Studying

Christianity
William H. Brackney
 Contents

Series Preface ix
Foreword xxv
Acknowledgments xxvii

Introduction: Approaching Christianity 1

1 Foundations and Scripture 14

2 Community and Structure 36

3 Religious Values, Theology, and Ethics 54

4 Christian Spirituality 70

5 Christian Imagery and Artistic Expression 93

6 Christian Hope and Finality 109

Afterword: Christianity as a Missionary Religion 125

Notes 140
Index 151
 Series Preface
Religious Studies and Critical
Enquiry: Toward a New
Relationship
Clinton Bennett

Birth of a discipline
This new series takes the view that, as a field of studies, the Study of Religion
is multidisciplinary and poly-methodological and needs to not merely affirm
this but to translate this claim into practice. Religious Studies has its academic,
historical roots within faculties or departments of Theology, where it began
as a Comparative Study of Religions predicated on the assumption that
Christianity was either a model, or a superior religion. The first University
appointment was in 1873, when William Fairfield Warren became Professor
of Comparative Theology and of the History and Philosophy of Religion
at Boston University. The concept of Christianity as a model meant that any-
thing that qualified as a religion ought to resemble Christianity. Traditional
subdivisions of Christian Studies, usually called Theology, were applied
to all religious systems. Thus, a religion would have a founder, a scripture
or scriptures, doctrines, worship, art, sacred buildings, and various rituals
associated with the human life cycle. These elements could be identified,
and studied, in any religion. This approach has obvious methodological
advantages but it can end up making all religions look remarkably similar to
each other and of course also to what serves as the template or model, that is,
to Christianity. The very terms Hinduism and Buddhism were of European
origin, since all religions had to be isms with coherent belief structures. The
assumption that Christianity was somehow superior, perhaps uniquely true, or
divinely revealed to the exclusion of other religions meant that other religions
had to be understood either as human constructs or as having a more sinister
origin. Theology was thus concerned with evaluation and with truth claims.
The study of religions other than Christianity often aimed to demonstrate
x Series Preface

how these religions fell short of the Christian ideal. Their strengths and weak-
nesses were delineated. Some classified religions according to their position
on a supposed evaluative scale, with the best at the top and the worst at
the bottom. Religious Studies, as it developed as a distinctive field of study,
quickly distanced itself from Theology even when taught within Theology
departments. It would be mainly descriptive.

The break from theology

Evaluation would be left to theology. Assessing where a religion might be
considered right or wrong, strong or weak might occupy a theologian but
the student of religion would describe what he or she saw, regardless of their
own opinion or lack of an opinion about whether religions have any actual
link with a supra-human reality. Partly, this stemmed from Religious Studies
early interest in deconstructing religions. This was the attempt to determine
how they began. Usually, they were understood as a response to, or products
of, particular social and political contexts. This took the field closer to the
social sciences, which remain neutral on such issues as the existence of God
or whether any religion can claim to have been revealed, focusing instead
on understanding how religions operate, either in society or psychologically.
Incidentally, the term Comparative Religion has been used as a neutral term,
that is, one that does not imply a comparison in order to refute or evaluate. In
its neutral sense, it refers to the cataloging of religious data under thematic
headings, such as ritual, myth, beliefs without any attempt to classify some as
better than others. The field has, to a degree, searched for a name. Contenders
include the Scientific Study of Religion, the History of Religion (or Religionge-
schichteschule, mainly in the German-speaking academy) but since the
founding of the pioneering department of Religious Studies, at Lancaster
University under Ninian Smart in 1967, Religious Studies has become the
preferred description especially in secular institutions. One issue has been
whether to use religion in the plural or singular. If the singular is used, it
implies that different religions belong to the same category. If the plural is
used, it could denote the opposite, that they share nothing in common, arise
from unrelated causes and have no more to do with each other than, say,
the Chinese and the Latin scripts, except that the former are beliefs about
the divine-human relationship or the purpose of life while the latter are
alphabets. Geo Widengren, professor of the History of Religion at Uppsala,
rejected the notion that an a priori, sui generis phenomenon called religion
 Series Preface xi
existed as breaking the rules of objective, neutral, value-free scholarship.
Incidentally, Buddhism and Confucianism were often characterized as phi-
losophies, not as religions because they lacked a God or Gods at their center.
On the history of the field, see Capps (1995) and Sharpe (2006).

Privileging insidership
The field soon saw itself as having closer ties to the humanities and to social
science than to theology. It would be a multidisciplinary field, drawing on
anthropology, psychology, philosophy, as well as on linguistics and literary
criticism to study different aspects of a religion, what people do as well as what
they say they believe, their sacred texts, their rituals, their buildings as well as
how they organize themselves. However, a shift occurred in the development
of the discipline, or field of study since it is a multidisciplinary field, that effec-
tively reduced the distance between itself, and theology, from which it had
tried so hard to divorce itself. While claiming to be a multidisciplinary field,
Religious Studies has in practice veered toward privileging a single approach,
or way of studying religion, above others. The shift toward what may be called
phenomenology or insider-ship took place for good reasons and as a much-
needed corrective to past mistakes and distortions. In the postcolonial space,
much criticism has been voiced about how the Western world went about the
task of studying the religious and cultural Other. Here, the voice of Edward
Said is perhaps the most widely known. Much scholarship, as Said (1978)
argued, was placed at the service of Empire to justify colonial rule and atti-
tudes of racial or civilizational superiority. Such scholars, known as Oriental-
ists, said Said, described Others, whether Africans, native Americans, Hindus
or Muslims, Arabs or Chinese, who, so that they could be dominated, were
inalienably different from and inferior to themselves. However, this descrip-
tion did not correspond to any actual reality. The term Other is widely
used in postcolonial discourse and in writing about Alterity to refer to those
who are different from us. The term was first used by Hegel. In contemporary
use, it denotes how we stigmatize others, so that all Muslims or all Hindus,
or all Africans share the same characteristics that are radically different from
and less desirable than our own. Cabezn (2006) argues, the dialectic of alter-
ity is as operative today in the discipline of religious studies as it was in the
disciplines antecedents. This is a sobering assessment (21). The Orientalists
portrayed the non-Western world as chaotic, immoral, backward, and as
exotic, as sometimes offering forbidden fruits but always offering adventure,
xii Series Preface

riches, and the opportunity to pursue a career as a colonial administrator,

in the military, in commerce, or even as a Christian missionary. Religions
were often depicted as idolatrous, superstitious, oppressive, and as the source
of much social evil.
Admittedly, some scholars, including the man who can be credited as
founding the scientific study of religion, F. Max Mller, thought that religions
such as Hinduism and Buddhism had become corrupt over time and that in
their most ancient, original form they represented genuine apprehensions of
divine truth. Writing in 1892, he remarked that if he seemed to speak too
well of these religions there was little danger of the public forming too favor-
able an opinion of them since there were many other writers who presented
their dark and hideous side (78). It was in his Chips from a German Work-
shop (1867) that Mller used the term scientific study of religion. Supposi-
tion about the human origin of religion, perhaps excluding Christianity,
resulted in a range of theories about how religions began. Britains first pro-
fessor of Comparative Religion, T. W. Rhys-Davids of Manchester thought
that his work on the classical texts would help to separate the rational, ethical
core of Buddhism from the myths and legends that surrounded its contempo-
rary practice. Often, the socialpolitical and cultural milieu in which a founder
type figure could be located were regarded as significant contributory factors.
In the case of Hinduism, the lack of a founder was often commented upon
almost as if this alone detracted from the possibility that Hinduism was a bone
fide faith. Even such a careful scholar as Whaling says that Hinduism lacks a
founder (1986: 43). In the case of Islam, Muhammad was invariably depicted
as the author of the Quran and as Islams founder, neither of which reflect
Muslim conviction. Of course, for Christian polemicists, Muhammad was a
charlatan and worse, Hinduism was a tissue of falsehood and Buddhism, if
it qualified as a religion at all, was selfish! The result of this approach was
to deconstruct religion, to reduce religion to something other than revealed
truth. Instead, religion was a psychological prop or a sociological pheno-
menon that helps to police societies or a political tool used by the powerful
to subdue the poor. Another aspect was that ancient or classical rather than
contemporary religion was the main subject matter of religious studies.

