Comparative Religion
The academic study of religion as a cross-cultural human phenomenon. Methodologies range from phenomenological description (Eliade, Otto) through sociological functionalism (Durkheim, Weber) through anthropological ethnography (Geertz, Douglas) to deconstructive critique (Asad, Smith). The field began with Enlightenment skeptics + colonial-era surveys + 19th-century philology, professionalized in the 20th century, and now wrestles with whether “religion” itself is a coherent universal category or a Protestant-Christian-derived export.
Founders + early modern roots
David Hume — Natural History of Religion 1757
Argued religion arose not from rational inference about cosmic design but from psychological projection — primitive humans personified unknown forces from fear + hope. Polytheism preceded monotheism (reversing the Christian assumption of “original monotheism”). Hume distinguished philosophical theism (intellectual) from popular religion (emotional). Companion: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion posthumous 1779. Established that religion can be studied as a natural phenomenon without theological commitment.
Max Müller — Sacred Books of the East 1879-1910
50-volume Oxford translation series of Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Zoroastrian, Confucian, Daoist, Islamic texts. Müller (1823-1900) coined “Science of Religion” (Religionswissenschaft) and promoted comparative philology — “He who knows one knows none.” Solar mythology theory (later discredited): myths originated as decayed metaphors about natural phenomena. Müller’s project made primary sources accessible to Western scholars for first time, enabling comparative work.
E. B. Tylor — Primitive Culture 1871
Founded cultural anthropology of religion. Defined religion minimally as “belief in spiritual beings” — animism — and proposed unilineal evolution: animism → polytheism → monotheism → science. Religion as primitive proto-science explaining natural phenomena. Survivals theory: modern superstitions are vestigial earlier stages. Heavily critiqued for ethnocentric evolutionism but influential as first systematic anthropology of religion.
James Frazer — The Golden Bough 1890 (2 vols), expanded 1900 (3 vols), 1906-15 (12 vols)
Massive comparative survey of ritual, magic, sacrifice, kingship, fertility cults across cultures. Proposed three stages: magic (manipulation of nature) → religion (propitiation of gods) → science (laws of nature). Centered on the dying-and-rising-god motif (Osiris, Attis, Adonis, Dionysus, Christ — controversial inclusion). Famous opening scene: the priest-king of Diana’s grove at Nemi (Rex Nemorensis) who must kill his predecessor + be killed by his successor. Frazer’s “armchair anthropology” without fieldwork became methodologically discredited but the work influenced Eliot’s The Waste Land, Joseph Campbell, mythologists.
Durkheim — The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life 1912
Émile Durkheim (1858-1917) studied Australian Aboriginal totemism (via Spencer + Gillen ethnography of Arrernte/Arunta) as religion’s elementary form. Core thesis: religion is society worshipping itself. Definition: “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, i.e., things set apart and forbidden — beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church all those who adhere to them.”
Sacred vs profane — the foundational binary. Sacred objects are set apart, untouchable, surrounded by prohibitions; profane is mundane. Totem (animal/plant emblem) is sacred because it represents the clan; god is symbolic representation of society’s collective force.
Collective effervescence — heightened emotion during ritual gatherings produces sense of transcendent power, which participants attribute to gods. Religious ecstasy is sociological — the felt presence of society itself.
Functions — solidarity (binds community), regulation (norms), revitalization (renews commitment), euphoria (collective joy). Religion is socially indispensable; modern societies need functional equivalents (civil religion).
Weber — sociology of world religions
Max Weber (1864-1920) wrote The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 1905 arguing Calvinist predestination + worldly asceticism produced the disciplined, accumulative work ethic enabling capitalism. The “elective affinity” between Calvinist soteriology (proof of election via worldly success) and rational capitalism explained why capitalism emerged in NW Europe, not China or India.
Sociology of religion series:
- The Religion of China 1915 — Confucianism + Daoism: this-worldly adjustment to social order, no salvation tension, blocked capitalist breakthrough
- The Religion of India 1916-17 — Hinduism + Buddhism + Jainism: caste + karma + otherworldly salvation
- Ancient Judaism 1917-19 — prophetic ethics + rationalization origins
Typology of authority: traditional + rational-legal + charismatic. Charismatic religious leaders (prophets) routinize into traditional institutions. Theodicy — the problem of suffering in different traditions (karma + predestination + dualism). Disenchantment (Entzauberung) — modernity’s rationalization drains the world of magic and meaning.
