INTRODUCTION
Eboo Patel, Jennifer Howe Peace, and Noah J. Silverman
You might say that this volume had its origins in a generic hotel conference room in San Diego in 2014 during the annual gathering of the American Academy of Religion (AAR). Diana Eck, senior scholar at Harvard, had wondered out loud if interreligious studies had something to offer not only in terms of content (examining what people are doing interreligiously) but also in terms of methodology, favoring an active learning approach over the default academic lectures. Murmurs of assent broke out among the eighty or so people gathered for the session titled “Toward a Field of Interfaith Studies: Emerging Questions and Considerations” and hosted under the auspices of the AAR’s Interreligious and Interfaith Studies Unit. The panel, which included coeditors Eboo Patel and Jennifer Howe Peace, was organized around three questions: What personal history brings you to your place in interfaith studies? What are the challenges or tensions in this emerging field? (Or, as Patel put it, “What keeps you up at night?”) And, from your perspective, what are some of the defining moments in the current evolution of this (sub)field?
Eck, who twenty-five years ago founded the Pluralism Project, an initiative that foreshadowed much of what has come to be called interreligious or interfaith studies, noted that she saw endless opportunities for real research in this new field. “There is a lot going on in the world that has to be brought into focus,” she pointed out. Throughout the session, people were feeling their way toward what this field was, could be, or should be. “There is no frame for what we are doing,” said one participant. He elicited nervous laughter when he jokingly commented, “I’m pretty sure I’m going to be fired for what I did here today.”
Patel observed that a distinctive contribution of the AAR was to offer “direction, depth, and definition,” along with rigor as this field emerged. He quoted from his recent article “Toward a Field of Interfaith Studies”:
Scholars from a range of fields have long taken an interest in how people who orient around religion differently interact with one another. . . . As the activity in this area increases, one crucial role for the academy is to give some definition to what is clearly an emerging field of research, study, and practice. Another role is to recognize the importance of training people who have the knowledge base and skill set needed to engage religious diversity in a way that promotes peace, stability and cooperation—and to begin offering academic programs that certify such leaders.1
Further elaborating his hopes for the field, Patel named five civic goods associated with interfaith work: reducing prejudice, strengthening social cohesion, building social capital, strengthening the continuity of identity communities, and, finally, creating binding narratives for diverse societies.2
Peace argued that interfaith studies is more than an academic exercise, given the reality of religiously motivated violence, bigotry, and a lack of mutual understanding across religious traditions. In her definition, interfaith studies is a field that values scholarship accountable to community, the dynamic link between theory and practice, and the centrality of relationships at every level (from subject matter to methodology and motivations).
Other scholars weighed in. “Interreligious studies is a subfield of religious studies,” said panelist Jeanine Diller. This was clear in her context at a large secular university and mirrors Kate McCarthy’s argument in her chapter for this book. Barbara McGraw (also a contributor to this volume) noted that in her setting at Saint Mary’s College of California she defines this as an interdisciplinary field under the rubric of leadership. Her model includes a focus on (1) leadership in an organization; (2) communication and dialogue; (3) identity and bias; and (4) religious literacy.
John Thatamanil, associate professor of theology and world religions, mentioned that his institution, Union Theological Seminary, had added “interreligious engagement” as their newest field within theological education. He outlined Union’s approach, which includes theory from comparative religious studies, in-depth knowledge of a particular tradition other than one’s own, and appreciation for cultivating dispositions that promote interreligious understanding (based in part on Catherine Cornille’s work).
Oddbjørn Leirvik, who wrote Interreligious Studies: A Relational Approach to Religious Activism and the Study of Religion, suggested three categories for the range of concerns we were discussing: (1) interreligious work—a broad term referring to practical efforts; (2) interreligious education or formation work, which Leirvik noted is less common in Europe than in the US; and (3) interreligious studies, which he described as being focused on studying interreligious dialogue as well as broader efforts related to building interreligious relations. He also noted that an important critical contribution of this area involves attending to the power relations and gender dynamics that are part of interreligious engagement. (This last point is taken up by several contributors to this volume, including Elizabeth Kubek and Jeannine Hill Fletcher.)