The personal dimension

Even before Said, in reaction to the above, a different approach began to
dominate the field. Partly, this was motivated by a desirenot absent in
 Series Preface xiii
Mllerto right some of the wrongs committed as a result of what can only
be described as racial bias. One of the most important contributors to the
new approach was Wilfred Cantwell Smith who, in 1950 in his own inaugural
lecture as professor of Comparative Religion at McGill, spoke of the earlier
generation of scholars as resembling flies crawling on the surface of a goldfish
bowl, making accurate observations on the fish inside . . . and indeed contrib-
uting much to our knowledge of the subject; but never asking themselves,
and never finding out, how it feels to be a goldfish (2).1 Scholars such as
Gerardus van der Leeuw (18901950), influenced by the philosophical con-
cept of phenomenology, had already applied its principles to religious studies,
arguing that the field should move beyond description, an inventory and
classification of the phenomena as they appear in history to an attempt to
understand all the experiences born of what can only become reality after it
has been admitted into the life of the believer (1954: 10). This introduced
what Smith called a personal element into the study of religion, an element
that has always played a part in theology, which deals with matters of faith,
with peoples most cherished and deeply held convictions. Smith suggested
that all religions should be understood in personal terms: religion is the faith
in mens hearts; it is a personal thing, in the lives of men (1959: 42). Thus
the student will make progress when he or she recognizes that they are not
primarily dealing with externals, with books and rituals that can be observed
but with religious persons, or at least with something interior to persons
(1959: 53). In the past, the study of other mens religions had taken the form
of an impersonal presentation of an it (1959: 34). Now, instead of an us
talking about them, it would first become us talking to them, then a we
all talking with each other about us as Religious Studies took on the task
of interpreting intellectually the cosmic significance of life generically, not
just for ones own group specifically (1981: 187). The Religious Studies
professor now wrote for the Other as well as for outsiders, since they would
also read what he wrote. The day has long past, said Smith, when we write
only for ourselves (1981: 143). Phenomenology, applied to the study of
religions, is the effort to penetrate to the essential core, to the eidos, of religion,
by bracketing out assumptions, theories, preconceptions so that we see the
phenomenon for what it really is, in its own terms. Instead of imposing cate-
gories and theories and value judgments from outside, like the Orientalists
did, we enter into the religions worldview. We all but become the Other.
Instead of decrying what we write as a mockery, as inaccurate, as belittling
what he or she believes, the Other ought to voice their approval (1959: 44).
xiv Series Preface

Leaving aside the problem that not all Muslims or all Hindus or all
Buddhists believe identically and that what one believer finds acceptable
another may not, nonetheless, the criterion that believers should recognize
themselves in what gets written, has become a generally accepted principle
within Religious Studies. It is also widely embraced in anthropology. Certainly,
effort is made to represent religions as diverse, to counter the impression
given by earlier writers that Islam, for example, was more or less the same
everywhere and, for that matter, throughout history. Smith himself insisted
that there is actually no such thing as Hinduism or as Christianity or as Islam,
only what this Hindu or that Muslim believes. At the deepest level, this is
undoubtedly true. However, Religious Studies would not survive if it took
this too literally, so pragmatically it accepts that while no abstract reality
called Christianity or Islam may exist, believers also believe that they
belong to a religious tradition and share beliefs with others who belong to
that tradition. They believe that these are not merely their own, individual
personal opinions but are true, that is, according to the teachings of the
religion itself. The phenomenological approach, or methodology, then, tries
to depict a religion in terms that insiders recognize. Thus, when explaining
how a religion began, it describes what believers themselves hold to be true.
An outsider writing about Islam might attribute its origin to Muhammads
genius in responding to the need for political unity in seventh-century Arabia
by supplying a religion as the unifying creed that bound rival tribes together.
The phenomenologist will write of how Muhammad received the Quran
from God via the Angel Gabriel in a cave on Mt. Hira in the year 610 of the
Common Era. The phenomenologist does not have to ask, unlike a theologian,
whether Muhammad really did receive revelation. However, by neglecting
other explanations of Islams origin they veer, if not toward theology then
at least toward a type of faith sensitivity that is closer to that of a theologian
than to a Freudian psychologist or a Durkheimian sociologist.

Faith sensitivity: A paradigm too far

From at least the mid-1970s, what has been taught in most College and
University departments of Religious Studies or in world religions courses
within departments of Theology or of Religion is the phenomenology of
religion. Most popular texts on the religions of the world depict their subject
matter in what can be described as an insider-sensitive style. Indeed, there is a
tendency to employ Hindus to teach about Hinduism, Muslims to teach about
 Series Preface xv
Islam, so what gets taught represents a fairly standard and commonly accepted
Hindu or Muslim understanding of these faiths. Hinduism does not get
described as having kept millions of people in bondage to the evils of the
caste or class system, nor is Islam depicted as an inherently violent religion, or
as misogynist. This tendency to appoint insiders has meant, in practice, little
of the type of collaboration, or colloquy that Smith anticipated (1981: 193)
but also much less misrepresentation. Partly, the trend stems from the suspi-
cion that it takes one to know one. In anthropology, Clifford Geertz has
spoken of an epistemological hypochondria concerning how one can know
that anything one says about other forms of life is as a matter of fact so (1988:
71). There is a reluctance to depict all religions as basically the same or to
imply that the same fundamental truths can be found in all of themif
differently expressedbecause this sounds like theology. However, a similar
pedagogical approach to teaching each tradition is commonly practiced. While
this approach is more sophisticated than the early model, which simply
used Christianity as a template, it is not so radically different. Here, the work
of Ninian Smart and Frank Whaling, among others, has been influential
(Figure 0.1). Sharpes four modes of religion model is worth examining but
is less easy to translate into the classroom (see Figure 0.2). Smart and Whaling
say that most religions have such elements as beliefs, scriptures, histories,
sacred sites, worship and that without imposing too much from the outside, an
examination of each of these provides a common framework of investigation.
Smarts term worldview, too, easily includes Marxism as well as Buddhism,
and is less problematic than religion because no belief in the supernatural is
implied. Flexibility is possible because some traditions place more stress on
certain elements; therefore, these can be discussed in more detail. The role, for
example, of a seminal personality in Islam, Christianity, or Buddhism is very
significant while less so in Judaism and absent in Hinduism. One very positive
development associated with this personal understanding of religion was that
the field started to take an interest in contemporary religion, not only in
ancient texts. Observation and fieldwork, alongside knowledge of languages
and literary analysis, became part and parcel of studying religion. If anything,
the trend may have gone too far in the other direction, to the neglect of
texts. It is just as mistaken to think that you can learn all about a religion by
visiting a place of worship as it is to claim that everything can be learnt from
reading its texts. It is not insignificant that when Smart proposed his original
six dimensions it was in the context of a lecture on the Nature of Theology
and the Idea of A Secular University, thus his concern was with the logic of
xvi Series Preface

Smarts seven-fold scheme of study (initially Whalings eight inter-linked elements, behind
six; see Smart, 1968: 1518). which lies some apprehension of ultimate reality
(Whaling, 1986: 3748 ).

1. Doctrinal 1. Religious community

2. Mythological 2. Ritual
3. Ethical 3. Ethics
4. Ritual 4. Social involvement
5. Historical 5. Scriptures/myth
6. Social 6. Concepts
7. Material (added in his 1998 text) 7. Aesthetics
8. Spirituality

Note: Smart categorized 13 as para-historical and 46 as historical.