William James — The Varieties of Religious Experience 1902
Gifford Lectures Edinburgh. Psychology of religion focused on individual religious experience, not institutions. Distinguished healthy-minded religion (Emersonian optimism, mind-cure) from sick soul (Tolstoyan crisis + conversion). Studied mysticism (4 marks — ineffability + noetic quality + transiency + passivity), conversion experiences (gradual + crisis types), saintliness. Pragmatist criterion: religion is true insofar as it works in lives — fruits, not roots. Influential on later mysticism studies, AA’s 12 steps, transpersonal psychology.
Otto — The Idea of the Holy (Das Heilige) 1917
Rudolf Otto (1869-1937) phenomenology of the sacred. Coined numinous (numen → numinous) for the non-rational core of religious experience, beyond moral + rational categories. Characterized by:
- Mysterium tremendum — overwhelming awe, dread before the wholly other
- Mysterium fascinans — attractive, captivating, ecstatic dimension
- Mysterium tremendum et fascinans — combined ambivalent response (Moses at burning bush, Arjuna before Krishna’s universal form)
- Augustum — majesty, ultimate value
- Wholly Other (ganz Andere) — radical alterity
Otto sought religion’s irreducible essence beyond conceptual theology. Foundational for the phenomenological school + Eliade.
Eliade — The Sacred and the Profane 1957, Patterns in Comparative Religion 1958
Mircea Eliade (1907-1986, Romanian historian of religions, Chicago) developed phenomenological history of religions. Key concepts:
- Hierophany — the manifestation of the sacred in the profane (a stone, tree, person becomes sacred). Religion begins where the sacred shows itself.
- Axis mundi — the world-pillar/tree/mountain connecting heaven, earth, underworld (Yggdrasil + Mt Meru + Jacob’s ladder + temple as cosmic center)
- Sacred space + sacred time — qualitatively distinct from profane; rituals reactualize cosmogonic time (in illo tempore)
- Eternal return — archaic ontology where ritual repeats primordial archetypal acts; modernity’s linear “terror of history”
- Homo religiosus — humans as fundamentally religious, secularization as crisis
Patterns surveys sky gods + earth + water + sun + moon + stones + vegetation + agriculture + sacred places + sacred time. Eliade’s universalism + ahistoricism critiqued by later scholars (Smith, Asad) for flattening differences and importing Christian assumptions.
Mary Douglas — Purity and Danger 1966
British anthropologist analyzed pollution + ritual cleanliness. Famous reading of Leviticus dietary laws: animals deemed unclean (camel, pig, shellfish) are taxonomic anomalies that don’t fit their categorical type (cloven-hoofed but doesn’t chew cud, etc.). Dirt = matter out of place. Purity laws map cosmology onto body + food + space. Pollution beliefs reinforce social classification + structural boundaries. Companion: Natural Symbols 1970 (grid-group cultural theory).
Geertz — Religion as a Cultural System 1966
Clifford Geertz (1926-2006) defined religion: “(1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.” Religion provides ethos (mood/motivation) + worldview (cognitive frame) in mutual reinforcement. Thick description method applied to Balinese cockfight, Moroccan saint, Javanese funeral. Cultural interpretation, not function, is primary.
Talal Asad — Genealogies of Religion 1993
Critique: there is no universal essence of “religion” — the category itself is a Western, Protestant-derived construction, generalized via colonialism + the modern secular state. Asad traces how “religion” became defined as private belief separable from politics (post-Westphalia + Enlightenment), then imposed on non-Western traditions that don’t fit that mold. Companion: Formations of the Secular 2003 — secularism is not the absence of religion but a particular political settlement. Genealogical approach (Foucault-influenced) destabilizes comparative religion’s foundations.
Jonathan Z. Smith — Map Is Not Territory 1978, Imagining Religion 1982
Chicago historian of religions. “Religion is solely the creation of the scholar’s study… Religion has no existence apart from the academy.” Smith insists comparison is always partial, theoretical, second-order — religions don’t simply present themselves for comparison. Critiques Eliade’s universals as scholarly inventions. Famous Jonestown essay (1982) treating it as religion not pathology. Drudgery Divine 1990 attacks Frazer-style parallels between Christianity + dying-rising-gods.
