Rel. Com.

Comparing Religions
Numen Book Series

Studies in the History of Religions
Edited by
Steven Engler
Kim Knott
P. Pratap Kumar
Kocku von Stuckrad
Advisory Board
b. bocking — m. burger — m. despland — f. diez de
velasco — I. S. gilhus — g. ter haar — r. i. j. hackett
t. jensen — m. joy — a. h. khan — g. l. lease
e. thomassen — a. tsukimoto — a. t. wasim
VOLUME 113
Comparing Religions
Possibilities and Perils?
Edited by
Thomas Athanasius Idinopulos, Brian C. Wilson,

and James Constantine Hanges
BRILL
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2006
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Comparing religions : possibilities and perils? / edited by Thomas Athanasius

Idinopulos, Brian C. Wilson, and James Constantine Hanges.
p. cm. — (Numen book series. Studies in the history of religions, ISSN 0169-
8834 ; v. 113)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes.
ISBN-13: 978-90-04-15267-0
ISBN-10: 90-04-15267-9 (alk. paper)
1. Religion—Methodology. 2. Religion—Study and teaching. 3. Religions. I.
Idinopulos, Thomas A. II. Wilson, Brian C. III. Hanges, James Constantine, 1954-
BL41.C583 2006
200.7—dc22
2006048992
ISSN 0169-8834
ISBN (10) 90 04 15267-9
ISBN (13) 978 90 04 (15267-0)
© Copyright 2006 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic
Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
prior written permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal

use is granted by Brill provided that
the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright
Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910,
Danvers, MA 01923, USA.
Fees are subject to change.
printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS
List of Contributors ...................................................................... vii

Preface ............................................................................................ ix
Part One: Theoretical Aspects of Comparison
Chapter One Comparison as a Theoretical Exercise .......... 3

Anthony J. Blasi
Chapter Two Questions of Judgment in Comparative
Religious Studies .................................................................... 17
George Weckman
Chapter Three The Role of the Authoritative in the
Comparative Process .............................................................. 27
David Cave
Chapter Four The Mothering Principle in the Comparison
of Religions ............................................................................ 51
Thomas Athanasius Idinopulos
Chapter Five Theaters of Worldmaking Behaviors:
Panhuman Contexts for Comparative Religion .................. 59
William E. Paden
Part Two: Theory into Method: Comparison of Religions in the

Study and the Classroom
Chapter Six Comparing Religious Ideas: There’s Method

in the Mob’s Madness .......................................................... 77
Wesley J. Wildman
Chapter Seven Comparative Religion for Undergraduates:
What Next? ............................................................................ 115
John Stratton Hawley
vi contents
Chapter Eight Socrates and Jesus: Comparing

Founder-figures in the Classroom ........................................ 143
James Constantine Hanges
Chapter Nine Christianity’s Emergence from Judaism: The
Plus and Minus of Joseph Klausner’s Comparative
Analysis .................................................................................... 175
Chapter Ten Interpreting Glossolalia and the
Comparison of Comparisons ................................................ 181
Part Three: Postcolonialism, Postmodernism, Modernism in the

Comparison of Religion
Chapter Eleven Towards a Post-Colonial Comparative

Religion? Comparing Hinduism and Islam as
Orientalist Constructions ........................................................ 221
Arvind Sharma
Chapter Twelve Circling the Wagons: The Problem
with the Insider/Outsider in the Comparative Study of
Religions .................................................................................. 235
Russell T. McCutcheon
Chapter Thirteen The Postmodernist Challenge to the
Comparative Method ............................................................ 249
Robert A. Segal
Chapter Fourteen The Only Kind of Comparison Worth
Doing: History, Epistemology, and the “Strong
Program” of Comparative Study .......................................... 271
Ivan Strenski
Bibliography ................................................................................ 293

Index of Names .......................................................................... 313
Index of Subjects .......................................................................... 317
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Anthony J. Blasi Department of Sociology, Tennessee State

University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
David Cave UC Foundation, University of Cincinnati,
Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
James Constantine Department of Comparative Religion,
Hanges Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, USA
John Stratton Hawley Department of Religion, Barnard College,
New York, New York, USA
Thomas Athanasius Department of Comparative Religion,
Idinopulos Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, USA
Russell T. McCutcheon Department of Religious Studies, Univer-
sity of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama,
USA
William E. Paden Department of Religion, University of
Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, USA
Robert A. Segal Department of Religious Studies,
Lancaster University, Lancaster, United
Kingdom
Arvind Sharma Department of Comparative Religion, McGill
University, Montreal, Canada
Ivan Strenski Department of Religious Studies, Univer-
sity of California, Riverside, California,
USA
George Weckman Department of Classics and Comparative
Religion, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio,
USA
Wesley J. Wildman Department of Philosophy, Theology, and
Ethics, Boston University, Boston, Mas-
sachusetts, USA
PREFACE
The distinguished historian of religions, Max Müller, famously said

that “to know one religion is to know none.” If Müller had been
less assertively “German” (his birth language), and more understat-
edly “English” (his adopted language) he might have said: “To know
one religion is to want to know more about other religions.”
We professors of religious studies in the university confront daily
the challenge of students who want to know not only one religion
but many religions. We can only guess about student motivation.
Yet certain facts stand out. Students today are far more culturally
sophisticated than ever before. They are more attuned to different
cultures; more open to ethnic, religious, racial, and linguistic differences;
more cognizant of the diversity of scriptures and worship practices;
more accepting of “other gods.” Because of this, students are less
willing to settle for the truth and meaning of any one religion. They
want to learn about the truth and meaning of many religions.
This was brought home to us in one of our classes when a stu-
dent taking a course on the social and religious history of the Jewish
people expressed satisfaction in reading the Hebrew Bible for the
first time. When asked why she had waited so long to read these
scriptures, she replied, “I was turned off by the Bible because my
grandmother was a fundamentalist Christian. But my mother now
is a practicing Buddhist—which made me interested in what the
different religions are saying. I want to compare them.”
“I want to compare them.” This seemingly harmless remark should
awaken in us a renewed enthusiasm. Like it or not, for better or
worse, the university teaching of religion has perforce become the
teaching of comparative religion. But the question is begged if we
do not make clear how the act of comparison should proceed. How
to compare religions? What methods? To what end? With what
profit? What are the risks, perils, liabilities in comparing religions?
This volume of essays, authored by university professors of religion
with years of classroom experience, addresses itself to the central
question of comparing religions.
Part One of this volume, Theoretical Aspects of Comparison,
contains five essays dealing with some of the abstract philosophical
x preface
questions that frame comparative work. Anthony Blasi in “Comparison

as a Theoretical Exercise” makes the bold assertion that “compari-
son pertains to the scientific discourse, not to the religions being com-
pared . . . [hence] comparison is [actually] not inductive in nature.”
Blasi pursues his point by rigorously distinguishing between “inclu-
sive and exclusive” concepts of comparison. Pressing the distinction
makes us realize (in his view) that the religious data selected for
comparison and the very concepts of comparison themselves are
contingent and strategic, and can never be universally approved. In
a similar vein, George Weckman, in “Questions of Judgment in
Comparative Religious Studies,” proposes a “practical approach” to
comparison. While noting the criticism that comparison of religion
only favors the religious predisposition of the scholar doing the com-
parison, Weckman thinks that comparison is inevitable and poten-
tially beneficial. The question is how to make sound, non-biased
judgments that, in the words of the late great scholar Joachim Wach,
attain “relative objectivity.” Weckman argues for a keen self-awareness
of our own predilections and how they inform our comparative cat-
egories; only through such awareness can we develop insights into
our own religious preferences (or lack of them). “Relative objectivity”
is thus achieved through a dialectical process in which our investi-
gation of others simultaneously becomes a rigorous investigation of
ourselves.
David Cave analyzes the central role authority can play in a the-
ory of comparative religions in “The Role of the Authoritative in
the Comparative Process.” What is authority and who is authorita-
tive, and why should this matter in religious studies? Cave answers
by borrowing Bruce Lincoln’s distinction between epistemic and exec-
utive authority and finds that religious claims necessarily invoke
authority because they are claims made “outside the human realm.”
Where best to find the religious authoritative in the comparative
process? Cave points to scripture. Here four issues are fundamental
in the act of comparing two different religious scriptures: motive,
material, method, and subject. Attending to these issues makes it
possible to separate the important from the trivial in the scholarly
study of religion, to avoid essentialist simplifications, and to achieve
a sounder, more probing understanding of religion.
Thomas Athanasius Idinopulos in his essay, “The Mothering Prin-
ciple in the Comparison of Religions,” counsels limits on what can
be legitimately compared. Finding that comparing religions is least
preface xi
rewarding where the comparison focuses on exclusively intellectual

matters (“what is believed”), or where it imposes abstract artificial
forms (e.g., “sacred tree,” “cosmic mountain,” etc.) on the data of
religious experience, Idinopulos argues that comparing religions can
only be rewarding where the comparison is carried out among reli-
gions which are in fact historically connected and genetically linked
in structure. Certainly this is the case with Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam; it is also the case with Hinduism and Buddhism. Idinopulos
refers to the genetic structure that makes the comparison of religions
most effective as the “mothering principle,” without which compar-
ison is (in his view) superficial and empty.
Finally, this section on theoretical considerations concludes with
William E. Paden’s signature contribution to the scholarship of reli-
gious inquiry, “Theaters of Worldmaking Behaviors: Panhuman
Contexts for Comparative Religion,” an essay that in many ways
takes exactly the opposite tack as Idinopulos’ essay. By “worldmak-
ing,” Paden means the human universal behavior of making a world
from all the cultural experiences that geographically and historically
locate human beings on the face of the earth. This means there are
as many “worlds” as there are human cultures; this also seems to
mean that there can be no one world as there can be no one cul-
ture. Does this lead to some sort of relativism towards culture and
religion? Paden answers negatively, “insofar as there are recurring
patterns to human behavior, there will be patterns to religious behav-
ior, regardless of culture.” Such “recurring patterns” provide stabil-
ity in a chaotic universe. Taking a functional perspective about the
role and meaning of religion in worldmaking activity, Paden shows
his indebtedness to Emile Durkheim by avoiding any and all meta-
physical-theological references and speaks only of religions as “orga-
nized systems of god-oriented behavior.” To better understand these
systems, he urges his readers to think big methodologically about
religion—to think of cultural “worldmaking.”
Part Two, Theory into Method: Comparison of Religions in the
Study and the Classroom, consists of six essays that take the dis-
cussion beyond abstract principles of comparison (although these
remain salient) by focusing on practical questions generated by actual
comparative projects. Wesley J. Wildman’s essay, “Comparing Reli-
gious Ideas: There’s Method in the Mob’s Madness,” is a product of
the ambitious research effort, The “Crosscultural Comparative Reli-
gious Ideas Project” (CRIP) carried out by a group of Boston-based
xii preface
scholars from 1995 to 1999. Wildman notes that categories of com-