The session’s conversation continued with animated dialogue about goals and definitions, both compatible and competing. All of it underscored a key concern articulated at the outset of the panel—that we lack a current consensus about the nature of this emerging field. What does it mean to do this work well?
Sixteen months later, in March 2016, over one hundred faculty members from across the United States came together for a conference at California Lutheran University to discuss curricular programs in the emerging field of interfaith and interreligious studies. Robert Jones, a sociologist and the CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, was one of the keynote speakers. He caught up with the three coeditors of this volume after one of the conference sessions and commented, “Well, interfaith studies is certainly a thing.”
As recently as even five years ago, that statement would have been unlikely. Indeed, when Patel published his article calling for the creation of an academic field of interfaith studies in 2013, the argument was almost entirely speculative.3 Five years later there are enough “facts on the ground” within the academy that are referred to as “interfaith and/or interreligious studies” to constitute a discernible “thing.” An incomplete list includes
• The AAR approved a new unit in 2013, cofounded and cochaired by Jennifer Howe Peace, one of the coeditors of this volume, focused on “Interreligious and Interfaith Studies.” The group receives between sixty and eighty proposals per year and regularly draws seventy-five to ninety participants to each of its sessions.
• Building on the momentum of the AAR group, in 2017 an affiliated Association of Interreligious/Interfaith Studies was launched by Peace in conjunction with the annual AAR gathering held that year in Boston.
• There are now more than one hundred undergraduate courses on college and university campuses that focus on interfaith topics.4
• Tenure-track faculty positions in “interfaith studies” (or labeled similarly) now exist at Andover Newton Seminary, Candler School of Theology, Claremont School of Theology, Regis University, and Villanova University, with similar positions at other undergraduate and graduate institutions currently under development.
• Academic programs—such as majors, minors, and certificates—in interfaith and interreligious studies have been approved at more than twenty undergraduate institutions in the US, alongside more than a dozen graduate-level degree programs in the US and abroad.5
• Academic journals and publications such as the Journal of Interreligious Studies and Interreligious Studies and Intercultural Theology regularly publish new scholarship in the field.
• Academic centers focusing fully or partly on interfaith education, engagement, and leadership proliferate at undergraduate and graduate institutions. These include the Center for Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Studies (Chicago Theological Seminary), Forum on Faith and Life (Concordia College, Minnesota), Center on Religion, Culture, and Conflict (Drew University, New Jersey), Center for Interfaith Engagement (Eastern Mennonite University, Virginia), Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society (Elon University, North Carolina), Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs (Georgetown University, Washington, DC), Kaufman Interfaith Institute (Grand Valley State University, Michigan), Pluralism Project (Harvard University, Massachusetts), Center for the Study of World Religions and the Religious Literacy Project (Harvard Divinity School, Massachusetts), Miller Center for Interreligious Learning and Leadership (Hebrew College, Massachusetts), Leadership and Multifaith Program (LAMP) Initiative (Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at Georgia Institute of Technology and Candler School of Theology at Emory University), Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations (Merrimack College, Massachusetts), Hickey Center for Interfaith Studies (Nazareth College, New York), Of Many Institute for Interfaith Leadership (New York University), Boniuk Institute for Religious Tolerance (Rice University, Texas), Center for Engaged Religious Pluralism (Saint Mary’s College of California), Dialogue Institute (Temple University, Pennsylvania), Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning (University of St. Thomas, Minnesota), Center for Religious Understanding (University of Toledo, Ohio), Lumbar Institute for the Study of Abrahamic Religions (University of Wisconsin–Madison), and Center for Interfaith Community Engagement (Xavier University, Ohio).
• The increasing number of grants from the Teagle Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation, Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation—all major funders of higher education—seek to advance research, theorizing, and teaching in interreligious leadership, religious literacy, and other areas under the rubric of interfaith or interreligious studies.
• Major higher education associations such as the Council of Independent Colleges and the Association of American Colleges and Universities have formed collaborative partnerships for interfaith conferences, faculty development seminars, and institutes.
A central goal of this book is to draw a circle around these various “facts on the ground”—the courses, journal articles, degree programs, faculty positions, and common questions—and see what pictures emerge. How does this “thing” called interfaith (or interreligious) studies relate to similar things, such as religious or theological studies? What are the key questions, motivations, and outcomes that animate this emerging field? What are its signature pedagogies? In other words, what is the shape of interfaith/interreligious studies, and what is its distinct contribution?