Robert Bellah — Religion in Human Evolution 2011
Magnum opus tracing religion from Paleolithic ritual through tribal + archaic + Axial Age (800-200 BCE — Karl Jaspers term — Israelite prophets + Greek philosophers + Confucius + Buddha + Upanishads emerging in parallel) traditions. Bellah uses play (Huizinga + Merlin Donald cognitive evolution) as evolutionary substrate for religion. Earlier 1967 essay “Civil Religion in America” coined the term for the quasi-religious public symbols of American national identity (founding fathers, Lincoln, sacred documents).
Categories + typologies
World religions — adherent estimates (2024-25 ranges)
- Christianity ~2.4 billion (~31% world) — Catholic 1.4B + Protestant 0.9B + Orthodox 0.28B + Oriental Orthodox 60M + Independent
- Islam ~2.0 billion (~25%) — Sunni 85-90% + Shia 10-13% + Ibadi <1%
- Hinduism ~1.2 billion (~15%) — concentrated India + Nepal + diaspora
- Buddhism ~520 million (~6.6%) — Mahayana ~360M + Theravada ~150M + Vajrayana ~20M
- Sikhism ~30 million
- Judaism ~15 million — Israel 7M + US 6M + diaspora
- Bahá’í ~8 million
- Jainism ~5 million
- Shinto — Japan ~80M cultural adherents, exclusive identifiers <5M
- Confucianism — cultural identification widespread East Asia, religious adherent <10M
- Taoism — China ~12M religious + cultural many more
- Indigenous + folk religions ~400 million
- Irreligious (atheist + agnostic + none) ~1.2 billion (~16%) — China + Western Europe + North America rising
Belief typology
- Monotheism — one personal God: Judaism + Christianity + Islam + Sikhism + Bahá’í + Zoroastrianism (qualified — Ahura Mazda + Angra Mainyu cosmic dualism)
- Polytheism — multiple gods: Hinduism (qualified, many also see Brahman as one underlying), classical Greco-Roman + Norse + Egyptian, Shinto, indigenous polytheisms
- Pantheism — God is the universe / nature (Spinoza + some Hindu Advaita + Stoicism)
- Panentheism — God includes universe but transcends it (Whitehead process theology + Krause coined term 1828 + Eastern Orthodox + some Hindu)
- Henotheism — worship one god while acknowledging others (Vedic favored deity for ritual; Müller coined term)
- Animism — souls/spirits in natural objects (indigenous + Shinto kami + Tylor’s primitive religion)
- Deism — creator God who does not intervene (Enlightenment — Voltaire + Jefferson + Paine)
- Atheism — no gods (Buddhism arguably non-theistic; secular atheism + new atheism Dawkins/Hitchens/Harris/Dennett 2004-08)
- Agnosticism — knowability of God uncertain (Huxley coined 1869)
Other typological axes
- Theism vs non-theism — Buddhism, Jainism, certain Confucianism are non-theistic / atheistic in the Western sense
- Revealed vs natural religion — revelation through prophets/scriptures vs reason from nature (deism + philosophical theism)
- Religion vs spirituality vs philosophy — institutional vs personal vs intellectual (contested boundaries)
- Orthodoxy vs orthopraxy — emphasis on correct belief (Protestant Christianity) vs correct practice (Judaism + Islam + Hinduism)
- Mysticism cross-traditions — Meister Eckhart (Christian Rhineland 1260-1328), Sufism (Islamic — Rumi + Ibn Arabi + Hallaj), Bhakti (Hindu devotional — Mirabai + Kabir), Zen (Buddhist — Dogen + Hakuin), Kabbalah (Jewish — Zohar + Luria), Hesychasm (Orthodox — Palamas + Philokalia)
- Apophatic vs cataphatic theology — negative (God beyond all predicates — Pseudo-Dionysius + neti neti + Ein Sof) vs positive (God describable with attributes)
Cross-tradition themes
Creation myths
- Genesis 1-2 (Hebrew Bible) — 7-day creation ex nihilo (P source) + Garden of Eden (J source)
- Enuma Elish (Babylonian ~12th c BCE) — Marduk defeats Tiamat, forms cosmos from her body
- Rig Veda 10.129 Nasadiya Sukta “Hymn of Creation” — agnostic — “Who knows really? Who can declare?”