Figure 0.1 Comparison of Smarts and Whalings models.

religious education in a secular or religiously neutralist society . . . with the

content of what should be taught rather than with the question of how
religion should be taught (1968: 7).
This series takes the view that phenomenology or insider-sensitivity
dominates the field today at the expense of other ways of studying religion.
This series also takes the view that this dominance has cost Religious Studies
its ability to engage with critical issues. The reality of what a student experi-
ences in the field may be different, less pleasant, than what they learn in the
classroom. From what is taught in the classroom, religions are all sweetness
and light. True, the darker side of religion may indeed be a distortion, or a
misrepresentation, or the result of the manipulation of religion for political
or for other ends. True, the earliest strand of the religion may not have
contained these elements. However, to say nothing about how a religion has
been used to sanction, even to bless violence, or to subjugate women, or to
discriminate against outsiders or certain designated groups, simply reverses
the mistakes of the past. If the Orientalists rarely had anything good to say
about religions other than the Christian, the contemporary student of religion
appears blind to anything negative. One of the most popular Religious Studies
texts, at least in North America, is Huston Smiths The Worlds Religions (1958;
1991; originally The Religions of Man). For all its merit, this deliberately set
out to present religions as sweetness and light, or, as the author put it, to
show religions at their best (5). Smith himself winced to think how someone
closing his chapter on Hinduism and stepping directly into the Hinduism
 Series Preface xvii

Existential

Institutional

Ethical

Intellectual

Sharpe sees these as interlinking. Each can be represented by a noun: Existential =

faith; Intellectual = beliefs; Institutional = Organizations; Ethical = conduct. A believer
or a community may use either of the four as the dominant element, that as, as a
gateway to the others (p97). On page 96, he has four diagrams, substituting the
dominant dimension in each.

Figure 0.2 Eric Sharpes four-modes. Source: Based on diagram on page 96 in Sharpe,
1983.

described by Nehru as a religion that enslaves you would react (4). He

excluded references to the Sunni-Shia and traditional-modernist divisions
in Islam (3) because he chose instead to note different attitudes toward Sufism
by way of taking Islams diversity seriously. Yet this also avoided discussing
some less rose-colored aspects of religion, the full story of which is not rose-
colored but often crude (4). What Smith set out to achieve may be said to
characterize the Religious Studies agenda; he wanted to penetrate the worlds
of the Hindus, the Buddhists, and Muslims and to throw bridges from these
worlds to his readers. His goal was communication (10). He wrote of aiming
to see through others eyes (8). Toward the end of his Points of Departure
chapter explaining his methodology, he gives an eloquent description of
phenomenology, which, although he does not call it that, is worth repeating:

First, we need to see their adherents [World religions adherents] as men and
women who faced problems much like our own. Secondly, we must rid our minds
of all preconceptions that could dull our sensitivity or alertness to fresh insights. If
we lay aside our preconceptions about these religions, seeing each as forged by
people who were struggling to see something that would give help and meaning
to their lives; and if we then try without prejudice to see ourselves what
they seeif we do these things, the veil that separates us from them can turn
to gauze (11).
xviii Series Preface

Smart describes the process as one of structured empathy, a crossing over of

our horizons into the worlds of other people (1983: 16).

Avoiding the less rosy

Yet by ignoring such problematic an issue as the Sunni-Shia division in
Islam, Smiths book, as admirable as it is, provides no tools that could help
someone trying to make sense of events in Lebanon, in Iran, and in Iraq.
Arguably, this reluctance to deal with critical issues results from over sensiti-
vity to insider sensibilities. A theologian may justify elevating faith sensitivity
over all alternatives but if Religious Studies is a social science, other, less faith
sensitive explanations and content should also be given space on the curricu-
lum. A faith sensitive treatment of Christianity, for example, would depict
Jesus as the son of God and as the second person of the Trinity, who died and
rose again, replicating what Christians believe. The implication here is not
that it can be stated as fact that Jesus died and rose again but that this is what
Christians believe. However, a critical approach might take Jesus humanity as
a starting point and try to understand the process by which belief in his divin-
ity developed. Christian scholars themselves explore the degree to which the
words of Jesus in the Gospels may reflect the convictions of the primitive
Christian community, rather than what Jesus really said. Yet this rarely intrudes
into a Religious Studies class on Christianity. The volume on Christianity in
this series, however, examines the problem of canonicity and discusses the
existence of later gospels and epistles as a case for a variegated Christian tradi-
tion in the first three centuries. Similarly, a faith sensitive explanation of
Muhammads career depicts him as the sinless prophet of God, who contri-
buted nothing to the content of the Quran, replicating what Muslims
believe. Again, the implication here is not that it can be stated as a fact that
Muhammad received the Quran from God but that Muslims believe that
he did. However, an alternative view of Muhammad might regard him as
someone who sincerely believed that God was speaking to him and whose
own ideas and perhaps those of some of his companions found expression,
consciously or unconsciously, in Islams scripture and teachings. Such an
alternative view does not have to follow the pattern of past anti-Muslim
polemic, in which Muhammad was a charlatan, an opportunist, insincere and
self-serving. Kenneth Cragg, who has contributed much to helping Christians
form a more sympathetic view of Islam, sees Muhammad as a sincere
servant of God but he does not think that the Quran contains nothing of
 Series Preface xix
Muhammads own ideas. Cragg, though, may be regarded as a theologian
rather than as belonging properly to Religious Studies, which begs the ques-
tion whether it is useful to maintain a distinction between these two fields.
Suggesting how outsiders, who wish to remain committed members of a dif-
ferent faith, can approximate an insider-like view without compromising their
own could be part of the agenda of Religious Studies. Currently, this role
appears to be undertaken by practitioners of interfaith dialog, such as Hans
Kng (see Kng, 1986) and by theologians such as Cragg, rather than by
Religious Studies specialists. In many instances, the distinction is blurred
because of the different roles played by people themselves. Frank Whaling
is not only a Religious Studies specialist but also an ordained Methodist
minister. W. C. Smith was a Religious Studies specialist (although he preferred
the term Comparative Religion) but was an ordained Presbyterian minister.
Methodist minister, Kenneth Cracknell had contributed significantly to think-
ing on how to understand the relationships between religions but it is difficult
to say whether his academic credentials identify him as a theologian or as a
Religious Studies specialist (see Cracknell, 1986; 2006). The same can probably
be said of this writer. Cabezn discusses the acceptability of scholars today
declaring their faith allegiances in relation to the us and them divide,
pointing out that some scholars self-identify as belonging to multiple reli-
gious traditions and so a simplistic us and them polarity is problematic;
the Other is problematic when we claim to BE-THEM (33). The author of
the volume on Buddhism in this series, the topic of his doctorate, was born
a Hindu, became Christian but self-identifies as a Hindu-Christian. The
author of the volume on Hinduism regards himself as a Hindu but continues
to be a licensed priest of the Church of England, a fact that has attracted
some criticism in the British press. How will Religious Studies deal with such
complexities?2
Discussion of some alternative explanations and critical theories can be
problematic, given that believers may find them offensive. Some scholars
who have challenged the Muslim consensus on Islams origins have received
death threats, so replicating insider views is less risky. A teacher who wants
to attract insider approval may find it expedient to ignore other views. The
possibility that material from the Gnostic gospels can be identified in the
Quran, for example, runs contrary to Muslim conviction, and is ignored
by almost everyone except Christian polemicists. A Muslim in the classroom
may be offended if the teacher alludes to this type of source and redaction
critical approach to the Quran. Such an approach, if it is pursued, may take
xx Series Preface