The coeditors of this volume have had a long commitment to these questions and have played a significant role in putting some of the aforementioned facts on the ground. Jennifer Howe Peace held the first tenured faculty position in interfaith studies at Andover Newton Theological Seminary (what is now Andover Newton at Yale Divinity School). As mentioned above, she also cofounded and cochaired the AAR’s Interreligious and Interfaith Studies unit and founded the AAR-affiliated Association for Interreligious/Interfaith Studies in 2017. Eboo Patel and Noah Silverman, as staff members at Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), received grants from each of the foundations mentioned above for partnerships with major higher education associations, which helped (and continue to support) many of the undergraduate courses and degree programs in interfaith and interreligious studies mentioned above. Each of us has published in this new field and taught courses, designed curriculum, and led faculty seminars in interfaith and interreligious studies. In the process, we have encountered hundreds of college and university faculty and administrators who have come to identify themselves with this emerging field.
While the existence of interfaith or interreligious studies is increasingly hard to ignore, its meaning and import is still being debated. Bill Drayton, who coined the term “social entrepreneur,” once responded when asked how he felt about that term’s rapid proliferation, “I only wish people knew what it meant.” Similarly, Eboo Patel notes that when IFYC gets résumés listing “interfaith experience,” there is little to no agreement on what this means. This points to a practical question at the heart of this volume: what can one expect as a potential employer if someone has an academic pedigree in interfaith studies? As interfaith or interreligious studies has taken shape over the past five years, it has been defined in multiple ways, with disputes and disagreements among scholars with conflicting visions of the field’s scope and purview. This book thus builds on the panel discussions, conferences, and debates over definitions to explore the state of the emerging field. The contributions in this volume attest to the range of research and work taking shape under the rubric of interreligious or interfaith studies.
OVERVIEW OF THE VOLUME
When the coeditors issued a call for chapters for this volume, more than fifty scholars responded. From those, we chose the eighteen essays that appear in this collection. To develop an edited volume that was more than the sum of its parts, we gathered all the contributors for a conversation in August 2016 in Chicago. At that meeting, Mary Elizabeth Moore, dean of the Boston University School of Theology, shared opening remarks about the challenges and possibilities inherent in defining a field.6 A field, by definition, is an area of open land often designated for a particular purpose and bound by signs of its outer limits—a fence, a stone wall, a creek. By analogy, an academic field frames a particular area of study both in terms of what it includes and excludes. The project and purpose of this volume is to offer multiple views on a field in formation. Contributors to this volume do not necessarily agree on how to define, name, and bind the outer limits of this field (or subfield) or on what belongs in it (and what does not). This is by design. We hope the book will inspire conversations and lively debates among scholars, teachers, and religious practitioners about the kinds of questions and concerns interreligious/interfaith studies is uniquely positioned to explore.
The first section of the book, “Constructions: Mapping the Field,” includes five chapters from authors with a range of disciplinary backgrounds and in diverse institutional settings—factors that shape and influence their approach to, and understanding of, interreligious/interfaith studies. Kate McCarthy writes from her position at a large public secular university and advocates for interreligious studies to be embraced as a subfield of religious studies, while suggesting that both the field and the subfield have something important to learn from each other. Deanna Womack, a pastor and seminary professor, describes interfaith studies as a “third way” that takes the best from the twin disciplines of her own intellectual formation: history of religions and theology. Taking a different tack, Elizabeth Kubek, shaped by women’s studies and gender studies, argues for interfaith studies as a new inclusive and interdisciplinary field akin to other area studies. Coauthors Amy L. Allocco, Geoffrey D. Claussen, and Brian K. Pennington take readers through the concerns and questions they confronted while designing a minor in interreligious studies at Elon University and differentiating their curricular project from the civic project of interfaith engagement. Finally, Kristi Del Vecchio and Noah Silverman, program staff at Interfaith Youth Core, identify six key themes that have emerged from existing interfaith and interreligious studies curricular growth over the past five years. Each of these essays offers constructive proposals and lingering questions—valuable signposts as we continue the work of collectively mapping the boundaries of this emerging field.