- Purusha Sukta Rig Veda 10.90 — cosmos from sacrificed primordial Person, varna emerges
- Pangu Chinese — giant separates yin + yang, body becomes world
- Popol Vuh K’iche’ Maya 16th c manuscript — multiple creation attempts; humans from maize
- Egyptian — Atum self-creates at Heliopolis; Ptah by thought
- Norse — Ymir from Ginnungagap; Odin + brothers form world from his body
- Greek — Hesiod Theogony ~700 BCE — Chaos → Gaia → Tartarus → Eros
Flood myths
- Noah (Genesis 6-9, ~600 BCE redaction; ark dimensions 300x50x30 cubits)
- Epic of Gilgamesh tablet XI (Utnapishtim, Babylonian, ~2100 BCE Sumerian origins)
- Deucalion + Pyrrha (Greek)
- Manu (Hindu — Matsya/fish avatar warns + tows ark)
- Quetzalcoatl (Aztec — current fifth sun preceded by 4 destroyed worlds)
- Yu the Great (Chinese — controlled great flood, founded Xia dynasty mythically)
- 200+ flood narratives globally documented
Afterlife
- Heaven/hell — Christian + Islamic + Zoroastrian (Chinvat Bridge); paradise vs torment
- Reincarnation — Hindu + Buddhist + Jain + Sikh — karma-driven cycle (samsara) until liberation
- Judgment — Egyptian weighing of heart against Ma’at feather; Christian Last Judgment; Islamic Yawm al-Din
- Sheol — Hebrew Bible shadowy underworld, neutral
- Hades + Tartarus + Elysium — Greek graded afterlife
- Bardo — Tibetan intermediate state (49 days, Bardo Thodol)
- Pure Lands — Mahayana Amitabha’s Sukhavati attainable via faith + nianfo recitation
- Ancestor realms — Chinese + African + indigenous — dead remain present via ritual
Messianism + eschatology
- Jewish messiah — anointed Davidic king, restores kingdom, gathers exiles, builds 3rd Temple (Maimonides Principle 12; no firm date)
- Christian — Jesus the Christ already came + will return (Parousia, Second Coming); Revelation imagery; Millennium debates (premillennial + postmillennial + amillennial)
- Islamic — Mahdi (rightly-guided one) + return of Isa (Jesus); Day of Resurrection (Yawm al-Qiyamah); signs
- Buddhist Maitreya — future Buddha who will appear when Gautama’s dharma fades (~5000 years post-parinirvana)
- Zoroastrian Saoshyant — final savior renovates world, defeats Angra Mainyu, raises dead (Frashokereti)
- Hindu Kalki — 10th Vishnu avatar ending Kali Yuga, beginning new cycle
Sacrifice + ritual purity + dietary laws
- Kashrut (Jewish) — kosher: meat slaughtered shechita + drained of blood; no pork/shellfish; meat + dairy separation; pareve
- Halal + haram (Islamic) — zabihah slaughter + no pork + no alcohol + Ramadan fasting
- Hindu vegetarianism — varies (sattvic diet; many castes + sects vegetarian; beef strictly avoided)
- Buddhist non-violence — varies (Theravada often permits meat if not killed for monk; Mahayana East Asian vegetarian for monastics)
- Jain ahimsa — strict — root vegetables avoided to spare microbes + plants
- Lent + Fridays (Christian) — fasting + abstinence varying by tradition
Pilgrimage
- Hajj Mecca — 5th pillar; ~2-3M annually post-COVID; Kaaba + tawaf + Arafat + stoning of Jamarat
- Camino de Santiago — Santiago de Compostela Galicia; medieval revival 1980s; 400k+ annual
- Varanasi/Kashi — Hindu most sacred city on Ganges; cremation ghats Manikarnika + Harishchandra
- Lhasa — Tibetan Buddhist Potala + Jokhang; restricted access post-1959
- Jerusalem — Western Wall (Judaism) + Church of Holy Sepulchre (Christian) + Al-Aqsa/Dome of the Rock (Islam)
- Lourdes — Marian apparition 1858 Bernadette Soubirous; 6M annual; healing waters
- Fátima + Guadalupe + Knock — major Marian sites
- Char Dham — 4 sacred Hindu sites (Badrinath + Dwarka + Jagannath Puri + Rameshwaram)
- Kumbh Mela — every 12 years rotating 4 sites (Prayagraj + Haridwar + Ujjain + Nashik); Prayagraj 2025 ~660M attendance over 6 weeks largest gathering in history
- Shikoku 88-temple Japan Buddhist circuit; Kailash Tibet for Hindu + Buddhist + Bon + Jain; Mt Tai China
Monasticism
- Buddhist sangha — full ordination Vinaya 227 precepts (bhikkhu Theravada) / 250 (Mahayana) / 348 (bhikkhuni); monasteries (vihara + wat + gompa)
- Christian monastic — Anthony of Egypt ~270 (desert father); Pachomius coenobitic ~320; Benedict of Nursia Rule ~540; Cistercian + Carthusian + Franciscan + Dominican; Orthodox Mt Athos
- Hindu sannyasa — final ashrama of life; renunciate sadhu; Naga akharas; Adi Shankara dashanami orders
- Jain shramana — Digambara naked monks + Shvetambara white-robed; ascetic extreme
