does not really allow the encounter of one’s own faithand other persons’ faiths together (Lefebure 2006). It also does not give students thetheological foundation for thinking about and with other religious persons.

Comparative theology provides an important theological framework for graduate the-ology programs. “One learns not by bracketing presuppositions but by bringing one’sown religious assumptions into the discussion and observing the interaction betweenthe other religious tradition and one’s home tradition” (Lefebure 2006, 88). Anyoneaddressing a common problem or seeking greater understanding of their faith can bepositively transformed through comparative theological encounter (Lefebure 2006, 89).This approach tends to emphasize theological insight, which can be limiting for gradu-ate programs that train not only theologians but also teachers and ministers; however,comparative theology can be expanded to include spirituality, pastoral ministry, and anumber of other fields of inquiry. Taking a comparative approach therefore meanscoming clearly from one’s own tradition, but learning about other and self throughdialogue. In this sense, it is a valuable tool in graduate theology programs.

The most engaged approach is interreligious practice. “This involves entering notonly into the ideas of another religion but into the religious and spiritual practicesas well” (Lefebure 2006, 89). Interfaith prayer services, Christian practice of yoga ormeditation, and so forth, are all examples of interreligious practice. Such engagementcan lead to difficult questions about the compatibility of the spiritual experiences ofother religious traditions with one’s own tradition; yet, its transformative power andpopularity cannot be denied. Increasingly, churches and other Christian institutionsare finding it necessary to include interfaith practice – either due to the interest anddemand of their parishioners or as a part of intercommunity collaboration with otherfaith traditions. Graduate theology programs must therefore come to terms with andtrain for this growing reality, even if there are important lingering questions regardingits limits.

Looking at Lefebure’s three strategies, my own “Comparative Theology” coursebrings together religious studies and comparative theology, keeping in mind that reli-gions are fundamentally communities of practice. Students watch a documentary on thereligious tradition we are studying and learn important historical, scriptural, and theo-logical dimensions of the tradition.6 They then approach Hinduism from a ProtestantChristian perspective (Eck 1993), Buddhism from a Catholic Christian perspective(Fredericks 2004), Christianity from a Conservative Jewish perspective (Union forTraditional Judaism; Novak 2005; see also Frymer-Kensky et al. 2000), and Christianityfrom a Shi’a Muslim perspective (Ayoub 2007). While students come away with a basicunderstanding of several religious traditions, they do so grounded in clear theologicalcontexts that are neither essentialized nor always Christian. From these differentvantage points, students are challenged to encounter other perspectives and transformtheir theologies and pastoral practices.

6 I have used a number of films and documentary resources to teach comparative theology.However, I have consistently used and recommended episodes from BBC’s The Long Search series(1977, 2001). Although dated, it helpfully roots information on religious traditions in interviews with anumber of religious persons. Students end up with a basic introduction that also gives them a sense ofsome of the tradition’s internal diversity.



The weakest component in my graduate courses is interreligious practice. Frankly,this is due to the fact that I myself do not know how to fit this into the classroomcontext of a Christian graduate theological program effectively. Our students are almostall Catholic, and less than a handful of our students are not Christian. Therefore, class-room meditation or prayer – even if utilizing sources outside of the Christian tradition –is not really an interreligious practice that brings students face-to-face with the religiousother. Such a strategy would also raise the specter of imperialism and “plundering theriches” of other religious traditions. And yet, graduate theological education must equipstudents to navigate the possibilities and perils of interreligious practice. Here is wheregraduate theological education hits the limits of the classroom. I have depended heavilyon Loyola Marymount University’s interfaith campus ministry programs to supplementmy teaching, but have not done enough to bring these programs into the classroom toreflect on current best strategies in interfaith prayer and practice. Many graduate theol-ogy programs do have “in-house” ministries that already do interfaith outreach andprayer, which we can draw upon as we craft our classes and curricula. Others, however,do not. In any case, graduate curriculum committees cannot assume someone else willtake care of training for and reflection on interfaith practice. If we hope to educateeffective leaders, we will need to become much more proactive in addressing thismatter.

Integrative. Kathleen Talvacchia argues that graduate theology must form persons whocan be “responsive to the reality of the diverse religious experiences of this country”(Talvacchia 2006, 139). Toward that end, emphasis must be on personal formation andintegration. She argues that pastoral preparation, in particular, must help students inte-grate their learning on three levels: “[T]he integration of theory and practice . . . the inte-gration of academy and church . . . and the integration of formation into a communitywithin the context of a multicultural, multifaith world, that is, the ability to be bothfirmly grounded in a communal identity and open to and engaged in experiences withother faith traditions” (Talvacchia 2006, 139). This third level of integration holds intension faithfulness to one’s own tradition and engagement with another. A critical yetgrounded faith will allow the Christian leader to be shaped both by Christianity and byencounter with persons from religious traditions other than Christianity (Talvacchia2006, 140). Talvacchia briefly suggests three possibilities for accomplishing such inte-gration: a dialogue course team taught by a practical theologian and a religion scholarwho is familiar with another tradition’s training of religious leaders; a world religionscourse taught in close collaboration with a ministry formation class; or a three semestercurriculum that is team taught by representatives of a number of different religious tra-ditions (Talvacchia 2006, 144). With any of these possibilities, there is a world religionscomponent, in which students must learn broadly about the religious traditions of theworld. However, by rethinking the world religions survey through the lens of spiritualand professional formation, she offers a way for students to encounter those traditionsas dynamic and interrelated with their own faith.