place elsewhere in the academy. What has been described as shattering the
consensus of scholarly opinion on the origins of Islam came from outside the
corridors of any Department of Religion or of Religious Studies (Neuwirth,
2006: 100). The Aryan invasion theory is increasingly unpopular among
Hindus, who dismiss it as imperialist. This Euro-centric theory, it is said,
denies that Indias heritage is really Indian. Yet, to ignore the relationship
between Indian and European languages and the similarity of some ideas and
myths could be to overlook important facts about a more interconnected
human story than is often supposed. On the one hand, the term Hinduism is
now accepted by many Hindus. On the other hand, its appropriateness can
be challenged. Smith commented, the mass of religious phenomena we
shelter under that umbrella is not an entity in any theoretical let alone
practical sense (1963: 64). As taught, Hinduism arguably owes more to the
Theosophist, Annie Bessant, who may have been the first to design a curricu-
lum based around the four aims in life, four ages, the four stages of life and
the four classes and their duties than to any classical Indian text, even though
all these can be found in the texts. The elevation of a great tradition over the
myriad of smaller traditions needs to be critiqued. Western fascination with
Hinduisms esoteric system, Tantra, has attracted criticism that this elevates
what is actually quite obscure to a seemingly more central position. Since sex
is involved, this revives a certain Orientalist preoccupation with the East as
alluring and immoral, offering possibilities for pleasure denied by the West.
Wendy Doniger OFlaherty, a former President of the American Academy
of Religion, has been criticized for overstressing sensuality in her work on
Hinduism (see Ramaswamy et al., 2007).
What has been described as Protestant Buddhism, too, developed as a
result of the efforts of another Theosophist, Henry Steele Olcott, among
others. A type of philosophers abstraction (Gombrich, 1988: 50) it set out to
present Buddhas teaching as a coherent, systematic system, beginning with
the four noble truths followed by the noble eightfold path. These were taught
by the Buddha but he loved lists, and these are two among many. This is not to
suggest that Buddhism is unsystematic, although use of the term systematic
here could be another example of transposing a European concept into non-
European space. In fact, believing that people at different spiritual stages
require different teachings, the Buddha sometimes gave different advice on
the same issue. Teaching that may appear contradictory, as the fourteenth
Dalai Lama put it, prevents dogmatism (1996: 72). It could be argued, then,
that the somewhat dogmatic way in which what the Buddha taught is
 Series Preface xxi
presented in many Religious Studies classrooms, misrepresents what he actu-
ally taught. Kitagawa (1959) observed, and arguably not much has changed,
that despite its avowed neutrality and objectivity, Religious Studies has been
operating with Western categories (27). More recently, Cabezn has said that
Religious Studies is still dominated by Western terms, theories, and paradigms.
Theory parity, says Cabezn, is a long way off; for example, it is hard for us to
even conceive of the day when a Theories of religion course might be taught
with a substantial selection of readings from nonwestern sources (31). How
long are Western views of religion and of what is to be included and excluded
as religiously interesting going to dominate? Cabezn identifies at least the
start of a much needed paradigm shift in which non-Western theologies are
getting some exposure (34). Cabezn also argues that some non-Buddhist
scholars, despite the insider-ship bias of the discipline, still construct their
identity in contradistinction to the Buddhist Other which effectively empha-
sizes the distance between themselves and the object (Buddhism) they
choose to study (29 Fn 22). The volume on Judaism discusses problems
associated with the very definition of Judaism as a religion, and the relation-
ship between Judaism and the Jewish people, often assumed to be identical.
It asks whether such a significant thinker as Freud, who was secular, can
be located within a Jewish religious framework. The same question could be
asked of Marx.
Another issue, relevant to studying and teaching all religions on the
curriculum, is how much should realistically be attempted. If a degree is
offered in Islamic Studies, or Buddhist Studies, or Jewish Studies, this issue
is less relevant. However, more often than not, what gets taught is a survey
course covering five or six religions. If a traditional course in Christian Studies
covers scripture, history, philosophy of religion, theology, and languages, the
student usually has 3 or 4 years to master these. In a survey course, they have
perhaps a day to master a religions scripture, another day to study its historical
development, another to gain an understanding of its rituals. It is widely
recognized that in order to understand another world view, some grasp of
language is necessary, given the difficulty of translating meaning across
languages. Muslims, indeed, say that the Quran is untranslatable, that it is
only Gods word in Arabic. How much Hebrew, how much Arabic, how much
Sanskrit, can students be expected to learn in a few days? If the answer
is hardly any, are they really able to achieve anything that approximates
insider-ship? It is often claimed that students learn more from attending a
service of worship than they do from books. This writer has taken students to
xxii Series Preface

Mosques where quite hostile attempts to convert them to Islam left them with
a less positive view of Islam than they had taken away from the classroom. Yet
can any course on Islam neglect a mosque visit? This author has chosen to leave
one out on the basis that no such course can cover everything anyway! Another
issue, also relevant to studying all traditions covered on the curriculum, is how
different interpretations of texts are to be dealt with. For example, the Quran
can be read by militants as permitting aggression, by others as prohibiting
aggression and sanctioning only defense. Can both be right? Is it the business
of so-called neutral Religious Studies scholars, who may well be located in a
secular and possibly public (State) school, to say what is, or is not, a more
authentic version of Judaism, of Islam, or of Christianity? In some contexts,
this could even raise issues of Church-State relations. How seriously should a
Religious Studies specialist take the postmodern view that all texts have
multiple meanings and no single reading can claim to be exclusively or
uniquely true? This certainly challenges some religious voices, which claim
infallibility or at least to speak with special, privileged authority! Far from
being fixed objects, or subjects of study, religions are often in flux. The
Christian volume, for example, shows how ethical thinking on such issues
as war and peace, justice, economic distribution, and human sexuality has
changed over time and varies across Christian communities.

Reviving critical enquiry

If Religious Studies is to live up to its claim to be a social science, it cannot
afford to ignore other approaches and critical issues, even if these are less-faith
sensitive. Otherwise, it must resign itself to merely describing what believers
themselves hold to be true. Only by placing alternative approaches alongside
insider perspectives can Religious Studies claim to be treating religious beliefs
and practices as subjects of serious and critical investigation. This is not to
suggest that faith sensitivity should be abandoned. One reason why students
study religions other than their own, or any religion for that matter, is to
understand what believers really believe, often as opposed to how their beliefs
are popularly or commonly portrayed. A religious studies student may be an
agnostic, or an atheist but he or she will still want to know what a Hindu or a
Jew believes, not what some prejudiced outsider says about them. Stripping
away misconceptions, overcoming bias and prejudice, presenting a religion
from its believers perspective, will remain an important goal of any Religious
 Series Preface xxiii
Studies program. However, the privileging of insider-ship to the exclusion of
other ways of seeing religion reduces Religious Studies to a descriptive exer-
cise, and compromises any claim to be a critical field of academic enquiry.
Religious Studies will be enriched, not impoverished, by reclaiming its multi-
disciplinary credentials. This series examines how issues and content that is
often ignored in teaching about religions can be dealt with in the classroom.
The aim is, on the one hand, to avoid giving unnecessary offence while on
the other hand to avoid sacrificing critical scholarship at the altar of a faith-
sensitivity that effectively silences and censures other voices. Since critical
issues vary from religion to religion, authors have selected those that are
appropriate to the religion discussed in their particular volume. The Smart-
Whaling dimensional approach is used to help to give some coherency to how
authors treat their subjects but these are applied flexibly so that square pegs are
not forced into round holes. Each author pursues his/her enquiry according to
his/her expert view of what is important for the tradition concerned, and of
what will help to make Religious Studies a healthier, more critical field. Each
author had the freedom to treat his/her subject as he/she chose, although with
reference to the aim of this series and to the Smart-Whaling schema. What is
needed is a new relationship between Religious Studies and critical enquiry.
A balance between faith-sensitivity and other approaches is possible, as this
series proves. These texts, which aim to add critical edge to the study of the
religions of the world, aim to be useful to those who learn and to those who
teach, if indeed that distinction can properly be made. Emphasis on how to
tackle critical issues rather than on the content of each dimension may not
make them suitable to use as introductory texts for courses as these have
traditionally been taught. They might be used to supplement a standard text.
Primarily aids to study, they point students toward relevant material including
films and novels as well as scholarly sources.
They will, however, be very appropriate as textbooks for innovative courses
that adopt a more critical approach to the subject, one that does not shy away
from problematical issues and their serious, disciplined exploration.

References
Cabezn, Jos Ignacio. The Discipline and its Others: The Dialectic of Alterity in the Study of
Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 74: 1, 2138, 2006.
Capps, Walter H. Religious Studies: The Making of a Discipline. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press,
1995.
xxiv Series Preface