- Daoist + Confucian academies — celibate Quanzhen Daoist orders; Confucian shuyuan
Meditation + prayer + chanting
- Buddhist vipassana + samatha + zazen + visualization + metta
- Christian prayer + Lectio Divina + Jesus Prayer + Rosary + Liturgy of Hours
- Islamic salah (5x daily) + dhikr + dua + Quran recitation
- Jewish shema + amidah + tefillah + Psalms + niggun melodies
- Hindu japa mantra + dhyana + bhakti kirtan
- Sufi sama + zikr + whirling (Mevlevi)
- Sikh simran + naam japna + kirtan
Mystical states cross-tradition
- samadhi (Hindu/Buddhist) — absorption
- henosis (Greek Neoplatonist Plotinus) — union with the One
- fana (Sufi) — annihilation in God; baqa subsistence
- bittul ha-yesh (Hasidic) — annihilation of selfhood
- theosis (Orthodox) — divinization
- kensho + satori (Zen) — seeing into nature
- ecstasy + rapture (Christian mystics — Teresa of Ávila + John of the Cross)
Sacred geography
Mountains (Sinai + Olympus + Meru + Kailash + Fuji + Tai), rivers (Ganges + Jordan + Nile + Yangtze), trees (Bodhi tree + Yggdrasil + Tree of Life), wells + springs (Zamzam + Lourdes), thresholds (cathedral doors + torii gates + mihrab + sanctum sanctorum).
Religious art + architecture
Major sites
- Hagia Sophia Constantinople/Istanbul 537 Justinian → mosque 1453 → museum 1934 → mosque again 2020
- St Peter’s Basilica Vatican 1506-1626 — Bramante + Michelangelo + Bernini
- Notre Dame de Paris 1163-1345 — French Gothic; fire 2019 + reopening 2024
- Sagrada Familia Barcelona — Gaudí 1882-ongoing — projected completion 2026
- Brihadeeswarar Temple Thanjavur 1010 — Chola dynasty; Dravidian; UNESCO
- Khajuraho 950-1050 — Chandela dynasty; erotic sculptures; ~25 surviving
- Angkor Wat Cambodia 12th c — Suryavarman II; Vishnu temple → Buddhist; largest religious monument worldwide
- Borobudur Java ~825 — Sailendra Mahayana Buddhist; 9 stacked platforms + 504 Buddha statues
- Bagan Myanmar 11th-13th c — Pagan kingdom; ~3500 surviving stupas + temples
- Forbidden City Beijing 1420 — Yongle Emperor; imperial + cosmological alignment + Tiantan Temple of Heaven
- Taj Mahal Agra 1632-53 — Shah Jahan for Mumtaz Mahal; Mughal Islamic + Persian; Indo-Islamic synthesis
- Dome of the Rock Jerusalem 691 Caliph Abd al-Malik — earliest extant Islamic monument
- Masjid al-Haram Mecca — Kaaba center; expanded across centuries; ~4M capacity Hajj
- Mezquita-Cathedral of Córdoba 785 — Abd al-Rahman I; cathedral inserted post-Reconquista 1236
Iconography + iconoclasm
Religious imagery and its contestation:
- Byzantine Iconoclasm 726-787 + 814-842 — Leo III destroyed icons; Empress Theodora restored 843
- Islamic aniconism — no figural images of God/prophets/persons in religious context; calligraphy + geometric arabesque flourish
- Jewish 2nd commandment prohibition of images; varies in practice (synagogue art + mosaic floors in late antiquity)
- Protestant Reformation iconoclasm — Karlstadt + Zwingli + English Reformation stripped altars + smashed statues
- Hindu murti (icon) consecrated via prana pratishtha — deity present in image
- Buddhist images of Buddha emerge ~1st c CE Gandhara + Mathura (originally aniconic — empty throne, footprint, wheel)
- Christian Orthodox theology of icons — defended by John of Damascus + Theodore the Studite; Council of Nicaea II 787
Sacred music
- Gregorian chant Latin monophonic plainsong ~9th c standardization
- J.S. Bach Lutheran cantatas + Passions + B-Minor Mass; sacred music Protestant peak
- Indian raga — devotional ragas + bhajan + kirtan
- Qawwali — Sufi devotional South Asia (Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan + Sabri Brothers)
- Tibetan throat singing — Gyume + Gyutö monasteries — overtone chanting
- Native American drum + flute + song — round dance + sun dance ceremonies
- Gospel — African American Christian; Thomas Dorsey + Mahalia Jackson; spirituals roots
- Cantorial Jewish hazzanut; adhan Islamic call to prayer (Bilal ibn Rabah first muezzin)
- Ethiopian Orthodox zema — yared 6th c chant tradition
Religion + politics
Civil religion (Bellah 1967)
Quasi-religious dimension of US public life — God-language in founding documents + presidential rhetoric + sacred sites (Mt Vernon + Gettysburg + Arlington) + civic rituals (inauguration + Thanksgiving + Memorial Day). Operates alongside denominational religion; demands transcendent reference for the nation.