The economic, curricular, and even political realities of graduate theology preventmany of us from developing full-scale programs in interfaith education or even fromimplementing the curricular changes that Talvacchia proposes. Indeed, while LoyolaMarymount University has a newly instituted concentration in comparative theology,none of our graduate students are required to take interreligious courses as a part oftheir regular program of study. There are a number of reasons for this lacuna – some



good, such as the problem of trying to fit additional course requirements into ourshort M.A. programs, and others not, such as the fear of “watering” down theologicaleducation. Short of making programmatic changes that would add course or internshiprequirements in interreligious dialogue and religious diversity, however, one way toincorporate interfaith education is through effective learning units within already exist-ing required graduate courses. My course description for “Introduction to SystematicTheology,” for example, reads as follows:

This course explores major themes in Christian systematic and constructive theol-ogy, such as: revelation and faith, human being, sin and grace, God, Christ, HolySpirit, and the church. Attention is given to the historical development of majorChristian doctrines, as well as their contemporary significance, particularly in lightof philosophical, cultural, ecumenical, interreligious, and pastoral concerns. Stu-dents will: (1) Know the major methods and themes in systematic theology; (2)Be able to write, speak, and reflect theologically on systematic themes; and (3)Value Roman Catholic, ecumenical, and interreligious approaches to theology.7

The first half of my required systematic theology course is a survey of the field andmajor Christian doctrines; the second half of the course is structured around onesystematic area, God. This sustained reflection allows students to go more deeply intoone theme, become familiar with interreligious approaches to the Ultimate, and explorethe significance of interreligious theology. Such dedicated units within courses onChristian theology begin to show students how to integrate Christian faith and opennessto the religious other. I also use a similar strategy in my elective course on “TheologicalAnthropology.”8

Integrating consideration of traditions other than Christianity in a course focused onChristian theology does not provide comprehensive visions of religious traditions: suchcomprehensive visions are problematic at best, essentialistic and imperialistic at worst.Rather, it introduces students to shared questions in order to begin answering them dif-ferently in light of other religious responses. Such an approach may not represent theideal for interfaith education, but it can mark an important beginning for equippingfuture teachers, ministers, and theologians to engage the contemporary world.

Relational. Finally, a graduate theological approach to the religious traditions of theworld must be relational. Mary Boys and Sara Lee ground their method of interfaitheducation in their own expertise of their religious traditions, pedagogy, and most impor-tantly, their friendship (2006). Boys, Catholic, and Lee, Jewish, emphasize interfaitheducation as interreligious encounter where one must learn in the presence of personsof other religious traditions. They say, “Interreligious learning aims to go deeper byfostering relationships among participants, and with key texts, practices, and beliefs ofthe other’s tradition. By structuring the study so that it happens in the presence of theother, we seek to enable participants to construct a common body of knowledge even asthey bear diverse interpretations” (96). Learning in the presence of the other means thatone can go beyond learning about the other, and instead learn with the other.

7 Interreligious course sources include, but are not limited to Heim (1995) and Neville (2000b).

8 Interreligious course sources include, in this case, Neville (2000a).



As they see it, it is not enough to create “dialogues” where persons from differentreligious traditions present on a similar topic. Not only does this not promote interreli-gious learning among the “dialogue” participants, it is an entirely passive experience forthe audience. Instead, interreligious learning is predicated on relationship, where personscome together in actual dialogue with the assumption that each participant has some-thing offer. Even so, this “common body of knowledge” does not necessarily mean thatall participants will end up agreeing, say on the theological claims of the other or on theinterpretation of a sacred text; rather, one comes together in a shared learning experi-ence that can lead to sometimes quite different conclusions. Nevertheless, it is not the“facts” that are learned, so much as the relationships that are built, that are of ultimatesignificance.

It is, of course, unrealistic to assume that the world religions course can always becomprised of students from different faith backgrounds. However, collaborating withother local schools and religious communities for a series of retreats, discussions, orevents is invaluable. Learning in the presence of the other can become an interreligiousmodel for theologians, ministers, and community leaders to learn how to collaboratewith each other in their work.