Cracknell, Kenneth. Towards a New Relationship: Christians and People of Other Faith. London:
Epworth, 1986.
Cracknell, Kenneth. In Good and Generous Faith: Christian Responses to Religious Pluralism.
Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 2006.
Dalai Lama, fourteenth. The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teaching of Jesus. Edited
by Robert Kierly. Boston, MT: Wisdom Publications, 1996.
Geertz, Clifford. Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author. Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 1988.
Gombrich, Richard. Therevada Buddhism. London: Routledge, 1988.
Kitagawa, Joseph. The history of religions in America, in M. Eliade and J. Kitagawa, editors. The
History of Religions: Essays in Methodology. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 130, 1959.
Kng, Hans. Christianity and the World Religions. London: SCM, 1986.
Leeuw, G. van der. Confession Scientique, NUMEN, 1, 815, 1954.
Mller, F. Max. Chips from a German Workshop. London: Longmans & Co., 1867.
Mller, F. Max. Introduction to the Science of Religion. London: Longmans & Co., 1882.
Neuwirth, Angelika. Structural, linguistic and literary features, in Jane Dammen McAuliffe, editor.
The Cambridge Companion to the Quran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 97113, 2006.
Ramaswamy, Krishnan, de Nicholas, Antonio and Banerjee, Aditi, editors. Invading the Sacred: An
Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America. Delhi: Rupa & Co., 2007.
Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon, 1978.
Sharpe, Eric J. Understanding Religion. London: Duckworth, 1983.
Sharpe, Eric J. Comparative Religion: A History. New Edition. London: Duckworth, 2006.
Smart, Ninian. Secular Education and the Logic of Religion. New York: Humanities Press, 1968.
Smart, Ninian. Worldviews. New York: Macmillan, 1983.
Smart, Ninian. The Worlds Religions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Smith, Huston. The Worlds Religions. San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1958; 1991.
Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. The Comparative Study of Religion: An Inaugural Lecture. Montreal: McGill
University, 1950.
Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. Comparative Religion: Whither and Why? in M. Eliade and J. Kitagawa,
editors. The History of Religions: Essays in Methodology. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press,
3158, 1959, available online at http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=580&C=761h
Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. The Meaning and End of Religion: A New Approach to the Religious
Traditions of Mankind. New York: Macmillan, 1963.
Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. Towards a World Theology. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1981.
Whaling, Frank. Christian Theology and World Religions: A Global Approach. London: Marshall,
Morgan & Scott, 1986.
 Foreword

Each year as I prepare my Holocaust course, I wonder about the teaching

of this event. How can I instruct my students about this most horrific event
without trivializing it? I wonder, too, given the current state of our world, if
the event has already been trivialized. In a world where Holocaust imagery
pervades our culture and yet at the same time, violence and atrocity continue
apace, is there any validity to reciting the lessons of the Holocaust when
they arent taken seriously, sometimes not even by Jews?
Of course, a main component of any study of the Holocaust is Christian
anti-Semitism. My students, mostly Christian and often evangelical, bristle
when they begin to learn of the underside of Christian history. I often think
that they must have heard this story many, many times before. But, like the
Holocaust, with Christian symbols pervading our culture, Christianity is often
trivialized as well.
So it was quite surprising when I received this interesting manuscript,
Studying Christianity. At first I wanted to place it in my desk drawer; as a Jew,
especially when I am teaching the Holocaust, my feelings of ambivalence
toward Christianity reach a crescendo. At the same time, I realize that the
same students who resent my recounting of the sins of Christianity know
very little of the Christian heritage, including the struggle to define exactly
what it means to be a Christian. Studying Christianity might well be what
they need to read.
Because of my studies of religion, I, of course, had indeed studied
Christianity, but in reading this book I became reacquainted with the diverse
dynamics of an ancient and global religion. Though my teaching of the
Holocaust can only emphasize certain aspects of Christian history, Christianitys
whole is better than its parts. Stated differently, the history of Christianity
has so many twists and turns that its past can be seen as prologue. Depending
on what road is taken, Christianitys past can be prologue for a new emphasis
on life over death, a resurrection politics and economics that might lead us
past the crucified Jews of the past and those who are victimized today as well.
Could my students have a better view of what their Christianity might be
if they studied Christianity like they study the Holocaust? It seems that
xxvi Foreword

Christianity, like any religion, should be studied alongside formative events in

history. Studied in a dynamic way, as a force within and outside of history, but
only known and embraced by us within the exigencies of history, perhaps
Christians might then choose another path than was chosen before.
So it went for me during this season, teaching the Holocaust and reading
Studying Christianity side by side. What I experienced is perhaps what other
readers might also experience: following the arc of Christian history, I am
struck by the sense that Christians believe that the world is redeemedand
has yet to be. I am also struck by the arguments for and against the peoples
of the world, including the Jews, and how things can go so wrong that only
darkness reigns and just when that night seems permanent, dawn arrives. We
can think, learn, pray, and live with a new understanding of an original faith
in the now context of our lives.
Christianity stands at a crossroads. Is there any other time in history
where a Jew would be asked to write a short welcome to the readers of a book
detailing the heritage and character of Christianity. Studying Christianity is
part of the light, a heritage to be read, so that we, and the world, can be
made new.

Marc H. Ellis, Ph.D.

University Professor of Jewish Studies and
Director of the Center for Jewish Studies
Baylor University, Waco, Texas, USA.
 Introduction:
Approaching Christianity

Chapter Outline
For further reading and study 13

Jesus, the founder of Christianity, is depicted as one who regularly critiqued

the Jewish religion, his ancestral religious orientation. At an early age, he was
seen in the Jerusalem Temple debating the rabbis. Later in his adult ministry,
he answered questions and publicly disputed the Pharisees, Sadducees, and
Scribes. Jesus avoided strict interpretations of the Law in favor of principles of
theology and ethics. He left a heritage of being one who taught with authority
and one who welcomed interaction with seekers.
The first persons to examine Christianity after the life of Jesus were his
disciples. From the interactions of Jesus with Peter, Thomas, and the dialog at
his ascension among a group of disciples, there was an intensive debate about
the meaning and applicability of Jesus teachings. In the Book of Acts, the
debate was frequently agitated, as the disagreement between Peter and Paul
over dietary laws and required circumcision for the Christian community
that James had to arbitrate. Other issues that created a healthy difference
of opinion in the primitive Christian community included hierarchy of
leadership, unusual manifestations of religious experience, and the priority
of religious faith over works of merit.
By the time of the composition of the first literature of the New Testament,
there were apparently several literary versions of the Christian witness in
circulation. The writer of the Gospel of Luke said, I investigated everything
carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account . . .1 Likewise, the
2 Studying Christianity

gospel authors Mark, Matthew, and John, and the apostle Paul each opened
different windows on the meaning of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It
became the primary task of later collections of bishops and teachers (the
Church Fathers) to establish a uniform version of the Christian message
and create an authoritative text of sacred writings that Christian refer to as
the canon or standard of Scripture.
Eusebius of Caesarea (c.263c.339) is joined by Tyrannius Rufinus (c.345
410), Socrates Scholasticus (380439), Salminius Sozoman (c.390c.457),
Theodoret of Cyrrhus (c.393c.458), and Evagrius Scholasticus (c.536c.594)
in providing the first historical analysis of Christianity. The historical disci-
pline was important to the establishment of Christian learning because the
historians traced the evolution of a tradition from the voluntary association
of Jesus through the establishment of congregations in the Middle East, to
the recognition of episcopacies or regional administrative units virtually
throughout the Roman Empire. Eusebius attempted to cast Christianity over
against the pagan cults and fit it into a narrative of human history that reached
back to Creation. Sozomen, writing during the reign of Emperor Theodosius,
extolled the virtues of imperial Christianity and the Christianization of the
Roman Empire. Continuing the work of Eusebius, Rufinus blended the narra-
tives of Eastern and Western Christianities and chronicled the development of
monasticism in Egypt. Theodoret wrote a theological history of Christianity,
seeking to identify and refute the Arian controversy from the standpoint of
the school of theologians in Antioch. He understood the importance of the
original sources and reproduced relevant documentation. Theodoret was also
much impressed with reports of miraculous occurrences and gave numerous
accounts of such experiences. Evagrius, also writing from Antioch, continued
the narrative from the conclusions of his worthy predecessors and he dealt
with the interaction of Christianity with barbarian people, giving his version a
decidedly Eastern orientation, preserving many original sources. One of the
most important achievements of the earliest historians of Christianity was
their recognition of the regional diversity of the overall Christian tradition.
One notes constant references to Asiatic Roman, African, and Palestinian types
of Christian witness and thought. At the foundation of all early Christian
scholarship was the historical enterprise, and it produced a surprisingly
analytical accounting.
Theologians of the early church like Origen of Alexandria (185c.254), the
parent of systematic theological education, and Augustine (354430), a widely
published North African bishop, followed the lead of the Apostle Paul and
 Introduction 3
moved Christian thought to a new level by practicing solid intellectual skills
and by raising the correlation of faith and reason. Origen moved freely among
extant philosophical schools, secular literature, physics, and ethics to blend an
awareness of the divine with the world of human understanding. He dealt
honestly with the seeming paradox between Gods unity and the multiplicity
of the material world, as well as the differences between first principles and
nonrational impulses in making decisions. Among Origens more controver-
sial accomplishments was his allegorical method of interpreting scripture in
order to derive multiple meanings from texts. Later, Augustine arrived at the
position that God created the universe in Gods sovereignty and therefore all
of creation is thus dependent upon God. It then followed for Augustine that
knowledge comes by way of a restored relationship with the Creator and that
there is a purpose in human history and development that leads to fulfillment
in God. Reflecting a three-in-one understanding of God, Augustine deduced
that body, soul, and spirit compose the human self in the image of God. The
heritages of both Origen and Augustine remain pervasive influences among
the vast number of Christians presently as they respond to questions of
knowledge, value, and morality.
Among the students of Christianitys character during the Middle Ages
were regional historians like Bede of Northumbria (c.672735) and the
many chroniclers of the East. Bedes great accomplishment was to link the
Christianization of Britain to the successive waves of monarchies and tribal
confederations and demonstrate how a Christian culture had emerged. In the
meantime, he happened to codify the English language in a form that would
remain intact for centuries. In the Christian East, Saints Cyril and Methodius
of Thessaloniki, Greece, are credited with a similar linguistic contribution in
establishing the Cyrillic alphabet. In Kievan Rus, the family chronicles detail
everyday interaction between villagers and priests and preserve an otherwise
lost window on Orthodox medieval Christian experience. In addition to
historians, monks and later members of the mendicant orders debated the
meaning of the sacraments and church authority.
The capstone of Christian intellectual pursuits in the Middle Ages was
Scholasticism, actually an attempt to use the methods of Aristotle to inquire
into Christian faith and life. Leading thinkers in this movement, Anselm of
Canterbury, Peter Abelard, Peter Lombard, Gratian, and Hugh of St. Victor,
focused on a rigorous faith seeking understanding. Of all the scholastics,
Thomas Aquinas at the University of Paris was foremost. These thinkers
perfected a method of questions, the adduction of evidence and a reasoned
4 Studying Christianity