Having traced the outlines of how this field might be constructed, we turn to the second part of the book: “Pedagogy and Classroom Practices.” There are a set of teaching strategies that are becoming increasingly common or even “signature” ways of doing interreligious and interfaith studies that are simultaneously impacted by and impacting our understanding of the field. In Kevin Minister’s chapter, we see the transformation of one professor and his classroom as he moves from a more traditional “world religions” approach of teaching religions to an “interfaith studies” approach. Minister’s piece is a helpful bridge from the previous section of the book as he considers the wider implications of this move for departments of religious studies in general. In the second chapter of this section, Ellie Pierce, research director at the Pluralism Project at Harvard and pioneer in producing a set of case studies on religious pluralism, offers a detailed look into the benefits and limits of using the decision-based case method in the interfaith studies classroom. Beyond formal case studies, Matthew Maruggi and Martha E. Stortz look more broadly at the power and importance of narrative storytelling as part of the tool kit for teaching interreligious studies. Postulating another key aspect of teaching in this field, Michael Birkel in “A Pedagogy of Listening: Teaching the Qur’an to Non-Muslims” homes in on the importance of listening as a pedagogical commitment in his experiences as a Quaker and professor of religion at Earlham College. The final contribution to this section is a chapter by Wakoh Shannon Hickey and Margarita M. W. Suárez focused on articulating key affective goals for their students and describing exercises designed to take students beyond acquiring data to cultivating qualities such as reflexivity, empathy, inquiry, and a commitment to pluralism—core dimensions of the coauthors’ definition of what constitutes an interfaith studies approach in the classroom.
Part 3 of the book, “Challenges and Choices,” includes four chapters that explore tensions, complications, and wider considerations that, these authors argue, should inform how interfaith studies is defined and constructed. Rachel S. Mikva begins this section by outlining six issues that complicate interreligious engagement, as seen from her experiences in the field. Jeannine Hill Fletcher focuses on one of the issues named by Mikva—the history of white Christian privilege in the United States—and argues that acknowledging this history and committing to structural transformation are needed if interfaith studies fulfills hopes of contributing to a “religio-racial” project that can be inclusive of all persons. Thinking about what—or who—is included (or left out) of interreligious/interfaith studies as it is currently being conceived, the two final chapters in this section focus on this issue from very different angles. Marion H. Larson and Sara L. H. Shady look specifically at evangelical Christians in the interfaith movement in ways that pose larger questions about the ideological commitments and inclusivity of this field. Finally, Lisa E. Dahill widens the perspective appreciably by arguing that any approach to interreligious engagement that is relevant and responsive to our times needs to consider not only an interreligious model of understanding and solidarity but also an interspecies and holistic ecological model, one embodied, located in specific places, and with an express commitment to being in relationship not just with each other but also with the “more-than-human-world.”
The fourth and final section of the book, “Applications Beyond the Classroom,” explores a range of contexts and settings in which interfaith leadership, interreligious education, and interfaith studies approaches are having an impact on everything from religious leadership formation to advocacy work for adherents of minority religions in prisons and to training for diplomatic work. In the section’s first chapter, Or N. Rose and Jennifer Howe Peace argue for a model of interreligious education that can broaden the way future religious leaders understand their role and their calling. The next chapter reveals how encountering religious prejudice in prisons and teaching religious literacy to prison officials led Barbara A. McGraw to develop an “interfaith leadership for institutional change model,” which she now applies to other institutions and professions. Turning to the applicability of interfaith studies for professions beyond the academy, Mark E. Hanshaw and Usra Ghazi in the next chapter offer views from their respective locations about the important role interfaith studies can play in preparing people for the religiously diverse workplaces they will encounter once they graduate. In the final chapter, coauthors Heather Miller Rubens, Homayra Ziad, and Benjamin E. Sax turn their attention to the possibility of fostering an “interreligious city,” using their home city of Baltimore as a case study. Writing from their positions as scholars at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies, their chapter considers the potential role of educational nonprofits as resources for education, training, and activism as they imagine the potential for greater interreligious solidarity.
The coeditors hope that this book’s essays, on their own and taken together, provide timely and relevant insights for the emerging field of interfaith/interreligious studies—and beyond—as the engagement of religious diversity continues to shape and influence the affairs of our world.