parison necessarily involve vagueness “in order to register differences,”
although vagueness does not prevent the detection of interesting
aspects of religion. Wildman reinforces the point made by many con-
tributors to this book, namely that comparison can be made well or
badly depending on the adequacy with which the comparative cat-
egories are formulated; however, in any case, the act of comparing
religions is inevitably (in Wildman’s judgment) “a socially and polit-
ically contextualized act of interpretation.” Moreover, he holds that
religious belief data can be given flexible and illuminating interpre-
tive structures by adopting the methods of crosscultural comparative
analysis that he and his close colleague, Robert Cummings Neville,
have carried out in the CRIP study.
Large research projects conducted by cadres of specialists are not
the only place where fruitful collaborative research occurs. In “Com-
parative Religion for Undergraduates: What Next?” John Stratton
Hawley focuses on the classroom as a place of worthwhile discovery
through critical comparison. Hawley begins by noting the differences
between comparative religion and the history of religions, two closely
connected but not identical inquiries, and he asks how these two
modes of inquiry can be incorporated into the undergraduate class-
room in ways that acknowledge postcolonial concerns. Through
specific techniques of “historicizing” the history of religions and “com-
parativizing” comparative religion, Hawley gives concrete examples
of how the undergraduate survey course can be made intelligible to
beginning students while remaining in tune with today’s constantly
changing global realities. Most impressive in Hawley’s essay is the
vivid sense the reader gets of a professor before his class struggling
to convey all the wonder and wisdom of comparing religion. At the
heart of this struggle is Hawley’s keen awareness of the geographic,
cultural, linguistic, and religious differences that make for the differ-
ences in the world’s people. Following up on this point, Hawley’ call
for a comparativist course on the role of religious violence will res-
onate with those who think that the practice and study of religion
cannot be insulated from the real world of struggle and strife.
From the broad methodological and pedagogical strategies high-
lighted in the previous essays, the next three focus in on particular
case studies as a means of reducing theory to pedagogical method.
In the well-argued essay by James Constantine Hanges, “Socrates
and Jesus: Comparing Founder-figures in the Classroom.” Hanges
preface xiii
raises questions fundamental to every student wishing to compare

the “life-visions” of two founder-figures. The tendency of students
seeking “commonality” is to equate the religions to be compared
with the founder-figures (Socrates and Jesus). The questions raised
here are: Can the presumed founder-figure be equated with the reli-
gion? And can any comparison be effective if there is no equiva-
lence between a religion (particularly given historical development)
and the original founder-figure? Looming over the question is the
fact that the founder-figure is rarely, if ever historically known with
factual accuracy. This means that wherever comparisons are to be
made by students, these comparisons are centered on literary texts
alone, and through which the founder-figure can be glimpsed only
indirectly, if at all. Hanges’ conclusion is that the comparison of reli-
gion (at least as far as founder-figures are concerned) is limited to
the comparison of texts and therefore to the variety of interpreta-
tions that are an inescapable part of texts. This fact cannot but have
crucial implications for students and teachers on how religions are
to be compared when the comparison itself is dependent on pre-
sumed knowledge of the founder-figure.
A second concrete case of religion comparison is introduced by
Thomas Athanasius Idinopulos in “Christianity’s Emergence from
Judaism: Plus and Minus of Joseph Klausner’s Comparative Analysis.”
Here the author applies the earlier point he made in his earlier essay
in Part One that comparison of religions is most effective and con-
vincing when the religions are historically and genetically connected.
Idinopulos speaks with approval of Joseph Klausner’s analysis of the
emergence of Christianity from Judaism. Idinopulos begins with the
central question: How did the Jew Jesus cause the birth of Christianity,
a religion that became significantly different from Judaism? The
answer lies in the unusual ways in which Jesus preached the prophetic
Gospel of repentance to hasten God’s Coming Kingdom—ways that
moved Jesus’ fellow Jew, Saul of Tarsus (Paul), to interpret his words
in such a mystical way that made Christianity’s emergence from
Judaism inevitable. This is the plus in Klausner’s comparative analy-
sis; the minus is seen in what is described as Klausner’s “national-
ism and chauvinism” in defending Judaism, traits which expose the
bias of the comparativist, thereby minimizing the persuasiveness of
the comparison.
Our third case study is found in James Constantine Hanges’ essay,
“Interpreting Glossolalia and the Comparison of Comparisons.”
xiv preface
Hanges begins with the contention that “exposing students to the

enterprise of comparing comparisons might serve as an important
step in their introduction to” the comparative study of religion.
Taking his cue from Jonathan Z. Smith’s discussion of the politics
of comparison in the “quest” for Christian origins in Drudgery Divine
(1990), he then describes how the specific comparative strategy
described by Smith is still being used today by both conservative
Christians and Pentecostals in an effort to discredit each other’s
understanding of the nature of contemporary glossolalia. By care-
fully analyzing a wealth of examples taken from printed sources and
the Internet, Hanges presents a powerful and readily generalizable
case study of how apologetic comparisons are constructed and em-
ployed. Ultimately, Hanges argues, the pedagogical importance of
such case studies lies in the fact that they not only “fulfill Smith’s
goal of creating situations in which students must ‘negotiate difference,
evaluate, compare, and make judgments,’” but they also effectively
lead students to engage the motives and means of comparison with
“greater critical scrutiny.”
Part Three, Postcolonialism, Postmodernism, Modernism in the
Comparison of Religion, deals with the continuing impact (and inter-
action) of these three broad intellectual movements on religious studies.
Arvind Sharma introduces Orientalism as an issue in the “compa-
rative equation” in his “Towards a Post-Colonial Comparative Religion?
Comparing Hinduism and Islam as Orientalist Constructions.” Here
Sharma begins with the question of whether in comparing Hinduism,
Buddhism, and Islam, we are actually comparing objectively these
three religions, or whether in presuming so to compare, we are not
in fact speaking from an Orientialist bias and distortion of these reli-
gions. For Orientalism, Sharma tells us, is the “Western domination
and exploitation of the East: the West viewing the East as alien, as
‘the other’.” Having identified the problematic of Orientalism, Sharma
insists “what we all describe today as Hinduism or Buddhism or
Islam is itself the work of European scholarship, quite apart from
the consequences this fact may have had for the mode of scholarship.”
In this regard Sharma repeats the telling point made by Bernard
Lewis—that Asians did not study Europe nor other Asians. Further,
it is not surprising that it was not in Asia but in Europe that the
comparative study of religion was initiated. Sharma concludes his
essay by pointing to the western Orientalist interpretive tendency to
regard the “outsider” interpreter as necessarily knowing more about
preface xv
a religion than the “insider” participant. This western interpretive

tendency has led to biased conceptions: Hinduism as a “passive” reli-
gion; Buddhism as an altruistic, rational religion; and Islam as a reli-
gion of militancy. Yet this bias also made it possible to recognize
the limits of western-rooted comparative religions. We see the lim-
its in the “renewed privileging of Advaita Vedanta in Hinduism, and
the renewed privileging of the non-theism in Buddhism; the renewed
privileging of the literalness of the Qur"an in Islam”—all of which
are veiled reactions to the impact of Western scholarship.
Russell McCutcheon in “Circling the Wagons: The Problem with
the Insider/Outsider in the Comparative Study of Religion,” con-
tinues in the postcolonial vein of Sharma with an added dose of
postmodern skepticism. McCutcheon argues that crosscultural com-
parison of religion cannot evade the insider/outsider problem. That
problem surfaces when it is assumed that there is some sort of
definitive, authoritative, privileged “insider” perspective from which
to interpret and understand religious data. When this happens the
data cease to be “data,” that is, they cease to be objects of publicly
accessible intellectual investigation and scrutiny. McCutcheon charges
that “many of our attempts to do crosscultural comparison in our
classrooms” suffer from the failure to overcome the insider/outsider
problem by developing a public discourse of inquiry. Rather, we
academicians continue to look for comparative similarities, minimiz-
ing differences, promoting artificially imposed notions of religious
unity. Instead, what we need is “to determine some defensible prin-
ciple of selection” that will make it possible also to determine “how
it is that we will look into the issue of difference and . . . what will
get to count as a difference worth looking into.”
Something of a rebuttal to the more radical conclusions potential
in McCutcheon’s critique of comparative religion is represented by
Robert A. Segal’s strongly argued essay, “The Postmodernist Challenge
to the Comparative Method.” Segal forcefully denies the extreme
postmodernist thesis that the uncovering of similarities and differences
in comparing religious data is a “meaningless activity.” It cannot be
true (in Segal’s view) that comparison is invalidated by the supposed
sheer uniqueness of data under comparison. Segal then proceeds to
express his approval of types of comparative analysis he dubs “con-
trolled’ comparisons (as seen in the works of S. H. Hooke), and the
“New Comparativism” (represented by William E. Paden, Ninian
Smart, and Jonathan Z. Smith), all of whom seem to think that no
xvi preface
adequate comparative religion analysis can be conducted without

considering both similarities and differences in their historically based
contexts. Set alongside the “New Comparativism,” Segal describes
the “Old Comparativism,” or simply the “comparative method” rep-
resented by J. G. Frazer and Segal himself. The “comparative method”
as applied does not commit the sins charged against comparative
religion studies by postmodernists. The “comparative method does
not ignore differences, nor confuse similarity with identity or with
essence; nor does it generalize too broadly and prematurely, and
take phenomena out of context.” Segal concludes by summarizing
the comparative method of Frazer—which reinforces his main argu-
ment that the “comparative method” is at base the method of empir-
ical research and observation applied to the study of religion. This
method has nothing to do with the practice (as postmodernists charge)
of equating supposed similarities with metaphysical essences.
Finally, in a boldly stated defense of modernist approaches to the
study of religion, Ivan Strenski focuses on “hypothesis testing” as the
main purpose of comparative religion in “The Only Kind of Compari-
son Worth Doing: History, Epistemology and the ‘Strong Program’
of Comparative Study.” Although the 19th-century comparativists
have been subjected to withering ridicule by contemporary critics,
Strenski argues that their kind of “ambitious, full bore comparative
study” is still “possible and desirable” and “epistemologically plausi-
ble.” Guided by the broader aspirations of the Durkheimian school
of sociology, a “strong program” seeks not merely to describe facts,
but to explain them as well, thus bestowing on comparative study a
certain scientific character based on the discernment of behavioral
causes and the formulation of sociological laws. Despite postmod-
ernist doubts, such a modernist-inspired “strong program” is, accord-
ing to Strenski, the only way to “advance the study of religion towards
scientific, or at the very least more rigorous, research goals.”
To conclude this preface let us say that if our contributors have
shown the several roads to comparison and also raised conscious-
ness about the difficulty in and desirability of traveling these roads,
they will have done their work as scholars and teachers very well.
For they will have provided a sound and honest response to the
desire for comparing religions made by the young student who was
introduced in the opening.
The Editors wish to acknowledge formally the kind permission
preface xvii
granted by John Stratton Hawley for the republication of his essay,

and to Lucy K. Pick and the Marty Center of the Divinity School
of the University of Chicago for their willingness to facilitate the
publication of this revised copy of Professor Hawley’s essay, pre-
sented earlier as the Wabash Lecture of the Chicago Forum on
Pedagogy and the Study of Religion in 2002. The Editors also wish
to acknowledge Wesley J. Wildman’s essay as a revision and expan-
sion of chapter 9 of Ultimate Realities edited by Robert Cummings
Neville (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001).
Finally, the Editors would also like to express our thanks to Jennifer
Lauren Muncy of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio for her assistance.
We dedicate this book to grandchildren Zachary, Cecilia, and
Dimitry (Mitsou) Idinopulos and to their Koutures cousins: Anne
Christine, Carolyn Marie, Mary Doukakis, Luke Harry, and Gregory
Christian—who will one day be studying religions and wondering
how best to compare them. To family, friends, and colleagues, we
add our further dedication.
The Editors
Part One
THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF COMPARISON