conclusion to achieve a rational basis for the revealed truth of Christianity.

Their bold assertions included several cogent arguments for the existence of
God, a basis for the sacramental liturgy of Christian worship, and a body of
principles called natural law to serve as a foundation for Christian ethics.
Aquinas unfinished work, the 70-volume Summa Theologica (12651274)
and the structured curriculum of a new institution, the papally-chartered
university, set the pattern for Christian learning for centuries to come. With
Scholasticism, Christianity may truly be said to have come of age as a religious
tradition.
The humanist movement in Europe during the Renaissance brought major
scholarly attention to Christianity. The spirit of the Renaissance was devoted
to an emphasis upon human beings and their circumstances, including their
relation to God. In examining the humanities, these scholars rejected the
medieval synthesis of ecclesiastical authority in temporal as well as spiritual
matters and Scholasticism, preferring instead to follow an intellectual combi-
nation of St. Augustine, Plato, and several Latin literati like Cicero. Francesco
Petrarch (13041374) of Italy was the leader of the southern European
Renaissance with an interest in the classical tradition of learning and the
arts. The new learning also had a German and French phase that emerged in
the late fifteenth century. Where such principles were applied to Christian
thought and sources, it meant a rigorous textual recovery of ancient manu-
scripts in which the true Christ could be revealed without the overlay
of metaphysics and church dogma, a kind of purification of the sources.2
Nicholas of Cusa (14011464) developed a monistic method in which
God was understood as the unity of the cosmos, knowable through human
intelligence. Cusa also explored a comparison of Christianity with Islam and
Judaism. Several new German universities became centers of humanism:
Heidelberg, Vienna, Leipzig, Munich, and Mainz. Part of the efforts of Christian
humanists was directed at the study of the Bible. Johannes Reuchlin (14551522)
at Heidelberg revived interest in the study of Hebrew language in order
to interpret properly the Old Testament. Similarly, Desiderius Erasmus
(c.14661536), preeminent among the Christian humanists, insisted upon
the necessity of knowledge of the natural world, of the rules of rhetoric, and
use of the classical poets in order to interpret Scripture rightly. His premier
accomplishment, a critical edition of the New Testament (1516), spawned a
new venture in the science of textual criticism. John Colet (c.14671519) at
Oxford developed a literary critical method of interpreting the letters of Paul,
while in France Jacques Lefevre dEtaples (c.14601536) used comparative
 Introduction 5
philology to prepare commentaries on the Psalms, the Gospels, and the General
Epistles. The Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century, to a person, would
be greatly indebted to the humanistic achievements.
Perhaps the symbol of new Reformed approaches to studying Christianity
was the German university. As we have seen, the popes chartered the earliest
universities in the region and the Church licensed the faculties. In 1527,
however, Philip the Magnanimous, the Landgrave of Marburg, deviated
from that practice and started the University of Marburg, the first university
belonging to the Protestant tradition, and chartered by a civil government.
Philips University, as it came to be called, had faculties in theology, humani-
ties, and the arts. The university set the stage for intense self-criticism of the
Christian religious tradition.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Enlightenment thinkers
unleashed a scathing critique of Christianity, largely as a reaction to perceived
clericalism and superstition, as well as claims of miracles and the notion
of divine revelation. They variously championed religious toleration and
the integration of faith and the sciences. Protestants were committed to
Enlightenment principles because the Enlightenment stood against the pre-
vailing Roman Catholic deterministic view of human nature and practice of
authoritarian religion. For instance, Francois Turretini devoted student of the
teachings of John Calvin, modernized Calvinism by downplaying original sin
and predestination. Instead, he preferred the moral aspects of the Reformed
faith. Edward Gibbon at the Royal Academy in London made a long-lasting
historiographical contribution in his reinterpretation of Roman history in
which he expressed his distress at the decline of the greatness of Rome whilst
Christianity advanced. This generation of critics, as Peter Gay has quipped,
became a cluster of cuckoos in the Christian nest.3
By the later seventeenth century, Christianity and reason were firmly wed
in learned circles. The Englishman John Locke became the prince of enlight-
ened Christians, as his work, The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695) illus-
trates; later Mathew Tindals Christianity as Old as the Creation (1730) made a
similar case for Christianity as a religion of nature. Likewise, Gotthold E.
Lessing, son of a theologian and an influential German poet and philosopher,
was interested in the seriousness of theological questions, but not in any of its
supernatural claims. In a harsher critique, the Frenchman Voltaire moved far
beyond Lockes reasonable pulpit-style Christianity to a more personally
rewarding religion of nature. The Scottish philosopher, David Hume, wrote of
the scandal of miracles in 1737, while the Dutch rationalist Baruch Spinoza
6 Studying Christianity