Secularization thesis vs revival
Classical secularization thesis (Berger + Wilson + Wallace 1960s-70s): modernization → privatization + decline of religion. Berger later recanted 1999 — “the world is as furiously religious as ever.” Charles Taylor A Secular Age 2007 — secular not as absence but as condition where unbelief is possible/default (the “immanent frame”); 3 senses of secular. José Casanova Public Religions in the Modern World 1994 — religion’s “deprivatization” — re-entering public sphere (Polish Catholicism + Iranian Revolution + American Evangelicals + Liberation Theology).
Religious freedom
- US First Amendment 1791 — Establishment Clause + Free Exercise Clause
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 Article 18 — freedom of thought, conscience, religion
- ICCPR Article 18 — 1966
- European Convention on Human Rights Article 9 — 1950
- Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) 1993 federal US — strict scrutiny for laws burdening religious practice; response to Employment Division v Smith 1990 (Native American Church peyote case)
- State RFRAs ~22 states
- Burwell v Hobby Lobby 2014 — closely-held corporations have RFRA standing
- 303 Creative 2023 — free speech extends to religious-belief-based business discrimination
- USCIRF + State Department International Religious Freedom Report annual
State-religion arrangements
- Establishment — official state church (UK Anglican + Denmark Lutheran + Greece Orthodox + Vatican Catholic + Saudi Arabia + Iran theocratic)
- Secular — separation (US + France laïcité 1905 + Turkey Kemalist + India “principled distance” + Mexico)
- Theocracy — religious law as state law (Vatican + Iran + Afghanistan Taliban + Saudi Arabia)
- Cooperative/pluralist — Germany + Netherlands + Italy (Lateran Pacts 1929) — state recognition + funding multiple religions
Pluralism + interfaith dialogue
- Parliament of the World’s Religions Chicago 1893 — Swami Vivekananda’s address introduced Hinduism to West; revived 1993 + continuing
- Vatican II Nostra Aetate 1965 — Catholic declaration on relations with non-Christian religions; rejected collective Jewish guilt for crucifixion; affirmed truth in Hinduism + Buddhism + Islam
- World Council of Churches founded 1948 Amsterdam — Protestant + Orthodox ecumenical
- A Common Word Between Us and You 2007 — open letter from 138 Muslim scholars to Christian leaders
- Pluralism Project Diana Eck Harvard 1991+
- Dialogue between Buddhists + Christians — Thomas Merton + Dalai Lama; Aitken-Merton; Snowmass conferences
Fundamentalism + extremism
- The Fundamentalism Project Martin Marty + R. Scott Appleby 5 vols 1991-95 University of Chicago — comparative study Christian + Jewish + Islamic + Hindu + Buddhist fundamentalisms; family resemblance — selective use of tradition + Manichean dualism + millennialism + boundaries
Religion + violence
- René Girard Violence and the Sacred 1972 — mimetic desire → rivalry → mimetic crisis → scapegoat mechanism → sacrificial religion; Christianity uniquely exposes the scapegoat as innocent
- Mark Juergensmeyer Terror in the Mind of God 2000 — religious terrorism’s symbolic logic — cosmic war frames + martyrdom + sacred targets
- Karen Armstrong Fields of Blood 2014 — religion not uniquely violent; violence has structural-political origins
- William Cavanaugh The Myth of Religious Violence 2009 — “religion” as category created precisely to enable secular state’s claim to monopoly on legitimate violence