CHAPTER ONE
COMPARISON AS A THEORETICAL EXERCISE
Anthony J. Blasi
I. Introduction
What makes comparison scientific? Specifically, in the study of reli-

gion, how does one go beyond simple museology? There is a point
to simply exposing students to a number of different religious tradi-
tions as a part of their general education, since there is certainly
value in having citizens of the modern world who have relativized
their own cultural positions. To educate students who see their own
religious tradition as one among many invalidates any legitimation
based on an absence of questioning. As a result of a fair-minded
exposure to various religious traditions, students either adhere less
firmly to their original religions or to their lack of religion, or they
reformulate their prior commitment in a more sophisticated con-
figuration.1 In the academy we encourage such changes as inher-
ently good, since we believe that knowledge per se, and especially
knowledge that leads to critical reflection, is inherently valuable. The
broader citizenry often believe that people who are knowledgeable
in this sense are more adept at living in the modern world than
those who lack such awareness. So, simple museology is pedagogi-
cally valid. Nevertheless, scholars responsible for higher learning
beyond the first course in religious studies should aim at more than
that.
In seeking to make the conduct of comparative inquiry scientific,
we must go beyond the level of exposure to religions that serves the
purposes of good citizenship. People who begin as sincere students
in the course of their general education develop a curiosity about
the world around them. Satisfaction of that curiosity demands knowl-
edge that is authentic, that is defensible as knowledge about what
1
See Berger, The Sacred Canopy, pp. 96–97.
4 anthony j. blasi
actually happens in the environing world. The satisfaction of our

students’ curiosity is not achieved by turning them into tolerable and
tolerant citizens but by accounting for realissima. This is scientific
quest, an inquiry into reality that entails an engagement with evi-
dence and logic.
There are two kinds of reality at issue in science. One is the realis-
simum of the ontological philosophers. These philosophers have argued
over what modality of being is foundational to the other modali-
ties—essence, existence, and nature—and whether being depends on
the power of a creator to maintain it in its modalities. That inquiry
in turn leads to ontological and non-ontological accounts of a cre-
ator. Such, of course, are not our issue. For our purposes the realm
of the realissimum is simply that which is able to intrude upon our
consciousness from outside of it. There are occasions when we become
aware of realissima in such a way that they force us to regard them
in one way rather than another. How we regard them is an emer-
gent experience between us and them; they feel smooth, they are
bright enough to induce us to squint, and so forth. This illustrates
what we mean by evidence. Moreover, we know better than to con-
found our experiences with the realissima themselves, rather we use
our experiences more or less reliably as indications of the presence
of realissima. For example, we do not confuse our squinting with the
reality of the sun. And with considerable reliability we identify the
sun without examining it closely. In the case of religion, the realis-
sima are actions, experiences, cognitions, and ideas that people enact,
feel, know, and entertain. We hold in abeyance how reliably reli-
gious people use their actions, experiences, cognitions, and ideas as
indications of the presence of deity simply because science does not
extend to the latter.
The second kind of realissimum in science consists of the opera-
tions of the inquiry itself. These correspond to the phenomenologi-
cal interest in “the things themselves,” bracketing whatever is in the
realm of the realissima that may lie outside of the consciousness main-
tained by the scientific inquirer. Interestingly, the scientific endeavor
depends on an analogy between oneself and the process of inquiry;
the way one experiences oneself as a physical body serves as a point
of departure for the way one accounts for other physical objects.
Similarly, in the study of religion, the inquirer locates the investi-
gation’s point of departure in an analogy between the scientific self
and some other person, who is religious. As I have noted elsewhere,
comparison as a theoretical exercise 5
one cannot have an experience of someone else’s religion (or lack

of religion) in the same way one experience’s one’s own religion (or
lack of religion).2 One’s own religion must recede into memory while
the religion of the other enters the consciousness as a relative nov-
elty. Thus one would actually be comparing a memory with a novel
present moment. This difference in perspective results in an inher-
ent incomparability. Alternatively, one might turn from the other’s
commitment and come back to one’s own, reviving the latter so that
it is no longer a memory and thereby turn the other’s commitment
into a memory. The same problem arises in the consideration of
different religions that are sustained by different other peoples. An
attempt at simultaneity would result in a syncretism, a harmony so
to speak, rather than a true comparison. Because of this difficulty,
it is important to the comparative process in science to spell out the
ways in which one is aware of the matters of inquiry so that the
comparison is truly pairing equivalencies.
It should be noted that comparison as a scientific problematic
occurs in the reality of the scientists’ own conceptualizations and
cognitions. There is nothing about such a comparison in itself that
can be predicated validly of the live experiences of the peoples whose
religions are being compared. Comparison pertains to the scientific
discourse, not to the religions being compared. Consequently, com-
parison is not inductive in nature, though dependent on prior induc-
tive endeavors.
There is another sense, however, in which comparison is indeed
inductive: if religious people themselves compare different religious
traditions or subtraditions, their comparative activity merits scientific
study. Nevertheless, such a study is not itself comparative, but rather
a study of such phenomena as syncretism, desyncretiztion, and con-
version.3 Inquiry into these could only be comparative if one were
to look for parallels between two syncretisms, for example—such as
parallels between the bringing together of traditions from different
cultural systems into the early Hebrew religion (Mesopotamian,
Canaanite, Egyptian) and the bringing together of different traditions
2
Blasi, “General Methodological Perspective,” p. 72.
3
For studies of syncretism, see Bastide, The African Religions of Brazil; Nielsen,
“Civilizational Encounters in the Development of Early Christianity”; and Ralston,
Christian Ashrams. For a study of desyncretism see Blasi, A Sociology of Johannine
Christianity, pp. 275–92.
6 anthony j. blasi
into Baha’i. Alternatively, one could examine different patterns of

conversion, as done systematically by Robert L. Montgomery.4 The
present discussion does not focus primarily on such inductive stud-
ies of folk comparisons of religions.
II. Ends or Purposes of Comparison
It is important to ask what the purposes of comparison in science

in general are and what the purpose of a given comparison in an
inquiry may be. The guidelines that one should draw up for one-
self should depend on those purposes. In the present context we will
speak only of the purposes in general of comparison in science. To
pose the question of such purposes in any meaningful way, it is nec-
essary to describe comparison itself in the most elementary manner
possible. As an operation, comparison utilizes two kinds of concept—
inclusive and exclusive. The inclusive concept enables two or more
cases to be accepted as examples of what the concept includes. The
inclusive concept prevents our comparing “apples and oranges.” Thus
the question arises in the comparative study of religion whether
Buddhism and theistic religions can be compared; some concept
broad enough to include both needs to come into play before any
true comparison can be made.5 The exclusive concept distinguishes
between the two or more cases that are being compared.6 They can-
not be identical; otherwise no comparison is in order. These two
concepts are not mutually exclusive because a comparison entails
both a sameness and a difference. The difference is all the more
informative since it characterizes the two (or more) cases in differing
ways; the two cases are not merely two phenomena that would be
similar in all respects save not being identical. That is to say, the
difference is not simply that between singularity and plurality.
It should be noted that these inclusive and exclusive concepts are
not references to direct observations, comparable to “marked bal-
lots” and “stone artifacts,” but to constructs, such as democratic pol-
itics and styles of art that in some way depend on direct observables.
4
Montgomery, The Lopsided Spread of Christianity.
5
See Durkheim, “Concerning the Definition of Religious Phenomena,” pp. 81ff.
6
See Bendix, “Concepts and Generalizations,” p. 176.
There may or may not be indirect observables, comparable to elec-

tions or to ancient craftspeople, between the direct observables and
the constructs. Comparisons use direct observables but are about
constructs.7
A first contribution, purpose, or end of comparisons is the illu-
mination of the meaning of the inclusive concept.8 An abstraction
transmitted from person to person in verbal form differs in nature
from an experience of the reality to which the abstraction would
refer. The experience itself, of course, is shaped in part by the prior
existence of the abstraction in the scientist’s repertory of concepts.
This is the familiar hermeneutic circle, which raises the question how
a concept could emerge in one’s thinking without a prior experience
engendering it? Or we might further ask how any experience could
be an experience of a particular kind of object without the prior
existence of a concept with which to recognize the experienced object
as the kind of object it is conceived to be?9 Our minds are not blank
slates or unused magnetic tapes passively receiving stimuli from out-
side. As Gestalt psychologists taught us long ago with their optical
illusions, minds actively shape and embrace. However, our precon-
ceptions are necessary preliminary drafts of our experiences. Science
is very interested in revising concepts and in the emergence of newly
experienced discoveries made possible by the now-revised prelimi-
nary conceptions. Comparison is one way to set about revising con-
cepts, of filling out their meaning with qualitatively differing cases
and thereby illuminating them.10
A second contribution, purpose, or end of comparison is narrow-
ing down the generalizability of the exclusive concepts. As with the
7
On direct observables, indirect observables, and constructs, see Kaplan, Conduct
of Inquiry, pp. 54–56.
8
Bendix, “Concepts and generalizations,” pp. 180–81, presents these “contri-
butions’ of comparisons.
9
Note this parallel in textual interpretation: “A person who is trying to under-
stand a text is always performing an act of projecting. He projects before himself
a meaning for the text as a whole as soon as some initial meaning emerges in the
text. Again, the latter emerges only because he is reading the text with particular
expectations in regard to a certain meaning. The working out of this ore-project,
which is constantly revised in terms of what emerges as he penetrates into the
meaning, is understanding what is there.” (Gadamer, Truth and Method, p. 236).
10
Baltzell, for example, stretches the meaning of “Protestant ethic,” a concept
taken from Weber; see Baltzell, Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia, and Weber,
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
8 anthony j. blasi
first contribution, this one pertains primarily to the conduct of inquiry