labeled Jesus, Moses, and Mohammed the great imposters. More conserva-
tive thinkers, dubbed neologians attempted to keep the traditional language
of Christianity but gave the words new meanings devoid of supernaturalism.
Christian Wolf at Marburg taught that revelation might transcend reason,
but never contradict it. Taken collectively, these religious critics or philo-
sophes as they were labeled in France made a virtue of questioning and
forever after subjected Christianity to close scrutiny.
In the lead of a self-critical Christianity were professional and academic
historians, theologians, and biblical scholars lodged firmly in the university
faculties. The critical documentary approach of historians like Leopold von
Ranke in Germany separated the myths of Christianity from the identifi-
able historical contexts and events, particularly as applied to the Protestant
Reformation. This in turn caused theologians to use principles laid down by
G. F. Hegel, like the recovery of dialectical thinking, to distinguish between the
Jesus of history and the existential Christ of faith. Hegels method gave a new
strategy to the analysis of Christianity in its historical and political contexts.
The early twentieth century was dominated by Neo-Orthodox theologians
and biblical scholars like Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, and Rudolph Bultmann
and existentialist theologians like Paul Tillich who, with a dialectic approach,
moved the discourse of Christianity well beyond traditional doctrinal and
ecclesial bounds while retaining much of its historic vocabulary. This essen-
tially historicist orientation influentially emanating from Albrect Ritschl at
the University of Berlin also produced the groundbreaking sociological
approaches to analyzing Christianity by Max Weber at Heidelberg, The Pro-
testant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904), and Ernst Troeltsch, also at
Heidelberg, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches (1911).
As we shall discover in discussing below the missionary character of
Christianity, the interaction of Christian missionaries with practitioners of
other world religions in the nineteenth century led to a serious study of other
religious values and rituals. The result was the emergence of the theological
discipline of ecumenics and the pursuit of interfaith or interreligious dialog.
A high point in this interaction of Christianity with other religions came
in 1893 with the convening of the Worlds Parliament of Religions. The
Parliament, convened in Chicago with the endorsement of its reconstituted
university, featured lectures and exhibits by confessing Buddhists, Muslims,
Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Taoists, and Confucianists. In the ensuing decades,
Christianity came to be treated as one of the worlds major religions, to use
the term then in vogue, phenomenologically.
 Introduction 7
In North American terms, from the early nineteenth century most univer-
sities and colleges taught subjects relating to Christian culture, bible, Christian
evidences, and ecclesiastical history. Typically, persons trained for pastoral
ministry who might have earned a masters degree taught these subjects.
Commencing in the 1830s, a modest amount of intellectual ferment was
noticeable in the urban institutions, many of which imitated trends in Britain
and Germany. The pace quickened with the advent of graduate research
schools in the 1870s like Johns Hopkins and the transformations of Harvard
and Yale universities. At the forefront of new American Christian scholarship,
however, was the Chicago School, the collective name for an approach and
two generations of scholars associated with the University of Chicago. Behind
the leadership of William Rainey Harper, a Semiticist and philologist, an
array of specialists like George W. Northrup and Shailer Mathews (theology),
Shirley Jackson Case (history), Ernest Dewitt Burton (New Testament), George
Burman Foster (philosophy of religion), Albion Small (church and society),
and Henry Mabie (world religions) redefined the parameters of the Christian
religion according to its evolved values in historical contexts and its common-
alties with non-Christian religions. Others like C. H. Toy at Harvard, Jacob
G. Schurman at Cornell University, Morton S. Enslin and James Pritchard
at the University of Pennsylvania, and William F. Albright at Johns Hopkins
University, each contributed to a broadened understanding of Judeao-
Christianity as a defining social and political force in Western and Eastern
civilizations.
A genuine North American watershed in studying Christianity was the
work of H. Richard Niebuhr. His 1929 book, The Social Sources of Denomina-
tionalism, itself based upon the earlier work of Ernst Troeltsch, Max Weber,
R. H. Tawney, and Adolf Harnack, set aside orthodox approaches to under-
standing the different categories of Christianity (the denominations),
favoring instead a principle of differentiation that lay in their conformity
to the order of social classes and castes.4 Niebuhr used the language of social
construction, the disinherited, the middle class, immigrants, sectionalism,
and nationalism, to classify Catholics, Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Baptists.
While numerous later scholars quibbled with his categories, Niebuhrs
theoretical construct spawned a cottage industry of scholars and ecclesio-
crats who translated confessions and structures into choices or aspirations
according to socioeconomic factors. Anyone interested in the meaning of
Christianity in the United States and Canadian contexts where religious
plurality is the norm, must work through Niebuhrian ideas.
8 Studying Christianity

One of the results of a searching self-critical Christian scholarship was

the emergence of a robust and assertive evangelical Christianity. The word
evangelical first came into common usage in the Reformation era when it
was the equivalent of reformed. Later, it came to be synonymous with a
pietistic, experiential, biblical form of Christianity in contrast with sacramen-
tal or political forms. In the nineteenth century, as mainstream Christian
scholarship tended to become overly critical, Evangelicals put their efforts to
work in defense of a Christianity that was synchronous with the primitive
church and with a vital understanding of the Lordship of Christ. This resulted
in a renewed emphasis upon biblical studies to recover the central thought
and evidences of the first century, plus the heritage of an unbroken fidelity to
transforming discipleship. Evangelicals joined hands with those in Christian
mission who looked to world evangelization through preaching, teaching,
translation, and caregiving missions. Underpinning their efforts have been
solid intellectual accomplishments from biblical scholars like F. W. Gotch,
H. Wheeler Robinson, B. F. Westcott, J. F. A. Hort, J. B. Lightfoot, H. H.
Rowley, F. F. Bruce, and B. M. Metzger. Among evangelical historians, one
finds names like K. S. Latourette, J. Edwin Orr, Justo Gonzales, and more
recently Mark Noll. Additionally, Evangelicals are to be found in a wide
variety of scholarly endeavors, including, C. S. Lewis and John Stott (apologet-
ics), Helmut Thielicke and Louis Smedes (ethics), David Moberg and Reginald
Bibby (sociology), and Clyde Narramore and Wayne Oates (psychology and
counseling). In recent decades, Evangelicals have represented a conservative,
apologetic form of Christian studies with all the rationalistic urgency of the
Enlightenment.
Other special interest groups have plunged deeply into Christian Studies.
Beginning in the 1920s, Black scholars began to reinterpret the Christian
narrative in terms of slavery and oppression. Booker T. Washington and
Marcus Garvey differed on outcomes but agreed on the influence of Christian-
ity upon the African experience. Fostered in the Chicago School orientation
were Howard Thurman, Mordecai Johnson, Miles Mark Fisher, and Benjamin
Mays. Later powerful exponents of the Black American experience as a
liberating and reconciling movement have been Adam Clayton Powell,
Jr., Martin Luther King, Jr., James Cone, and J. Deotis Roberts in the United
States, and Desmond Tutu and Leon Sullivan in the South African struggle
against apartheid. The great contribution of Black theology is that theology
must grow out of the context of experience.
Similar to the Black Studies school is the feminist critique of Christianity.
Here major writers like Mary Daly, Phyllis Trible, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza,
 Introduction 9
Rosemary Radford Reuther, Mercy Amba, Betty Govinden, and Sallie
McFague have severely critiqued traditional Christianity as a form of institu-
tionalized patriarchy. They find hope for Christianity as it breaks away from
a male religious orientation, a male-dominant clergy, and gender specific
vocabulary, to equity among the sexes, and an entirely new sense of the
cosmos that values the feminine. Christianity must address the plight of
women worldwide, they collectively argue.
Finally, the Liberationist and postcolonialist interpreters have used the
history of Christian thought and a revisionist theology to create new readings
of Judaeo-Christian Scripture that unmask imperialist interpretations and
empower communities to social and political transformation. For Gustavo
Gutierrez in 1988, Theology [was] critical reflection on praxis in light of the
Bible.5 There is a powerful impulse in Latin American liberation theology
toward freedom. With respect to African Christianity, Lamin Sanneh in his
seminal book, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture
(1989), has suggested that the full brunt of colonialism has been lessened
by the translation of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures into indigenous African
languages, thus giving rise to a rich variety of African Christian subcultures.
A scathing critique of Christianity emerged from within Christianity
itself in the 1950s and 1960s. The voices of key Neo-Orthodox theologians
at mid-century were replaced by a new generation of thinkers who were
asking genuinely radical questions. Important books appeared such as Paul
Van Burens The Secular Meaning of the Gospel (1963), William Hamiltons
Radical Theology and the Death of God (1963), and Harvey Coxs The Secular
City (1965). In an explosive era politically focused primarily upon the United
States and its foreign policy, theology became a means of political commen-
tary: the consensus was that the traditional forms and vocabulary of Christian
thought were found wanting. The new focus came to be on the actual finite
world in which humans lived, not the idealism of the longstanding Christian
institution, nor any beatific vision of eternal life. Prompted by a secular existen-
tialist philosopher Martin Heidegger at the University of Marburg, and moved
ahead by a new breed of Christian theologians, Jrgen Moltmann, Johannes
Metz, and Roger Garaudy, a conversation opened between Christianity and
Marxism. This conversation produced at least three results: a useful catharsis
for both Marxism and Christianity; a new understanding of Christianity in
Socialist countries; and a new integrity among Christians to ask any question
and seek the most radical alternatives: secular, revolutionary, or primitivist.
The Christian-Marxist dialog opened the door for Christian engagement with
Black, Brown, Red, and Yellow races and the need for a more universal ethic
10 Studying Christianity

