In modern multi-faith societies, religious diversity not only affects religious organisations and communities, but indeed every aspect of life. From celebrating cultural events, to considering how the police should interact with members of the public from different faith communities, this book highlights the ways in which all members of society can engage constructively with diversity. This ground-breaking book draws on the work at the St Philip's Centre in Leicester and presents a collection of case studies to show how people from a variety of religious backgrounds and ethical convictions have learnt to coexist peacefully. Without shying away from the conflicts and challenges that have occurred, the book focuses on the lessons learnt and offers real examples of how to promote positive interfaith relationships. This is an excellent resource for anyone wishing to understand the issues of religion and belief that may arise at local and national levels, and develop appropriate attitudes and actions for peaceful resolution.

'A major publishing event, not only in Buddhist studies but also for those working in the area of interfaith encounter and theology of religions.' Japanese Journal of Religious Studies In today's globalized world, religious diversity has become one of the strongest challenges to the self-understanding of any major religious tradition, provoking two interdependent questions. How does it see itself in the light of others? And, how does it see others in the light of its own teachings? While the Abrahamic religions are often accused of a predominantly intolerant and exclusivistic attitude to the religious 'other', Eastern religions-and Buddhism in particular-enjoy the reputation of being naturally tolerant, absorbing, and even pluralistic towards competing faiths. Some thinkers (from David Hume to Jan Assmann) understood religious intolerance as an inevitable property of monotheism, supposedly absent in the case of non-theistic or polytheistic religions. More recent research, however, has suggested that this impression, part of a whole cluster of Western cliches, is false. Buddhism is-and has been-as much convinced of its own superiority as any other faith, and has also been involved in various inter-religious tensions and violent conflicts. The ways, however, in which Buddhists have thought about the religious 'other', and practically dealt with it, display peculiar features, which do indeed differ profoundly from what we find in the Abrahamic faiths. Yet today, Buddhism must address the question whether it can arrive at a genuine appreciation of religious diversity, and recognize other religions as different but nevertheless equally valid. This new four-volume collection from Routledge's acclaimed Critical Concepts in Religious Studies series enables users to make sense of this and other dizzying questions. It brings together the best thinking on Buddhism's relationship with other faiths and provides a one-stop collection of classic and contemporary contributions to facilitate ready access to the most influential and important scholarship. Fully indexed and with a general and volume introductions, newly written by the editor, which carefully locate the collected materials in their historical and intellectual context, Buddhism and Religious Diversity is an essential work of reference. It is destined to be valued by specialists and scholars working in related areas as a vital research tool.

Muhammad Rashid Rida is among the most influential Muslim thinkers of the modern period and yet, until now, his writings on Christian-Muslim relations have remained unpublished in English. In this flagship English edition, Simon A. Wood rights this wrong by translating and analysing one of his most important works, The Criticisms of the Christians and the Proofs of Islam. Contending that Rida's work cannot be separated from the period of colonial humiliation from which it originated, he challenges the view that Rida was a fundamentalist and argues that his response to Christian criticisms was, in fact, distinctly modernist.

The religious history of Palestine has not yet been studied as that of an ordinary, Roman province. Until now, scholars have mainly highlighted the two, monotheistic religions, Judaism and Christianism. If Palestinian uniqueness comes actually from them, pagan Palestine little differed from the rest of the Roman - especially eastern - world and was in fact a real religious mix due to its history in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Nicole Belayche examines the pagan part, quantitatively the majority, of the Palestinian population between 135 and the fourth century. As a consequence of the two revolts of 66-70 and 132-135, pagan peoples had been settled all over the territory and pagan cults - avodah zarah to speak as a Mishnah - spread with them. Data of various natures and religious origins allow one to reconstruct the ritual aspects of the pagan cults. The collection of gods is varied and their origins recall local history, Semitic but above all Graeco-Hellenistic and then Roman. They prove the adherence of the province to the main religious trends of the imperial, Graeco-eastern ensemble. The pagan religious life is studied for itself and in the relationship of the pagans to the Jewish population, since monotheistic and polytheistic communities did not live in closed worlds. The general plan of the book follows them city by city in order to respect the juridical status of the communities and their cultural personality. Second to fourth century Judaea-Palestine offers a good short cut to the religious procedures at work in the already Hellenized Roman provinces, perhaps the best one due to local history. The mechanics of cohabitation in the system of Graeco-Roman cultural representation functioned here as elsewhere because the monotheistic communities, Jewish then Christian, from the third century on, did not risk intermixing. As in the rest of the Empire, Constantine's reign was not an effective turning point and pagan cults still flourished until the end of the fourth century at least.