rather than to external realissima. When one draws a distinction
between kinds of a category, each of the resultant kinds is narrower
than the initial concept, in the sense that each kind is more specific
than the initial concept and points to fewer realissima. The more
comparisons one makes, the more one increases the number of mean-
ingful qualifiers that can be applied to cases exemplifying the broader
category. These qualifiers derive from evidence rather than entirely
from the thought process itself.11 Which and how many specifying
concepts should be retained and recorded depends on the specific
research objectives. In the case of human activities such as those
that comprise religion, the scientific types should parallel the folk
types used by the religious people themselves.12 This is not to say
that the scientist should believe what the religious believers believe
and feel what the religiously-moved people feel, but that the scien-
tist should have relevant categories for the kinds of beliefs and feel-
ings that the religious actors have. The beliefs and feelings of the
latter will in turn articulate the interactions of both their own reli-
gious developments and the environmental factors that impinge upon
their individual and collective religious endeavors.13
A third contribution, purpose, or end of comparison is the delin-
eation of the boundaries that separate the compared (and contrasted)
structures. The scientist records time, place, and other coordinates
for locating the relevant cases.14 With this information another
researcher should be able to revisit the scene and repeat the com-
parisons in order to ascertain whether the cases have remained the
same or changed. Evidence of a change takes the form of a new
comparison, only the comparison is not made with different “cases”
or examples but with the same one or ones at two different times
11
For example see Ducey’s development of types of ritual in his Sunday Morning.
Aspects of Urban Ritual.
12
A more exact term than “folk type” would be “ethno-concept.” What is at
issue is not the non-elite status of the believers but their not being engaged in aca-
demic comparative religious studies.
13
See Ammerman et al., Congregation & Community, where Christian congregations
are examined, with several congregations each representing different trajectories of
pluralization in contemporary society.
14
For example, Bouthoul notes the importance of distinguishing between the
Christianity of intellectual elites such as theologians and the lived Christianity of
the masses. See Bouthoul, Traité de Sociologie, pp. 514–15.
or places. The result of a discovery of a salient change is a nar-

rowing of the generalizability of the concepts in use, whether they
are inclusive or exclusive concepts, on the basis of new evidence.
Moreover, one might generate a new conceptualization, and a proces-
sual one at that, by formulating an account of the process by which
the noted change takes place.
In addition, one can delineate the generalizability of exclusive con-
cepts in a more subtle way by focusing on the derivative implica-
tions of such concepts. For example, David L. Balch compares the
depiction of suffering heroic characters in two religious contexts—
the Roman/Hellenistic wherein the cult of deities and legends about
ancestral heroic characters helped legitimate the state, and the early
Christian household in which the suffering Christ and contemporary
legendary martyrs delegitimated the state regime. He points to such
Roman/Hellenistic art works as those depicting Iphigenia, Laocoon,
and even the dying Galatian, and proposes considering them as help-
ing comprise the physical setting for Paul’s verbal depiction of the
suffering Christ. The delegitimating aspect of the Christian cultus of
the suffering savior is inferred after the comparison is made.15
III. Kinds of Comparison
Illuminating Inclusive Concepts

More needs to be said about the illumination of inclusive concepts.
We have noted that comparative evidence may lead to a reformu-
lation or further formulation of what a concept means or encom-
passes. The latter term, encompass, calls to mind imagery of reaching
out and collecting cases. With a concept, however, cases are not
only collected but selected according to some descriptive or analyt-
ical criterion. The more analytical a criterion is and the less merely
descriptive, the more adequate it becomes.16 By reformulating con-
cepts on the basis of the results of comparisons, one in effect dis-
covers new concepts. William James proposed that concepts should
have fuzzy rather than sharp edges so that the concepts could be
15
Balch, “Paul’s Portrait of Christ Crucified (Gal. 3.1).”
16
This is to disagree with Durkheim, Rules of Sociological Method, p. 75, who would
have definitions have external characteristics as criteria.
10 anthony j. blasi
shaped in use.17 Herbert Blumer spoke of “sensitizing concepts” which

give their user only a general sense of reference and guidance in
approaching empirical instances. He proposed that the human sci-
ences use sensitizing concepts rather than definitive ones because of
the nature of the matter of inquiry.
In handling an empirical instance of a concept for purposes of study
or analysis we do not, and apparently cannot meaningfully, confine
our consideration of it strictly to what is covered by the abstract ref-
erence of the concept. We do not cleave aside what gives each instance
its peculiar character and restrict ourselves to what it has in common
with the other instances in the class covered by the concept. To the
contrary, we seem forced to reach what is common by accepting and
using what is distinctive to the given empirical instance. In other words,
what is common (i.e., what the concept refers to) is expressed in a dis-
tinctive manner in each empirical instance and can be got at only by
accepting and working through the distinctive expression.18
Formalizing the same insight for purposes of outlining a research
technique, Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L. Strauss spoke of the-
ory as something to be discovered in “grounded” (i.e., warranted)
condition. They specifically spoke of “generating theory” by means
of comparative analysis.19 Needless to say, such an approach stands
in marked contrast to those who would “test” hypotheses to see
whether they qualify as instances of a scientific “law” similar to the
law of gravity in Newtonian physics.
Inclusive concepts can also be illuminated by resorting to them in
quite different contexts. A comparison of sorts is thereby undertaken,
but it is not a matter of comparing cases but of comparing different
perspectives that can be taken in approaching an idea. Each different
occasion for invoking an idea provides it with a unique context, and
each new context provides a new perspective for it. The researcher
thereby comes out of the inquiry with a far richer idea of ritual, or
magic, or henotheism, or sectarianism. Such thusly enriched ideas
can then serve all the better as sensitizing instruments. This is the
point of theory for the researcher who follows up a curiosity about
some portion of the lived world. Theory is not an end, as it would
be in philosophy, but a means. The point, then, is not to rest more
17
James, Pragmatism, p. 78.
18
Herbert Blumer, “What is Wrong with Social Theory?” pp. 148–49.
19
Glaser and Strauss, Discovery of Grounded Theory, pp. 21ff.
or less satisfied with a theory, but to develop the theoretical appa-

ratus for scientifically engaging the lived world.
A third way of illuminating inclusive concepts is to see them
embodied in different materials—or more precisely, in different mate-
rial cultures.20 One might draw an analogy with the arts, wherein
one would look for such techniques as perspective or chiaroscuro in
painting, or iteration or modulation in music. One develops a sen-
sitivity that makes comparisons possible that would not have come
about had one not developed a habit of looking for certain para-
digmatic patterns. This sensitivity emerges less from the formal delin-
eation of the paradigmatic pattern than from the habit of mind
developed in the course of inquiring into many cases. Research is,
after all, a practiced art, a craftsmanship, that develops over time,
not an accomplishment of ratiocination.
A fourth way of illuminating inclusive concepts is drawing out
implications of several compared instances for one’s own conscious-
ness. In this way one might develop a more nuanced understanding
of one’s own religious adherence (or non-adherence) by examining
one or more instances that are quite different from one’s own stance.
This involves an implicit comparison of one’s own state with that of
one or more other sets of people. The comparison will not be one
of true equivalencies since one’s own state is known from the inside,
so to speak, while that of the other is known from the outside.
Consequently, one would not proceed from such a thought experi-
ment directly into a scientific conclusion. However, people who have
more nuanced understandings of their own commitments operate on
an everyday basis with a more refined mode of thinking about com-
mitments generally, much in the way that people who are theolog-
ically learned about their own tradition tend to appreciate more
adequately other traditions.
As an example of one comparative strategy, we can consider the
massive comparative study of systems of “Ultimate Reality” by Gio-
vanni Magnani.21 Magnani develops a comprehensive classification
20
See Clark, Church and Sect in Canada, where concepts derived from European
religious history by Ernst Troeltsch are applied to Canada. Liebman and Cohen
look at twentieth century Judaism in Israel and the United States, in Two Worlds
of Judaism.
21
Magnani, Religione e religioni. Dalla monolatria al monoteismo profetico and Magnani,
Religione e religioni. Il monoteismo.
12 anthony j. blasi
of the “Object” of religion. Thus his first volume compares mono-

theism with pantheism and panentheism, refining the concept of mono-
theism in the process. Having distinguished monotheism from
approximations to it, he proceeds to review adepts’ concepts of poly-
theism and dualism, as well as carefully analyzing ancient Hebrew
concepts of deity, including the religion of Jahweh, the monolatry
of the early prophets, and the monotheism of the major prophets,
along with an excursus on cross-cultural deisms. The second volume
examines the modern Jewish concept of God, Christian trinitarian-
ism, and Moslem monotheism. An important fruit of his compara-
tive procedure is the identification of modern dogmatic assertions
(i.e. conclusions not warranted by the literary evidence) about the
different religious traditions under consideration. Magnani has illu-
minated the concept of Ultimate Reality in all four ways described
above.
Narrowing the Generalization of Exclusive Concepts

As noted above, when making comparisons one uses exclusive con-
cepts to distinguish the two or more structures that one places into
the comparison. When comparing ascetic Christian groups, for exam-
ple, Max Weber found some to be inner-worldly and some to be
other-worldly. Inner-worldliness and other-worldliness are the exclu-
sive concepts, and of course they appear in the plural since each
excludes what the other includes. To the extent that an exclusive
concept often coincides with another exclusive concept in its appli-
cation to a social formation, it is likely to assist in the generation of
theory. Weber, for example, found that what he termed the “spirit
of capitalism” had an “elective affinity” for inner-worldly asceticism.22
That kind of theoretical stratagem does not aim at either establish-
ing or testing universal “laws” but at generalizations. To what his-
torical instances an elective affinity applies is an empirical question,
and this question along with the question of why an elective affinity
appears in a number of cases not in a few are problems for further
inquiry. The procedure is more inductive than deductive; one decides
22
Weber, Economy and Society, pp. 399ff., and Weber, Protestant Ethic and the Spirit
of Capitalism. The latter volume is a more complete set of Weber’s “Protestantische
Ethik” essays than the earlier Scribner’s edition.
what concepts to use for purposes of excluding cases after inspect-

ing a number of instances of that to which the earlier inclusive con-
cept refers.
Exceptions to the elective affinities one comes to expect may lead
one to question whether the exceptional instances really belong in
the category created by the original inclusive concept. An ascetic
group may lack a spirit of capitalism altogether but orient itself polit-
ically toward inner-worldly concerns; the Catholic Worker movement
of Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day comes to mind. One reasonably
asks whether the asceticism of living with the poor is the same thing
as the asceticism Weber had in mind. Is an asceticism based on
class-consciousness the same thing as an asceticism based on a plan
of creation? Perhaps the class-conscious asceticism is more founda-
tional and more widespread than the asceticism based on the plan
of creation. What is at issue in such an instance is the generaliz-
ability of the inclusive concept, in this instance asceticism based on
a plan of creation.
Specifying the Boundaries Between Structures

