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An incisive and original collection of the most engaging issues in contemporary comparative theology
In The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Comparative Theology, a team of distinguished scholars delivers a one-of-a-kind collection of essays on comparative theology. Honoring the groundbreaking work of Francis X. Clooney, S.J.—whose contributions to theology and religion will endure for generations—the included works explore seven key subjects in comparative theology, including its theory, method, history, influential contemporary developments, and potentially fruitful avenues for future discussion.
The editors provide essays that reflect on the critical, theoretical, and methodological aspects of comparative theology, as well as constructive and critical appraisals of Francis Clooney’s scholarship. Over forty original contributions from internationally recognized scholars and insightful newcomers to the field are included within. Readers will also find:
Perfect for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of theology and religious studies, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Comparative Theology will also benefit scholars with an interest in comparative religion, interreligious studies, and interreligious theology.
Axel Marc Oaks Takacs is Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Molloy University and the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Interreligious Studies. He is a comparative theologian and renowned scholar of Islamic and interreligious studies.
Joseph Kimmel recently completed his PhD at Harvard (Study of Religion). He teaches part-time at Boston College and serves as an Episcopal priest.. In addition to a forthcoming article in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, he has been published in journals including Biblical Interpretation, the Journal of Interreligious Studies, the International Journal of Culture and Mental Health, and the Graduate Journal of Harvard Divinity School.
Part I: Theories and Methods in Comparative Theology
Chapter 1: Five Insights on Method from Comparative Theology
Jason Smith
Chapter 2: Imagining Religion, Intuiting Comparison: Comparing the Roles of Inner Sense in the Scholarship of Jonathan Z. Smith and Francis X. Clooney, SJ
Joseph Kimmel
Chapter 3: Resisting Relativism in Comparative Theology
Catherine Cornille
Chapter 4: Grounding Comparative Theology as Systematic Theology: Beyond Inclusivism and Pluralism
Ruben L.F. Habito
Chapter 5: Beyond the Text: Comparative Theology and Oral Cultures
Nougoutna Norbert Litoing, SJ
Chapter 6: Faith Seeking Understanding or Understanding Seeking Faith
Bennett DiDente Comerford
Chapter 7: Kinesics, Haptics, and Proxemics: A Śākta Method for Comparative Theology
Pravina Rodrigues
Part II: The Spirituality, Vocation, and Formation of the Comparative Theologian
Chapter 8: ‘The one who prays is a (comparative) theologian’: The Spirituality of Francis X. Clooney’s Comparative Method
Christopher Conway
Chapter 9: Settling the Seer: ‘Deep Learning’ and the Yoga of Slowness
Michelle Bentsman
Chapter 10: Comparative Theology Embodied: The Mentorship, Methodology, and Ministry of Francis X. Clooney
Katie Mahowski Mylroie
Chapter 11: Performance and Negotiation: Reconsidering Religious Experience in Contemporary Comparative Theology
Reid B. Locklin
Chapter 12: A Fowlerian Perspective on the Faith of the Comparativist
Erik Ranstrom
Chapter 13: Comparative Theology as Process Not Conclusion: Francis Clooney on the Proper Formation of the Comparative Theological Reader
John J. Thatamanil
Part III: Comparative Theology and the Society of Jesus
Chapter 14: Comparing Jesuits: Roberto De Nobili, Henri de Lubac, and Francis X. Clooney
James Fredericks
Chapter 15: Francis X. Clooney, SJ: Jesuit, Scholar, Missionary
Christian Krokus
Chapter 16: The Ignatian Tradition and the Intellectual Virtues of the Comparative Theologian
Peng Yin
Chapter 17: Wonder Grasps Anything: Punctuation and Patristic Theology in the Early Colonial Philippines
Maria Cecilia Holt
Part IV: Expanding on Francis X. Clooney’s Corpus
Chapter 18: The Interpretation of Scripture in the Comparative Theology of Francis X. Clooney
Leo D. Lefebure
Chapter 19: ‘Good dark love birds, will you help?’: Comparative Reflections on Clooney’s His Hiding Place is Darkness
Kimberley C. Patton
Chapter 20: ‘Paradoxology:’ The Srivaisnava Art of Praising Vishnu
Vasudha Narayanan
Chapter 21: Hymns on Mary in Hindu-Muslim-Christian Dialogue
Klaus von Stosch
Chapter 22: Mary and Motherhood—A Comparatively-Informed Reconsideration
Mara Brecht
Part V: Exercises in Comparative Theology
Chapter 23: Transformational Liberation in the Age of COVID-19: A Comparative Theology of “the Good Woman”
Tracy Sayuki Tiemeier
Chapter 24: And the Angels Wept: How Jewish and Hindu Narratives May Enrich Each Other
Arvind Sharma
Chapter 25: Modification, Emanation, and Pariṇāma-Vāda in Mediaeval Theistic Vedānta and Kabbalah
Ithamar Theodor
Chapter 26: Advancing the Ritual-Liturgical Turn in Comparative Theology: Good Friday as a Case Study
Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski
Chapter 27: Creative Fidelity in Expanding the Canon
Scott Steinkerchner, OP and Martin Badenhorst, OP
Chapter 28: Slow Reading of Beautiful Writing: Calligraphy as Vehicle for Comparative Theology
Lucinda Mosher
Chapter 29: Joy in the Earth: A Christian Cosmology Based on Agapic Nondualism
Jon Paul Sydnor
Chapter 30: Perceiving Divinity, Cultivating Wonder: A Christian-Islamic Comparative Theological Essay on Balthasar’s Gestalt
Axel M. Oaks Takacs
Chapter 31: Paradoxes of Desire in St. John of the Cross and Solomon ibn Gabirol: Thinking with Poetry in Comparative Theology
Luis Manuel Girón-Negrón
Part VI: Comparative Theology Beyond the Discipline
Chapter 32: "Locating the Self in the Study of Religion: Francis Clooney and the Experiment of Hindu-Christian Studies”
Jonathan Edelmann
Chapter 33: Learning Interreligiously as Public Theology: Limits and Possibilities for Institutional Leaders
Michelle Voss Roberts
Chapter 34: Comparative Theology and Public Theology: In Search of a Responsible Theology for a Post-Secular Era
Albertus Bagus Laksana
Chapter 35: God Meets Us There: Prison as True Home for the Christian Comparative Theologian
Mark J. Edwards
Part VII: The Past, Present, and Future of Comparative Theology
Chapter 36: Comparative Theologies Old and New: Exploring the Present of the Past
Marianne Moyaert
Chapter 37: Asking an Unusual Question of Kabir and Kazi Nazrul Islam
Rachel Fell McDermott
Chapter 38: Comparative Theology avant la lettre?: A Muslim 'Deep Reading' of the Ramayana in Early Modern South Asia
Shankar Nair
Chapter 39: Creativity and Resistance in Comparative Theology: Lessons from 18th-Century Korea
Won-Jae Hur
Chapter 40: In Praise of Artisans: Ramon Marti, Georges Anawati, and the Importance of Languages
Wilhelmus Valkenberg
Chapter 41: Lectio Divina & Comparative Reading in the History of Christian-Muslim Encounters
Rita George-Tvrtković
Chapter 42: Vicarious Voyage: What Difference Does Comparative Theology Make For Theology?
S. Mark Heim
Chapter 43: Is There or Shall We Need a “Home” for Comparative Theologies? A Ru (Confucian) Response to Francis X. Clooney
Bin Song
Chapter 44: Comparative Theology After Clooney
Hugh Nicholson
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