Conclusion. In the end, pastoral and theological formation requires attention to bothgrounding one’s faith and opening that faith up to the religious other. A world religionssurvey is important for accomplishing that goal, as long as it can be post-colonial, inter-disciplinary, integrative, and relational. But one course is not enough. Multiple strategiesof interfaith education can be utilized to work with the different needs of graduate theol-ogy programs: required courses in world religions, interreligious dialogue or practice,and comparative theology; graduate student and faculty exchanges; summer encountercourses, and so forth. The economic, curricular, and even political realities of graduatetheology prevent many from developing full-scale programs in interfaith education. Butsuch ambitious goals ought to be a part of short and long-term graduate studies plan-ning, even if we are bound to fall short in light of the realities of our respective pro-grams. Indeed, graduate curriculum committees should think creatively about how toincorporate interfaith education at all levels of training. With some creative planning,graduate theological programs can find ways, even within their existing structures,to train faithful leaders equipped to meet the demands of religious diversity in thetwenty-first century.

ConclusionThe prominent religious studies scholar and teacher Jonathan Z. Smith proposes that,in light of his own and others’ critique of “religion,” the discipline of comparativereligion might be recast in terms of “invention” rather than “discovery,” styling it asa creative and self-reflexive practice driven by the interpreters’ diverse, particular theo-retic concerns (Smith 1990, 51–53; Smith 2000, 238–39; cf. Gill 1998; Patton andRay 2000). Writing in a rather different context, Judith Berling proposes a heuristic forlearning other religions in theology programs (2004, 64–80), beginning with studentscrossing into “other religious worlds”; continuing through a dialectic process ofresponse, dialogue, transformed practice, and internalization; and “held in tension bytwo poles: (1) understanding another religion faithfully and (2) reappropriating Chris-tian tradition in light of new understandings and relationships” (64). In both cases, and



despite their differences,9 the identity and interests of the interpreter assume a decisiverole in the process of inquiry. Candid recognition of this identity, along with acknow-ledgment of both the genuine difference of other persons and traditions and thenecessarily imperfect, constructed character of analogies formed to understand them(see esp. Berling 2004, 38–45, 66–71), becomes a sine qua non of responsiblecomparative inquiry.

Confessional institutional settings, we have suggested in the above essays, mayprovide distinctive, fruitful interpretive spaces for fostering just such recognition andacknowledgment in the Religious Studies classroom. Tiemeier, like Berling, finds thatthe Christian identity of the theological program presents a valuable starting point –albeit one that must be interrogated, complicated, and ideally enriched through compara-tive study. For Vento and Locklin, the confessional identities of our institutions insteadprovide a broader matrix for more particular identities, which arises in the context of theclass itself. For Vento, a distinctive, explicitly partisan interpretative position is providedby the intersection of theological inquiry and feminist critique; for Locklin, it is pro-vided by relationships formed by students with religious others, in and through sharedservice. In all three cases, the ideal of objectivity in the study of religions is replaced byan ideal of transparency. Students encounter both the data of religious traditions and thetheories employed to study them without any pretense of neutrality on the part of theteacher or of assigned sources. They are thereby invited to become active, self-reflexivesubjects in the process of interpretation, ideally conscious of the limits of these or anypractices of comparative inquiry and empowered to challenge the hegemony of anyinterpretive position – including, again ideally, those adopted for the construction ofthe courses themselves.

Whether we have – individually or together – achieved this high ideal remains verymuch in doubt: all three of us consider these courses and curricula works in progress, inneed of further (and continual) revision. Indeed, one great benefit of Masuzawa’s studyis her insistence that the hegemony of liberal universalism cannot be addressed bysimply adopting a more rigorous scientific method or ferreting out ever more subtleforms of “theological assumptions” or “crypto-theology”; instead, she recommends thatwe must “think afresh and imagine anew,” ever vigilant to the patterns of dominationthat may remain, unacknowledged, in those discourses we inherit or construct (2005,327–28). We do not deny the need for such vigilance. But we insist that one fruitfulplace for taking up this challenge is in a space that might otherwise be considered the“belly of the beast”: the theology or religious studies courses taught in historicallyChristian institutions. Whether treated under the rubric of “feminism,” “dialogue,” orindeed “theology” itself, such courses can not only take up the study of world religionsin a serious and authentic way; they can also do so from a distinctive interpretative posi-tion, sensitive and responsive to the hegemonies of Christian triumphalism and worldreligions discourse alike. They can, in short, aspire to teach world religions withoutteaching “world religions.”

9 Though Berling is deeply informed by Smith (see 2004, 35–38), when she turns to the details ofher proposal, she draws more strongly on other comparativists, including Wilfred Cantwell Smith,Clifford Geertz, and Gavin Flood.



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teaching world religions without teaching “world religions”

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