As pointed out earlier, most aspects of comparison in the human
sciences pertain to the theoretical approach to matters of inquiry rather
than the categories for thought and action that occur in the minds
of the social actors under study. In any kind of study oriented toward
external realities, some moments in the developing awareness will
reside further within the scientific subject, the “I,” and some further
outside, in the realm of the reality under study. In comparison, the
identification of structures to be compared depends more on the “out-
side” matters of inquiry than in the ideas with which those matters
could be characterized. One may, for example, identify different cul-
tural systems—i.e., inter-related patterns of using symbols. Even within
a single cultural area, making comparisons may sensitize one to reli-
gious pluralism. Again, historical comparisons may sensitize one to
processes of political secularization and its opposite, theocratization.
There are really two comparative activities involved in such a line
of inquiry: One comparison examines two historical processes—e.g.,
the emergence of theocracy in Calvin’s Geneva and the emergence
of a religiously-neutral state in Jefferson’s America. The second com-
parison compares discourses within a society—e.g., religious and polit-
ical discourse in the early American republic.
14 anthony j. blasi
Comparative studies may also sensitize one to the emergence of

identities in the social world. There may be different individual iden-
tities and different collective identities, and, more importantly, one
may note the dialectic of individual and collective identities. Individuals
develop their identities and alter them in the course of their lives in
society. For example, an individual’s self concept will involve significant
memberships in families, friendship groups, organizations, commu-
nities, and nations, as well as particular roles that one plays in such
collectivities. Collective identities thereby enter into the person’s indi-
vidual identity. It will not suffice in comparative studies, consequently,
to simply compare individuals to one another or compare religious
collectivities to one another. Exploration of either kind of identity
will lead the investigator into the dialectic of the individual with the
community. In this sense a comparative literary study of religious
texts is nothing more than museology. We must recognize both com-
munities appropriating texts as religious and as proper to themselves,
and individuals appropriating texts either as individual quests that
propel them into public action or as collective documents imported
into personal identities.
Speaking more generally, the “matter” of inquiry is human action;
its nature is enactment. Analyses of leftover traces of human action—
symbols detached from their use much in the manner of left-over
icons from some ancient civilization—fail to capture that enacted
nature. One needs to reconstruct what went on in the production,
amendment, and use of such symbols. One needs to note resistance
to change in such stories, as well as resistance to stasis. This latter
is for more important than often supposed; people feel most authen-
tic in the fresh avoidance of cliché. It is the processes embodied in
the interactions among people that are the “matter” of inquiry and
that need to be identified and compared. In fact, any tradition, reli-
gious traditions included, cannot remain static in some unchanged
condition because each generation of adherents appropriates the tra-
dition in different circumstances. The religiosity of the founder can-
not be the religiosity of someone reared in the founder’s tradition,
any more than a successful political revolution can remain revolu-
tionary or a fresh new piece of music can retain its novelty in a sec-
ond, third, or thirty-third hearing.
Sometimes in specifying boundaries between structures it is useful
to compare the religious and the non-religious, not compare reli-
gions. Thus there could be a religious set of time coordinates or cal-
endar and a secular one. Liturgically-minded Christians begin their

religious calendar year even as the secular calendar is working its
way toward a commercial climax. In a counterpoint pattern, the
Christian ethos dwells on the poverty and simplicity of the Nativity
as the secular world builds up steam in its commercial Christmas
season. The two are no doubt linked in a curious way. They are
not mere coincidental seasons that borrow one another’s symbols.
Peter Staples, in his analysis of temporal references in the gospels,
demonstrates this kind of pattern at work in the first century against
the backdrop of more ancient Hebrew temporal systems.23 The whole
creates a counter-culture of messianic cues in the setting of the
Roman Empire. Such a line of inquiry raises the issue of the rela-
tionship between the distinct but connected “worlds” having the
different time coordinates.
IV. Comparison and Everyday Life
There is a temptation to discuss scientific methodology in the abstract

as if it applied to some world set apart from the everyday world in
which one lives. It is true that any scientific endeavor comprises a
universe of discourse that follows a paradigm that differs from every-
day activities and that uses a system of typifications that differ from
those that arise in the “natural attitude” of everyday undertakings.24
However, I would insist that scientists and other humans stand out-
side of the several discourses that they entertain and that the sus-
pensions of judgment and of relevance, the epochai that they sustain
as they enter into one discourse and set other discourses aside, are
not foundational in consciousness but rather occur within acts of
consciousness. The “I” that takes up the several discourses is not
under control but rather pursues the several modes of “logical con-
trol.” Consequently, there is no guarantee that the conduct of inquiry
within one discourse remains uninfluenced by the other modes of
discourse in which the “I” is habitually engaged. Curiosity itself,
23
Staples, “Structuralism and Symbolic Universe.”
24
See Schutz, “Common-sense and Scientific Interpretation.” On the “natural
attitude” (perhaps it would have been better termed “naturalist stance,” borrowing
some terminology from the art world), see Schutz and Luckmann, Structure of the
Life-World.
16 anthony j. blasi
which drives scientific inquiry, is the product of the habitual actions

of the “I.” Thus the very wish to apply scientific procedures to reli-
gion, or to any other matter of inquiry, does not itself arise while
following methodological rules.
In the conduct of comparisons, the impact of biographical every-
day life is to be found not only in the focus on religion in general
as a matter of inquiry but also in answering the question as to which
religious phenomena are to be compared with which others. Given
the number of scholars in religious studies, there is no reason to
expect any “main stream” to select the same phenomena for com-
parison or, if agreeing upon a set of instances, to conduct the com-
parisons in the same way. As in most human inquiries, the quest
for a “unified science” is a chimera. That is not because the com-
parative enterprise is itself a chimera but because it is possible.
CHAPTER TWO
QUESTIONS OF JUDGMENT IN COMPARATIVE

RELIGIOUS STUDIES
George Weckman
I propose here a practical approach to the comparison of religions

in the classroom. For those of us who teach courses on various reli-
gions, theory becomes practice in front of a group of students. The
tone, intention, and framework of teaching methods are as impor-
tant in this context as fact, consistency, and scholarship. The big
problem is how to present and discuss religious matters in ways that
are appropriate to the personal, existential, and political context of
students and faculty. Hence this meditation on how to be fair in
comparative comments, i.e. how to compare judiciously rather than
judgmentally.
The Historical Factor
The term “comparative” as an adjective to describe and name a

kind of study of religions is widely used in common parlance, but
it has been much criticized in scholarly circles. For the general pub-
lic it means that someone is studying more than one religious tra-
dition and that such a person inevitably notices similarities and
differences among them. Scholarly criticism, however, has assumed
that there are hidden agendas behind such comparisons, ulterior
motives which are negatively judgmental. This suspicion was war-
ranted in the past.
In a recent book, Following Muhammad, devoted as much to method-
ological issues as to Islam, Carl W. Ernst asserts that the concept of
comparative religion “in part arose in Protestant seminaries to answer
the question, Which religion is better?” He adds that early in the
last century it “shifted into a less missionary and more theoretical
attempt to understand common structures that may be found in
18 george weckman
many traditions.”1 In light of this shift, one must ask: Does the stain
of condescension and proselytism remain today with the term and/or
the practice of ‘comparison’—does the name and the practice still
imply superiority?
The late Ninian Smart was shy of the term “comparative” too.
In his introductory textbook Worldviews he notes that “a strange divi-
sion arose between religious scholars who belonged largely to Christian
faculties of theology or divinity schools, and scholars engaged in the
comparative study of religion.” The latter dealt with non-Christian
religions because it was thought “that Christianity is unique and can-
not seriously be compared to other religions.” He says that it was
not until the 1960s that the modern study of religions began to look
“at Christianity, too, as a ‘world religion’.” Nevertheless he concludes
his discussion by affirming that “the whole enterprise of crosscultural
understanding is comparative.”2 The first issue to resolve, therefore,
is the lingering aura of favoritism in religion studies when the term
“comparative” is used. It may be that the term is too tainted and
must be abandoned. The practice, however, would seem to be
inevitable.
Religious Judgmentalism
There are a number of faults to avoid. One is using a category

which is too big or complex. That is the main problem in the gross
category of religion from which the judgmentalism of previous gen-
erations arose. There are too many factors in a religious tradition
or situation to make a simple comparative judgment. It resembles
the position of the child who condemns all vegetables without dis-
criminating between beets, spinach, and peas.
Historically, we have had to concede, the study of other religions
has been rooted in comparing inferior religions to one’s own supe-
rior religious position, whether this study bore the name “compar-
ative” or not. But can one compare anything else to one’s own
choices without assuming that one has chosen wisely and that other
options have been appropriately rejected? The issue we face, there-
fore, is whether one can be a fair and unbiased comparativist at all.
1
Ernst, Following Muhammad, p. 48.
2
Smart, Worldviews, pp. 15, 16.
questions of judgment in comparative religious studies 19
Those of us who studied in the shadow of Joachim Wach (directly

or posthumously through his student, Joseph Kitagawa) had little or
no apprehension about “comparative.” One of Wach’s books on
methodology was called The Comparative Study of Religions. In it he
deals very positively with the uses and methods of comparison. Among
other issues, however, he is concerned with the relationship of the
scholar’s role and the believer’s, and wishes to be respectful of the
latter while promoting the former. Many of his generation of reli-
gion professors were explicitly both believers and scholars, so he
argued that “it is not true that in order to exalt your own faith you
must hate and denigrate those of another faith.”3 There is a per-
spective which religious scholars must learn, expressed famously by
Robert Burns: to see ourselves as others see us. Imagination or mir-
ror, aided by the accounts of ourselves by others, puts us in the
same category as our foreign and ancient subjects. We understand
them as we try to understand ourselves.
I wrote an article many years ago with a good title (however weak
the content): “Believing Myth as Myth.”4 In this title I tried to pro-
mote the complex intellectual phenomenon of accepting one’s own
belief in the terms used by others. Those who say my sacred sto-
ries and beliefs are myths might be believers in other stories or ana-
lysts antagonistic to all religious belief. This believing myth as myth
perspective is not easy to acquire or ever completely accomplished,
but one can attempt it and achieve some measure of objectivity,
especially with a sense of humor. Seeing oneself and the whole human
condition in cool, dispassionate light can be both amusing and illu-
minating. This does not ruin religious belief and practice, at least
for some of us.
Secular Judgmentalism
Wach was suspicious of the presumption of a scholarly detachment,

finding “something pathetic about the modern historian of religion
who uses strong words only when he wants to convince us that he
3
Wach, Comparative Study of Religions, p. 9.
4
Gibbs and Stevenson (eds.), Myth and the Crisis of Historical Consciousness, pp.
97–107.
20 george weckman
has no convictions.”5 This raises the postmodernist objection that no

one is objective and impartial, even the “modern” social scientist.
Wach knew that it is not only believers who compare other religious
options unfavorably to their own; the modernist hostile critic does
so also. But most to be pitied or criticized, he said, is a “skepticism
and playful intellectuality” of “unlimited relativism.” I think he had
in mind the antiquarian or curiosity seeker who viewed religions with
supreme condescension. Wach was willing instead to settle for what
he called a “relative objectivity.” “Emotions and passions do play a
legitimate role in religion. It is precisely here that . . . the best
justification for the comparative study of religions can and must be
found.”6
This leaves us, I think, with modesty and self-consciousness in the
attempt to compare religious phenomena. We admit that all cate-
gories, comparisons, and judgments are tentative and partial. As
Jonathan Smith put it, the historian of religion “submits to a life-
long sentence of ambiguity.”7 All our observation is affected by our
preconceptions, and all our reflection is grounded in our deep intel-
lectual commitments and historical situations. Therefore, all com-
parison will incorporate our values. The task is to be reflective and
self-conscious enough to bring these features to our and our audi-
ence’s attention as much as possible in all our thought, speech, and
writing. Aware of this limitation on ideal objectivity, we may pro-
ceed to try to understand human religiosity, in particulars and in
generalities.
I suspect that this modesty about one’s data, interpretations, and
conclusions is the real heart of the post-modern critique. Too much
might have been made of the presumed confidence of previous gen-
erations of scholars, the modernists. Is it not probable that they
assumed that their descriptions and interpretive categories were ten-
tative and theoretical? If they did not, they stand condemned. In
any event, it is often helpful to use their categories and comments,
no matter how egregious their presumption to objective truth. Complete
jettisoning of past scholarship on religions is hardly necessary. I agree
with Jonathan Smith’s position, summarized in the editors’ preface
5
6
7
In Patton and Ray (eds.), A Magic Still Dwells, p. 24.
to A Magic Still Dwells, that “we may take issue with our modernist
forbears without embracing the rhetoric of certain of our postmod-
ernist contemporaries.”8
As I suggested earlier, it may well be that the study of religions
cannot usefully be called “Comparative Religion” today. Nevertheless,
the methodology of comparison is inevitable and beneficial. The trick
will be avoiding pitfalls such as the presumed superiority of one,
especially one’s own, religion. This does not mean, however, that
value judgments can or should be avoided. How these judgments
can be made judiciously and helpfully is the second theme of the
comparative methodology I wish to present here.
Making Judgments
I like Wach’s rhetorical question, “Does a ruby or an emerald sparkle