and understanding of transcendence. Inevitably, the liberationist, feminist,

and postmodern critics took up the opportunity, nurtured along by the social
sciences.
Lately, the social sciences have again opened new approaches to the study of
Christianity, and vice versa. A foundational classic that integrated psychology
and historical biography was Erik Eriksons Young Man Luther (1949). Erikson
concluded that Luther bore all the marks of an abused child with a lifelong
gastrointestinal difficulty and that his evangelical breakthrough occurred
in the toilet, not in the study. Later psychohistorians like Lloyd de Mause
have drawn Christian religious factors into their analysis of contemporary
world figures. The well-known American sociologist, Rodney Stark, has ven-
tured into early Christian development of the first five centuries CE, and using
demographic and social group identification methods, has offered persuasive
revisionist interpretations of the role of women in the movement, the transi-
tion from Judaism, and the class structure of emerging Christians. Recent
anthropologists like William Hurlburt and theologians like Philip Hefner are
looking into the question of what it means to be human and the theological
relevance of new areas of inquiry like sociobiology. Some Christian theolo-
gians are quite intrigued with the work of anthropologists like Ward Goode-
nough and Solomon Katz who suggest that primitive peoples have a human
capacity for belief or that changes in religion may have prompted the transition
to agriculture in premodern societies. An exceptionally useful example of a
holistic social science approach to human civilization, including Christian
religious cultures, is Jared Diamonds Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of
Human Societies (1997; 2003). To be completely balanced, however, John
Millank, a Christian theologian at Cambridge University, has insightfully
challenged the assumptions and results of a social theory critique of religion
as in fact a disguised form of theology that promotes a certain secular
consensus. Millbank boldly urges that the sociology of religion ought to come
to an end!6
Political scientists, public policy analysts, social workers, futurologists,
geographers, and demographers have all become accustomed to Christian
categories and sets of data that identify public attitudes, voting trends, legisla-
tive initiatives, and socioeconomic projections. Having commenced in the
United States and Canada, and at the London School of Economics, this
type of data gathering and interpretation influences decisions about the
environment, stem cell research, pandemic diseases, militarism, and political
ideologies in places as far-flung as Latin America, Ireland, Russia, equatorial
 Introduction 11
Africa, South Africa, and the nations of the Pacific Rim. Among the leading
interpreters of data with a quasi-Christian perspective are the Heritage
Foundation, the Brookings Institute, the Pew Research Center, and the Gallup
Organization and writers like David Barrett, an internationally recognized
religious demographer. Various Christian media outlets make use of the work
of Alvin Tofler (Future Shock), John Naisbitt (Megatrends), Peter Drucker
(Men, Ideas, and Politics), Stephen Hawking (A Brief History of Time), and
Richard John Neuhaus (First Things).
Theological inquiry has also changed profoundly. Christian Process
theologians following the lead of Alfred North Whitehead (18611947),
have offered intriguing alternatives to traditional classical Christian theism.
Theologians like Henry N. Wieman, Charles Hartshorne, John Cobb, and
Shubert Ogden have redefined God from being thought of as a cosmic moral-
ist or controlling power to creative-responsive love who acts creatively in
the world primarily by persuasion. By empirical observation, these thinkers
posit evil and calamity in the world, suggest that these realities are part of the
working out of Gods allowance of human freedom, and are not incompatible
with Gods beneficence toward all his creatures. The traditional theistic
position of the sovereignty of God becomes in process thought only a last
resort.7 Process thought has opened new bridges between Christians and
other world religions and by embracing evolutionary science, its advocates
have engaged a new kind of conversation with scientists who are interested in
existential concerns. A vast new array of thinkers is involved in dialog about
Christian religious issues and communities: for instance, Michael Benedikt at
the University of Texas has resuscitated the Argument from Design from an
architectural perspective, and classicists and archaeologists are unearthing
artifacts that demonstrate social and cultural transformation pointing toward
the Christianization of Classical Civilization.
Scientific inquiry has been both advanced and retarded by Christian cul-
ture. At the beginning of the fifth century, St. Augustine rejected the power of
astronomy to predict persons lives, favoring instead divine revelation in the
Scriptures. The papacy would easily follow Augustines lead in establishing an
authority for the Church over all learning. As we have seen, the Renaissance
opened up inquiry in the humanities that led to new theories of a scientific
kind. While the Church condemned anatomical and physiological experimen-
tation, Christian scientists forged ahead like Michael Servetus (15111553)
with a study and later a description of pulmonary circulation. He was burned
at the stake in Geneva for questioning the doctrine of the trinity. In the next
12 Studying Christianity

century, Galileo Gallilei (15641642) was condemned to house arrest for life
in 1633 for promoting a Copernican idea of the universe. That ban was only
lifted in 1978 by Pope John Paul II. Little wonder why a significant movement
among philosophers and scientists, beginning with Auguste Comte (17981857),
set aside the theological era in which persons depended upon the church and
overarching metaphysical principles in favor of a scientific age in which only
that which can be verified by observation and finite, cognitively meaningful
procedures is valid. As logical positivists who believed in the cumulative
results of science, they created a lively debate with Christian thinkers.
Withal, there remains a long-term preoccupation among Christians who
are scientists with the processes and timing/duration of planet earths origins.
On the one hand, there are persons of faith who want to accept the fruits of
scientific discovery, which inevitably suggests that the earth is very old and
has undergone several eras of cataclysmic change, thus accommodating the
age of the dinosaurs and the ice epochs. On the other hand, there are critical
believers who are persuaded that science is faulty in its methods and when
inquiry runs counter to a literal reading of Scripture, revelation trumps
science. In contemporary circles, there are mathematicians, physicists, and
philosophers who are Christians, like William Dembski and John Polking-
horne who teach intelligent design, whereby they assert that there is a high
probability that biological structures were assembled by a nonnatural agent,
which in turn leads to a theistic position. And, there is a substantial school
of biblical inerrantist Christians who subscribe to the Creationist interpre-
tation of the origins of the universe whereby the descriptions in Genesis 12
are taken literally. Generally, Creationists are disinclined toward the theory of
evolution because it reduces the role of a sovereign creator and independently
created species. Flowing from a traditional Christian theological understanding
of Creation, Christian philosophers and theologians interact with medical
scientists and biologists on questions relating to eugenics, genetic engineering,
definitions of the beginning and ending of life, and life beyond death.
Beyond the Christian interest in cosmology, there is a steady conversation
between Christianity and science in other areas. For instance, advocates
of artificial intelligence raise the issue of rights for robots, and conversely,
of whether humans are basically a type of machine. Routine questions
among Christians arise over the ethics of organ transplants, the understand-
ing of dreams, factors determining human behavior, and the possibility of
extraterrestrial life in the distant galaxies. Francis Collins, longtime head of
 Introduction 13
the Human Genome Project, is both a Creationist for Christian religious rea-
sons and an advocate of the evolutionary hypothesis for scientific purposes.
The student approaching Christianity will find a multifarious religious
tradition, one that is historic, adaptable, self-critical, and unified across time
and context in its essentials, yet very diverse in its applications. One must be
careful to recognize that the global Christian religious community is generally
delineated between Roman Catholics (1.1 billion), Protestants (550 million),
Pentecostals (480 million), Evangelicals (420 million), and Orthodox (225
million). Each of these categories brings a unique theological and cultural
orientation to the meaning of Christianity. What unites these divergent strands
of over two billion Christians is the central figure of Jesus Christ historically
and theologically, and various channels of ecumenical dialog and infrequent
areas of mission and cooperation.

For further reading and study

Clifford, Anne M. Introducing Feminist Theology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002.
Cobb, John B., and Griffin, David Ray. Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition. Louisville, KY:
Westminster John Know Press, 1976.
Cone, James H. God of the Oppressed. New York: Seabury Press, 1975.
Cupitt, Don. Reforming Christianity. Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge Press, 2001.
Dean, Thomas. Post-Theistic Thinking: The Marxist-Christian Dialogue in Radical Perspective.
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1975.
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.
Encyclopedia of Science and Religion, 2 vols. Edited by J. Wenzel Vrede van Huyssteen. New York:
Macmillan Reference, 2003.
Gay, Peter. The Enlightenment: An Interpretation: The Rise of Modern Paganism. London: Weidenfeld
and Nicolson, 1966.
Gutierrez, Gustavo. Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis
Books, 1988.
Niebuhr, Richard H. The Social Sources of Denominationalism. New York: Henry Holt and Company,
1929.
Millbank, John. Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990.
Rowland, Christopher, editor. The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Stark, Rodney. The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1996.
Troeltsch, Ernst. The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1911.