Overview

This book studies religion through the eyes of some of its most influential, exemplary, and sometimes controversial people. Historically organized and philosophically nuanced, each chapter locates a thinker in their material context to elucidate the impact of their ideas. Figures covered include Philo Judaeus, Adi Shankara, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Julian of Norwich, and W.E.B. Du Bois. Empathizing with their different viewpoints aims to build the capacities necessary to live tolerantly in religiously diverse democracies today. It draws students into perennial debates that evoke the habits of mind capable of engaging today’s multi-religious societies, and provides options for further reading at the end of each chapter. Thought provoking and wide-ranging, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of world religions, comparative religion, and the history and philosophy of religion.

Full Product Details

9781032347011

Table of Contents

Reviews

Stanley offers a different way of cultivating the empathy necessary for religious pluralism. Move across time and space to understand religion and religious di\erence through someone's else's eyes—and discover our own world anew. Rabbi Dr. Rachel S. Mikva, Herman Schaalman Professor in Jewish Studies Stanley models a deeply human approach to the study of (inter)religious encounter through vivid case studies drawn from diverse religious traditions. With meticulous care and rigorous empathy, he engages not only the ideas of these key historical thinkers but the lives and contexts from which they arose, with an eye to the religious diversity they embody and confront. By striving to see through the eyes of others, to the extent such a thing is possible, Stanley offers a compelling model for how we can study religion more deeply and critically in human-centered ways - especially for living well in religiously diverse secular democracies. Dr. Hans S. Gustafson, Director of the Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies, University of St. ThomasStanley offers us a unique and original book. Combining both a historical exegesis of texts and contexts with a focus on how we live in contemporary multicultural societies, his book attempts to help us see through other’s eyes while also understanding how past situations of diversity might be relevant to us. Accessible to upper undergraduates and graduate students, this challenging book can bring a new vision to the classroom for teaching religion to promote deliberative democracy. Professor Paul Hedges, Professor of Interreligious Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Stanley offers a different way of cultivating the empathy necessary for religious pluralism. Move across time and space to understand religion and religious di\erence through someone's else's eyes—and discover our own world anew. Rabbi Dr. Rachel S. Mikva, Herman Schaalman Professor in Jewish Studies

Author Information

Timothy Stanley is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences at the University of Newcastle, Australia. His recent books include Religion after Deliberative Democracy (Routledge 2022), Printing Religion after the Enlightenment (Bloomsbury Publishers 2022), and Writing Faith (Fortress 2017).

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