less if called a jewel?”9 Names and categories are clearly different
kinds of things from the things that they name and categorize. These
intellectual processes or “second-order” activities are clearly different
from that stuff of the world and human life which they organize in
our thought. Comparisons inevitably use such second-order cate-
gories. It is fruitful (pun intended) to compare apples and oranges
precisely if and when they are understood as two examples of the
category fruit.
It should be obvious that comparison should use comparables.
Examples of the same kind of religious thing should be compared,
as with jewels or fruit. An insidious kind of judgmentalism occurs
when the ideals of one religion are compared to the realities of
another. This happens because observers see the practices of a reli-
gious group more easily than their intentions. In one’s own religion
one is more focused on the ideals of the good than the failures in
practice. One also more readily ascribes honesty and forgiveness to
oneself and one’s group, while often suspecting the foreigner of duplic-
ity and hypocrisy.
To avoid this sad situation one should take care to examine the
categories of comparison to make sure that the same kinds of things
8
Patton and Ray (eds.), A Magic Still Dwells, p. 4.
9
22 george weckman
are being compared. Returning to the jewel example, one must ana-
lyze and reflect on one’s conception of jewelness. Are there simply
better or worse jewels? Or can a judgment be determined more pre-
cisely? We need to see whether and how the emerald might be
thought to be a better jewel than the ruby.
If value in jewelness is based on or measured by color brilliance,
the emerald has more jewelness and is therefore better, than the
ruby, while the reverse judgment would result from color saturation
as a determinant. Note that the blank statement of one jewel’s supe-
riority to the other hides the presumed value upon which the judg-
ment has been made. Once that measure of value is explicit, the
process of evaluation may or may not proceed to favoring one scale
of value over another. Therefore, one might reasonably end up say-
ing: because I take greater pleasure in color brilliance, I value the
emerald more than the ruby, admitting that others may favor color
saturation and come to the alternative conclusion.
A problem is brought to mind by the fruit example. “Fruit” in
botanical analysis refers to seed-bearing parts of plants. This differs
from culinary usage that both limits the seed-bearing plant products
to the edible ones and expands it to include seedless plant parts. At
the same time, “fruit” can be a different culinary category from “veg-
etable” if the latter includes only leaves, roots, and other non-seed-
bearing parts of plants. And then there is the confusion about tomatoes,
on which the cook and the botanist part ways. The moral of these
reflections on jewels and fruits, again, is the warning to examine
one’s categories and values in comparison.
Judgment in Terminology
Another kind of problematic judgment can be made in comparative

studies when names for categories have negative connotations. Many
a teacher has tried to convince students that “myth” does not mean
“false” but rather “sacred story.” We often feel like Sisyphus work-
ing uphill when we try to argue against common usage—usage that
is exactly the opposite of the desired meaning. The ancient Greeks
started this by naming their own questionable legends or foreign
sacred stories “myths.” They were judgmental comparativists. If we
want to discuss or compare various myths we might try to find
another name for that category of narrative. We also need another
term for “magic,” and for the same reason. Magic was defined by
James George Frazer as an alternative to religion. For him it was
practical and proto-scientific. For the average person it is associated
with trickery and entertainment. Can it ever appropriately or effectively
be used for ritual practice which is believed to be effective ex opere
operato? If the comparativist teacher uses this term a not so subtle
put-down of sacramental theologies is justifiably suspected.
Obviously one should be suspicious when the pejorative word is
used of some religious traditions and not of others or one’s own. Do
some religions tell myths and practice magic while others do not?
Do we taint some historical accounts by putting them in the cate-
gory of myth; do we foreclose on some rituals if we stress their pre-
sumed effectiveness in changing the world? I would suggest a reflexive
glance at favored or unlikely applications of such negative termi-
nology as a way of demonstrating the ubiquity of such phenomena.
In the comparative study of myths and magic modern and popular
examples should be included. My favorite example of mythology is
the lore around George Washington, and for magic, astrology. Yet
other examples, especially Christian in most U.S. classrooms, can
serve to adjust and expand the potentially judgmental terminology.
In discussions of morality, a quick comparison judgment is often
called “prejudice.” As with “myth” and “magic,” “prejudice” is the
negative term for something that can have a more positive name.
When a prejudice is justified and helpful in understanding it is bet-
ter named a “generalization.” As such it is an inevitable feature of
abstract thought. Items of thought must be categorized, often in var-
ious ways, or else they remain unusable. The point at which such
generalization deserves to be condemned as prejudice changes for
each person as generalizations become indicators of lazy thinking,
obvious contradiction, or cruel intention. Instead of wholesale gen-
eralizations one needs specific summaries of specific information, to
whatever extent that is possible.
Comparative Structures
Daniel Brown, in his New Introduction to Islam, raises the issue of gen-
eralizations about Islam in the face of so many different islams. Using
the analogy of a language, he promotes the notion that even a large
religious tradition will have a common vocabulary, a kind of grammar,
24 george weckman
and a recognized shared heritage.10 If we think of our comparisons

as comparisons of the grammatical structures of religions, we base
the analysis on the relationship of elements, not on the elements
themselves. Comparing symbol systems is not very presumptuous
because it does not foreclose on the myriad sentences which can be
spoken in these various languages. That is, it does not presume to
compare ideas or practices but how they are related to each other
in each system.
An example of such a grammatical structure in religions is the
process of salvation. Many, but not all, religious traditions offer a
solution to some presumed dissatisfaction, so one can set up a sote-
riological structure by which to compare the special content of each
tradition. Each religious tradition will promote its particular analy-
sis of each of the following elements in the structure of salvation:
1) the problem or deficiency in human life, 2) the agent or agency
of aid, 3) the actions or thoughts prescribed or necessary, and 4) the
goal or resolution in this life or another.
Scholars of Hinduism often describe the varieties of that widely
variable tradition in terms of the margas or paths salvation available
within Indian literature and practice. Klaus Klostermaier’s survey of
Hinduism devotes a third of its pages to the three most prominent
paths.11 These are the paths of works (karma), of knowledge ( jnana),
and of loving devotion (bhakti). The path of works, for example,
focuses on 1) the twin problems of impurity and the desire for sta-
tus and merit. One is helped in overcoming these problems by 2)
observing Vedic texts, preserving social roles, and the services of
brahman priests. Prescribed actions are 3) rituals (samskaras), ethical
activity (dharma), and asceticism (tapas). The reward is 4) becoming
a complete being and providing blessings for one’s descendents.
The other Hindu paths can be similarly analyzed in this pattern.
The pattern can be spelled out in Christian or Muslim terms but
only the pattern or structure is similar. Abrahamic religions tend to
identify the problem with 1) sin or disobedience, vary in how much
aid can be given by 2) God or society (from intercession to atone-
ment), prescribe 3) more or less ritual-ethical activity, and generally
promise 4) heavenly reward.
10
Brown, New Introduction to Islam, p. xii.
11
Klostermaier, Survey of Hinduism, pp. 151–305.
Of course this pattern constitutes a gross oversimplification of sal-

vations, but it is very useful when beginning a study of Hinduism
and other religions with prominent salvation systems. It emphasizes
the variety in cultures and religions by illustrating how diverse each
item in the pattern can be, while at the same time providing a struc-
ture for comparison. One should not, however, force this structure
onto any and all religions or parts thereof. This is not a universal
pattern.
Conclusion
It is my conviction that good classroom teaching in the field of reli-

gions will continue to be comparative, no matter what the theoret-
ical hazards. Comparison within categories simply is the best and
most natural way to present material. We build our knowledge, our
pictures of the world, moving from the familiar to the new. The first
step is saying that the new is similar in some way to something in
our previous experience. The next step, of course, is the recognition
that this new item is not exactly like our point of reference. And so
our knowledge grows and becomes ever more complex. If this is the
process of learning, the comparative method is essential. It needs,
however, constant adjustment and modification. It is, after all, just
a tool or set of tools for intellectual investigation, not truth itself.
CHAPTER THREE
THE ROLE OF THE AUTHORITATIVE IN THE

COMPARATIVE PROCESS
David Cave
This paper evaluates the role of the authoritative in the compara-

tive process. It asks the questions, “What is the role of the author-
itative when we compare one religion or aspect of a religion with
another religion or aspect?” “And, how do authoritative claims facil-
itate and impede comparison?”
On September 11, 2001, the United States witnessed a tragic
wake-up call that demonstrated the power that can be unleashed
when someone has defined your identity as evil. The terrorists were
comparativists. They, in their comparison, drew upon an authority
of absolutism to identify their target, give rationale to their actions—
at least for themselves and for those who agreed with their world-
view—and embolden their resolve in what they were about to
undertake. Comparison is at the basis of knowledge. It is also at the
basis of faith, action, and, if not practiced with humility, of destruc-
tion.1 Not all destructions resulting from faulty comparison need be
violent. There can be more benign destructions that trivialize or
patronize the Other, thereby destroying the integrity of the Other.
I do not aim to explore how we can prevent either malignant or
benign destructions of the Other from misguided comparisons. What
I am interested in is how we should account for authority, for that
which is taken as unquestioned, when we do compare one religion
with another.
1
Charles Kimball refers to the way absolutist truth claims perpetuate evil acts,
in his When Religion Becomes Evil. Jessica Stern, terrorism expert at Harvard University,
describes how young people come to accept leaders and claims as authoritative,
unquestionably buying into them to the point where these young people are will-
ing to strap bombs to their chest to kill themselves and others. See her Terror in
the Name of God.
28 david cave
I argue that it is important for us to identify and respect what

the believers take as authoritative. For in this way we get at what
is most consequential for them and we, in turn, make the compar-
ative enterprise itself of consequence. Whether as an insider or as
an outsider to the religious tradition, the scholar allows the claims
of the tradition to be authoritative for her. This approach enables
her to approximate the impact that the authority has upon the believ-
ers. Moreover, this approach only strengthens the voice, hence the
authority, of the scholar in the believers’ eyes. Then, once having
identified the authoritative and its significance, the scholar, now speak-
ing to the academy, may peel back the curtain to see what lies
behind the authority, as the dog did to the Great Wizard in the
film “The Wizard of Oz,” and explore the context that gives rise
to the authority and the staging that upholds it.
What is Meant by Authority?
First, what do we mean by authority? Common understandings asso-