On January 17-20, 2005 the third round of the Princeton-Kampen Consultation took place in Princeton. The theme was � The Reality of God and the Reality of Faith, with basic points of reference in the Church Dogmatics being II/1, 28-31 and IV/1, 63. Presenters were encouraged, however, to approach the topic dialogically and according to their own special research interests rather than simply offering expositions of sections of the Church Dogmatics, the appeal of which would be limited to specialists in Barth's theology. As the papers included in this volume attest, the result was a remarkable variety of studies of Barth in dialogue with other theologians and philosophers on the chosen theme.

Christian-Muslim Relations, a Bibliographical History 18 (CMR 18), covering the Ottoman Empire in the period 1800-1914, is a further volume in a general history of relations between the two faiths from the 7th century to the early 20th century. It comprises a series of introductory essays and the main body of detailed entries. These treat all the works, surviving or lost, that have been recorded. They provide biographical details of the authors, descriptions and assessments of the works themselves, and complete accounts of manuscripts, editions, translations and studies. The result of collaboration between numerous new and leading scholars, CMR 18, along with the other volumes in this series, is intended as a fundamental tool for research in Christian-Muslim relations. Section editors: Clinton Bennett, Luis F. Bernabe Pons, Jaco Beyers, Emanuele Colombo, Lejla Demiri, Martha Frederiks, David D. Grafton, Stanislaw Grodz, Alan Guenther, Vincenzo Lavenia, Arely Medina, Diego Melo Carrasco, Alain Messaoudi, Gordon Nickel, Claire Norton, Reza Pourjavady, Douglas Pratt, Radu Paun, Charles Ramsey, Peter Riddell, Umar Ryad, Cornelia Soldat, Karel Steenbrink, Charles Tieszen, Carsten Walbiner, Catherina Wenzel.

Set in British India soon after the Uprising of 1857, God's Word, Spoken and Otherwise explores the controversial and ingenious ideas of one of South Asia's most influential public thinkers, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817-1898). Bringing to light previously unpublished material from his exegetical commentaries on the Bible and Qur'an, this study explores the interplay of natural and prophetic revelation from an intertextual perspective. The book provides fresh insight into Sir Sayyid's life and work, and underscores both the originality of his ideas, and also their continuity within a dynamic Muslim intellectual tradition.

Frankfurt/M., Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien. Studies in the Intercultural History of Christianity. Vol. 125. Edited by Richard Friedli, Jan A. B. Jongeneel, Klaus Koschorke, Theo Sundermeier and Werner Ustorf When German missiologists started to re-import their dream of a dominant Christianity to central Europe, there were more similarities between the missionary and the national socialist utopias than the post-war consensus would like to admit. Fascism to many missiologists became the desired breaking point of modernity, a revival of the Volk's deep emotions and a breakthrough of the archaic spirituality they had long been waiting for. Upon this tide they wanted to sail and conquer new territories for Christ. This study, therefore, will address the issue of mission and Nazism primarily in the light of the struggle of Christianity for a place or a home within and vis-a-vis the culture of the West as it was approaching the end of modernity. Contents: Christian missionary thinking in its broad historical context - Explicitly missionary but non-Christian movements in Germany at the time (Hitler's missiology and Hauer's neopaganism) - Attempts in the US, in Britain and the wider ecumenical movement (William Hocking, Joe Oldham, the Oxford conference of 1937) at rethinking Christianity.

Many people are of the opinion that our world faces a crisis, a "clash of civilizations," from which we are unlikely to recover. However, Turkish born educator, scholar and advocate for peace Fethullah Gulen believes that through education, tolerance, and dialogue, peace can be achieved. Gulen has spoken of what he calls "peace islands" in an analogy describing his non-violent, cooperative ideas about conflict resolution. The perceived "clash of civilizations" may come in waves of violence and anger throughout the world, but once these waves reach these peace islands, they will retreat with the tide leaving the islands unscathed. Gulen ideals provide the blueprint for these islands.This collection as a whole attempts what each individual paper proposes: a dialogue rooted in tolerance that accounts for the unique histories and assumptions of each member involved. Proper interfaith dialogue requires first an encounter between two or more individuals, then a willingness (rooted in tolerance) of each individual to engage with the other. This definition of interfaith dialogue is central to Gulen's writings, and indeed to the focus of this collection of papers. Each author relates to Gulen's ideas in a unique way, offering a diversity of perspectives that gives true dialogue its vibrant energy.

Relations among minorities and majorities, whether religious, ethnic, cultural or other, have been a triggering factor of social dynamics all over the world for millennia. Indeed, their relevance has further grown in recent decades due to turbulent politics and rapidly changing social relations. The Middle East and Asia have traditionally been home to a vast array of religious and ethnic groups, yet a series of both armed and ideological conflicts have begun to re-shape their classic complex social composition.This volume offers valuable insights into the issue of minorities in various geographical and political settings, from the Uyghurs of China and the modern Christian movements of India to the Romas and Dervishes of early 20th century Iran, the Mandaeans of Mesopotamia, and the Muslims of Western Europe.