ciate it with the power of an office, the charisma of an individual,
the possessor of specialized knowledge or of a skill, or the holder of
critical experience or practical expertise.2 Authority is also associated
with tradition and the prevailing moral order, what the protestors
of the 1960s spoke against. Authority is also applied to tyrants and
to the state when either or both banishes individual rights and free-
doms.3 Church historians and theologians refer to the divine author-
ity of the Church and its special revelation, unbeholden to reason.
Each of these, according to Bruce Lincoln in his study on author-
ity, presumes that authority is a quality that a person or an institu-
tion either has or does not; that authority is an “entity.”4
The above prevailing views of authority, says Lincoln, can be
reduced to two broad categories: “epistemic” and “executive” (which
I will also label as the institutional). Epistemic authority refers to the
possession of privileged knowledge or information or of a special skill
2
Ward, Religion and Revelation, pp. 304–06.
3
Lincoln, Authority, pp. 1–2.
4
Lincoln, Authority, pp. 116–17. Lincoln argues, however, that authority is not
an “entity,” but an “effect,” which I will speak to below.
the role of the authoritative in the comparative 29
(such as technical experts, scholars, specialists of all kinds). Executive

or institutional authority refers to persons or institutions who are
thought to be “in” or “have” authority (political leaders, parents,
military commanders, the church, the office of the presidency).5
Whether the authority is thought to be due to a superior form of
knowledge, understanding, insight, skill or experience, or thought to
be invested either by divine right or tradition, Lincoln says that
authority is based on or sets up an a-symmetric relationship between
a speaker (the holder of authority) and an audience (the one under
authority), where the audience is in a dependent relationship to the
speaker, dependent in knowledge, power, custom, insight, or expe-
rience and expertise.
In referring to the relationship as between a speaker and an audi-
ence, Lincoln frames the definition of authority around speech, deriv-
ing authority from its original meaning, found in Roman legal
discourse, as auctoritas, a “word used with many different shades of
meaning, usually in connection with the capacity to perform a speech
act that exerts a force on its hearers greater than that of simple
influence, but less than that of a command,” says Lincoln.6 What
the speaker says is taken to be right and to be trusted. Because the
speaker is trusted, the speaker is able to bring about an effect merely
by the influence of its authority. What is important, here, Lincoln
points out, is that the speaker, the one possessing authority, does not
need to persuade or coerce the audience in order to get the audi-
ence to act or think in a certain way. To use a simple example: a
father tells his son to clean his room and the son obeys, because,
by the father’s authority, the father says so. The father did not have
to persuade the son on the merits of a clean room or instill fear or
pain to get the child to do it. The son, respecting the father, fol-
lowed through. If persuasion or coercion is resorted to, says Lincoln,
the father gives up or loses authority. He puts himself as an equal
(“I must convince you why a clean room is good.”) or, if in using
force, as the weaker by resorting to superior strength to get the son
to act (“I will spank you if you do not clean your room.”). The abil-
ity and potential to use argument or force is there, but authority,
5
Lincoln, Authority, p. 4.
6
30 david cave
when present, is able to produce an effect without having to resort

to argument or force.7 The son may respect the father’s authority
out of fear or out of trust in the father’s better judgment. Either
way, regardless upon what the authority is based, argument or force
restrained is authority exercised.
As Lincoln defines it, therefore, authority is “an effect (and the
perceived capacity to produce an effect) that is operative within
strongly asymmetric relations of speaker and audience.”8 This rela-
tionship is built on the audience trusting the speaker, whereby the
audience knows that the speaker has the potential to exercise per-
suasion or force or both if so chosen. Adds Lincoln, authority “per-
mits . . . speakers to command not just the attention but the confidence,
respect, and trust of their audience, or—an important proviso—to
make audiences act as if this were so.”9 The audience may be led
to give their “confidence, respect, and trust” even if they may not
actually have such for the speaker. In other words, authority can be
illusory. All that is necessary is that it achieves the desired effect:
that the audience allows what the speaker says to be so. Authority,
therefore, has “the capacity to produce consequential speech, quelling
doubts and winning the trust of the audiences whom they engage,”
says Lincoln.10
Because authority relies on its capacity to command trust and
respect, it is not surprising that it makes use of a “whole theatrical
array of gestures, demeanors, costumes, props, and stage devices
through which one may impress . . . an audience,” adds Lincoln.11
Authority is as much the creation and maintenance of perception as
it is to possess solid content. The staging of authority, putting on a
semblance of having physical power, superior knowledge or skill, or
of having divine legitimacy, each and all serve to convince or impress
an audience that the speaker possesses authority. Says the anthro-
pologist David Kertzer, “authority, the belief that a person has the
right to exercise influence over others’ behavior, is itself an abstrac-
tion, and people can conceive of who has authority and who does
7
8
9
10
Lincoln, Authority.
11
not only through symbols and rituals.”12 So, for Catholics, the Pope
need not speak in order for him to get respect. The pageantry, the
vestments, St. Peters, are enough to communicate authority. For
Protestants, the Bible need not be opened or heard to be perceived
as having authority. Its gold leaf pages, abnormally large size, place-
ment on the pulpit with a bookmark parament, all communicate
authoritativeness. The Guru Granth Sahib, the sacred book of the
Sikhs, in the Golden Temple at Amritsar, is wakened, fanned, and
put to bed each day, legitimizing its authoritativeness for Sikhs.13
The Pope, the Bible, the Granth Sahib do not have the same level
of authoritativeness, if at all, to an outsider as they do to a Catholic,
Protestant, and Sikh, respectively. Even then, the authoritativeness
of the Pope is conditional to certain Catholics, and Protestants dis-
agree among themselves on the inerrancy of the Bible. What or who
is deemed an authority, therefore, is relative to a specific audience.
The audience has a role in determining authority as much as the
quality and theatrics of the speaker.
Turning now from defining authority generally to defining reli-
gious authority specifically, Lincoln says what makes authority reli-
gious authority is when the claims to truth lie outside the human
realm.
Religious claims are the means by which certain objects, places, speak-
ers, and speech-acts are invested with an authority, the source of which
lies outside the human. That is, these claims create the appearance
that their authorization comes from a realm beyond history, society,
and politics, beyond the terrain in which interested and situated actors
struggle over scarce resources,” and so, these claims are “beyond the
possibility of contestation.14
Religious claims appeal to the highest form of epistemic and exec-
utive authority. By basing its claims outside the human realm, the
pronouncements of religious authority can never be tested, and its
executive authority is removed from being questioned: “Who is this
12
Kertzer, Ritual, Politics, and Power, p. 24.
13
One can see this staging in the non-religious, political realm of Mao Zedong,
when, with his leadership challenged, he solidified his authority through various cal-
culated moves to remind the working class of his peasant upbringing and sacrifices
on their behalf. See Spence, Mao Zedong, pp. 93–95.
14
32 david cave
that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”, asks God of

Job ( Job 38:2). Religion makes truth claims which are non-falsifiable
and which believers take as trustworthy, to the degree that they are
willing to base their actions upon them. One need not have absolute
certainty in these claims, just enough “practical certainty” to take
them as legitimate.15
It is not only the explicitly religious that assumes a transcendent
authority. Marxists, without appealing to the divine, have their own
form of ‘transcendent” when they give unequivocal assent to the his-
torical, dialectical process, says Lincoln. Nationalism, too, is a “tran-
scendent” when its authority is meant to be “interpreted but never
ignored or rejected.”16 To the degree that an ideology appeals to a
transcendent truth claim, it becomes “religious.”
Because religious claims are not obvious to all—not being obliged
as they are to act in accordance with nature or be accountable to
“history, society, and politics,” needing only to operate within their
own system17—religious authority is arbitrary. Religious claims need
not be so by logical necessity. They are just chosen to be so. Though
they may be forged over time, resonate with how the world is thought
to be, and speak to peoples’ deepest emotions, passions, and visions,
religious claims, nevertheless, are mediated intuitions and second-
order propositions. They are the creation of a particular imagina-
tion. Certain people create, accept, and give legitimacy to certain
things.
It is this arbitrariness that constitutes religious claims and con-
fronts people for a decision. Reason alone cannot bring one to accept
the Qur’an as the literal speech of God, that Amida Buddha resides
in the Pure Land, that God created the world, and that Confucian
ritual aligns society with the way of Heaven. At some point, to be
a follower of a religion, one has to accept and choose the truth
claim, to buy into the authority. One has to accept that “there is
no God but God and Mohammed is his prophet,” if one is to be
a Muslim. The authoritative discourse of the Qur’an in the sha-
hadah demands either a “yes” or “no” choice. For a Hindu, the
Vedas are to be authoritative, and for a religious Jew, the Torah.
15
Ward, Religion and Revelation, p. 8.
16
Lincoln, Holy Terrors, pp. 6, 111 n. 16.
17
Lincoln, Authority, p. 112 and Ward, Religion and Revelation, pp. 10–11.
The Qur’an, the Vedas, the Torah can be taken authoritatively as

divine speech or for the paradigmatic values they provide.18 In either
case, whether as divine speech or as definers of boundaries and pre-
servers of tradition, their authority is arbitrary and poses a decision
to all who encounter them on whether to accept and choose them
as authoritative or not.
The truth claims of religion constitute religion’s authoritative dis-
course, says Lincoln. They are the rationale religious adherents give
for the way the world is and the directive for how they should act
in it. This authoritative discourse is subsequently transmitted through
the various dimensions of religion, which Bruce Lincoln has identified
as—“discourse,” “practice,” “community,” and “institution.” Religion
involves 1) a “discourse whose concerns transcend the human, tem-
poral, and contingent,” and “that claims for itself a similarly tran-
scendent status.” The discourse is religious not simply by virtue of
its content, but also for its claims to authority and truth. A claim
to “transcendent authority,” be it to a divine source or to ancestral
or scriptural authority, makes the claim religious, says Lincoln.
Religious discourse, by virtue of its “metadiscursive capacity to frame
the way any content will be received and regarded,”19 can make
anything take on religious or sacred authority; 2) a “set of practices
whose goal is to produce a proper world and/or proper human sub-
jects, as defined by a religious discourse to which these practices are
connected.” “No practices,” he adds, “are inherently religious, and
any may acquire a religious character when connected to a religious
discourse that constitutes them as such;” 3) a “community whose mem-
bers construct their identity with reference to a religious discourse
and its attendant practices.” And he adds, “those who revere the
same texts (whether written or oral), adhere to the same precepts
(taken from those texts and their commentaries), and engage in the
same set of practices (grounded in texts and precepts) have a great
deal in common;” and 4) an “institution that regulates discourse, prac-
tices, and community, reproducing them over time and modifying
them as necessary, while asserting their eternal validity and tran-
scendent value.”20
18
Holdrege, Veda and Torah, p. 2.
19
Lincoln, Holy Terrors, pp. 5–6.
20
Lincoln, Holy Terrors, pp. 6–7.
34 david cave
Even when in certain societies, such as in the United States, where

there is, by law, a separation of religious authority from the work-
ings of business, politics, economics, and civil and criminal law, the
authority of religious discourse nevertheless manages to permeate and
influence “practices,” “communities,” and “institutions” throughout
society. President Bush’s appeal to scripture and to certain conserv-
ative theologies in the shaping of his foreign policy, attests to the
permeation of the authority of (a certain kind of ) Christian discourse
into the political sphere.21
The Authoritative in the Comparative Process
Let us now look at how the role of authority is at play in the act
of comparison, asking ourselves first how authority and comparison
tie together generally and then turning to the example of compar-
ing the authoritativeness of scripture.
As stated earlier, we cannot know something except through com-
parison. “Comparison is a fundamental element of human rational-
ity,” says Robert Neville, giving justification for the “Comparative
Religious Ideas Project,” a three-year project devoted to comparing
religious ideas, across Chinese, Buddhist, Islamic, Jewish, and Christian
traditions.22 Most people compare implicitly. Comparativists are more
deliberate, methodical, programmatic, and self-conscious in the act
of comparison. Comparison in this case centers around four princi-
pal components: motive (why compare? What larger ends do we
want to advance?); material (what religious data do we compare?
And upon what sources and people do we rely?); method (how do
we do it? What assumptions do we address, steps do we take?); and
21
See Lincoln’s chapter “Symmetric Dualisms: Bush and Bin Laden on October
7” in Holy Terrors and see also, Phillips, American Dynasty, pp. 230–33.
22
See Neville (ed.), Religious Truth, p. 204, and the other two volumes of the pro-
ject, both also edited by Robert Neville. The Human Condition, and Ultimate Realities.
See also Barbara Holdrege’s reference to Jonathan Z. Smith’s comments on the
limits yet inevitability of comparison as a means of knowledge. Four types of com-
parison are identified: ethnographic, encyclopedic, morphological, evolutionary, nei-
ther of which, according to Smith, is adequate however. Holdrege, Veda and Torah,
pp. 19–21. For the original essay by Smith on comparison, “In Comparison a
Magic Dwells,” and discussions in response to its assertions on comparison, see A
Magic Still Dwells, Patton and Ray, eds.
subject (what specifically do we want to learn? clarify? advance?).23

The comparative enterprise is persistently self-conscious and experi-
ential. It is not just a mental exercise, but, whether as “objective”
scholars or as subjective believers, it is a participatory exercise, for,
when undertaken honestly, one cannot separate oneself from the
process and its implications.24
Persistent within each of the above components of the act of com-
parison, is the issue of authority. Regarding motive—is the purpose
of my comparison to establish or uphold the prominence of my posi-
tion? Or is the motive to trust the pursuit of truth as paramount?25
Regarding material—whose voice(s) do we draw upon? What are the
principal texts and sources that we must identify and refer to?
Regarding method—how do we take the truth claims of the religion
we study, and what the believers say about them? To what degree
do we respect their voice and assumptions? Regarding subject—what
is indeed the, or one of the, core elements of the religion or con-
cept with which we are to compare? What is most authoritative?
And what is subordinate, secondary in the system that makes up a
religion’s, a person’s, a community’s world?26
23
Sharpe. Comparative Religion, p. 2. Also see Neville, Ultimate Realties on the four
points that comparison must take into account: 1) “Comparison requires under-
standing all sides to be compared in their own terms,” 2) “Comparison is more
than assembling accurate representations of the things to be compared; like a ‘third
term’ it says how the things relate to one another, how they are similar and different,”
3) “Comparisons are claims that aim to be true in what they assert about the rela-
tions among religious ideas and they need to be grounded in processes that test
them according to relevant criteria,” and 4) “Claims to the truth of comparisons
ought not fade in the face of critical qualifications but should amend themselves as
improved,”
pp. 190–191.
24
See Brooks, “Taking Sides and Opening Doors,” pp. 817–830.
25
Eric Sharpe says that, historically, comparative religion has been used to advance
three purposes: apologetic, to show that all religions are fulfilled in Christianity; for
a perennial philosophy, to show the unity of all religions; and for anthropologi-
cal/ethnological reasons, to show the differences and similarities of cultures. Sharpe,
Comparative Religion, pp. 265–66. See also Lincoln in Holy Terrors on how compara-
tive religion can be used to exercise dominance of one religion/culture/civilization
over another for destructive ends, p. 82.
26
The thematic issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion on Hinduism
specifically addresses these questions on the relation between authority and the study
of religion, or, in this case, Hinduism. Vol. 68, 4 (December 2000). On this last
point, “subject,” see Haq, “Human Condition in Islam,” pp. 160–61, in which Haq
refers to looking for the “proper parts” of a religion, so as to make comparison
between two religions less ambiguous. Says he, “In comparisons . . . we must first
36 david cave
To learn about the concept of authority, Bruce Lincoln engages

in his own comparative exercise, looking at three historical exam-
ples sufficiently close to our cultural tradition yet far enough away
to gain the necessary perspective: the assembly (agore) of the Homeric
Greeks, the Roman Senate, and the Germanic Thing,27 each a place
where authority was exercised and where it was challenged. He draws
on texts which “enjoyed considerable authority within the societies
that produced them, that is, their audiences put their trust in these
accounts and listened to them attentively, permitting their words to
act on them.”28
But in order to get a fair understanding of how these texts acted
authoritatively in their contexts, Lincoln regarded the texts as author-
itative for him, too. Says he,
I am willing to grant these same texts a certain degree of authority
at second hand and make use of them, not for the recovery of ‘actual
events,’ but for the elucidation of what authority was and how it oper-
ated within these societies. I trust that these texts said things which
their audiences found credible and which we may therefore take to
reflect with some accuracy the sociopolitical processes and authority
effects with which those people were familiar.29
Lincoln’s treatment brings out an important point in the compara-
tive process: to get at what really is consequential, one must get at
and respect the integrity of that which is unequivocal, uncompro-
misable, indeed, irreducible—in other words, authoritative—in the
tradition being studied. Only in this way will we be able to approach
the impact of an idea, a person, a ritual, a symbol etc. in the life
of the community under comparison.
Identifying the authority in order to get at the most authentic
voice for the religion or aspect under study, was addressed in a the-
matic issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, devoted
to the question “Who speaks for Hinduism?”30 The question, “Who
examine how two given elements from two given systems function within the sys-
tem to which they each belong, and whether they each form a proper part of that
system; only then will we be in a position to compare them meaningfully.”
27
Lincoln, Authority, 12. The Germanic, or Norse, Thing, was a place or institu-
tion in Scandinavian society where legal disputes were brought for resolution,
p. 56.
28
Lincoln, Authority.
29
Lincoln, Authority.
30
See above n. 26.
speaks for . . .?” is laden with methodological tensions at the heart

of how we study religion, and, for our purposes, for how we com-
pare religions. It draws out the tensions between the “confessional”
and “objective” approaches to the study and comparison of religions,
between “theological and social scientific methodologies,” between
the “phenomenological claim to ‘irreducibility’ of the object of study
and reductionism in its many forms,” and between “teaching reli-
gion and teaching ‘about religion’.”31
The range of responses to the complex question, “Who speaks for
Hinduism?,” are more than what this paper aims to raise. However,
I do wish to refer to the article by Douglas Brooks, “Taking Sides
and Opening Doors: Authority and Integrity in the Academy’s
Hinduism.”32
Brooks says that whether it is as a practitioner of a religion look-
ing out or a scholar of the religion looking in, it is the audience
who establishes and tests the authoritorial integrity of the speaker.
Says he,
The question ‘Who speaks for Hinduism?’ belongs as much to schol-
ars as it does to Hindus. It is the selected audience who creates the authority
of whomever is doing the speaking, and that audience undoubtedly has its
own dynamic, history, agenda, and bias. Authority so ‘delegated’ is a
moving target as much as we might like to believe that truths endure
and untruths eventually fail or vanish. Further, a person may speak
with more than one agenda, or for more than one audience, or for
multiple reasons. In our zeal to speak the truth or present the evi-
dence, we need to remember that scholarship is not a religion antag-
onistic to religion. The same person may speak with authority or with
multiple agendas in any number of different settings. The point is sim-
ply that people are held accountable within each context, sometimes
by very different criteria and standards. The consequences of a schol-
arly viewpoint may be as offensive to some religious people as any
other dissonant or disagreeable view.33
The audience, according to Brooks, is the authority. The audience
determines what is legitimate and correct. This location of author-
ity in the audience instead of in the speaker appears to flip the
31
Caldwell and Smith, “Who Speaks for Hinduism?”, in Journal . . ., p. 706.
32
Brooks, in Journal . . . p. 120.
33
Brooks, Journal . . ., p. 822. Italics mine.
38 david cave
a-symmetrical relationship set by Lincoln, who says it is the speaker

who is the authority. In reality, Lincoln and Brooks say the same
thing. For in order for the speaker to have authority, the audience
must grant it. Thus, when I study the iconic role of sacred texts by
comparing the Qur’an with the Lotus Sutra, two texts people need
not understand or even read for the texts to have an effect upon
Muslims and Mahayanists, respectively, I respect the integrity of
Muslim and Mahayanist believers who are willing to grant author-
ity to the Qur’an and Lotus Sutra to hold sway over them, to effect
them.
So the believers, the rationale they give for taking the Qur’an and
the Lotus Sutra as authoritative for them, must be respected by the
scholar. The scholar is in an a-symmetric relationship to the believ-
ers; for the scholar grants authority to the believers. The scholar as
audience gives authority to the believers, as speaker. For the scholar
to reduce the rationale of believers for why they take the Qur’an
and the Lotus Sutra as authoritative to that which they do not rec-
ognize—to psychology, sociology, politics, etc.—is not to take their
rationale as authoritative. The audience (the scholar), in effect, denies
the speaker (the believers) authority. As such, the scholar weakens
the integrity of the believers and also weakens the impact that the
Qur’an and the Lotus Sutra is seen to have on the Muslim and
Mahayanist, respectively, and, conceivably, on the scholar herself.
The believers’ rationale, however, is, nevertheless, put within the
historical, and socio-political context of the believers, so as to approach
more closely the authentic significance and meaning of the believ-
ers’ understanding. The way in which a Muslim youngster in a
madrasa (Islamic school) takes the Qur’an as iconic is different from
the way a Shia takes it when he commemorates the murder of
Husayn.
To state the various speaker/audience relationships addressed here,
the following can be identified: a) there is the authority of the Qur’an
and the Lotus Sutra for their respective believers. The Qur’an and
the Lotus Sutra are the speakers; those who honor and follow them
are the believers, the audience. The believers trust in the texts as
authoritative for them; b) then there are the believers who are the
speakers and the scholar is the audience. The scholar trusts, respects,
honors the authority, the integrity, the rationale of the believers; c)
then there is the context. The context is taken as authoritative by
the scholar, for it gives meaning, authenticity, to what the believers
say. The scholar trusts the voice of the context in order to carry
out valid comparisons between differing sets of believers; d) then
there is the scholar, who is the speaker, and his authority comes, or
is given to him, by the audience. The authority of the audience
bears upon the scholar; for should the scholar disqualify the ratio-
nale of the believers, reduce it to what the audience does not rec-
ognize, the scholar loses her voice, her authority to speak for the
tradition. The scholar gains authority as speaker when the scholar,
the comparativist, honors the authority of the believers; scholar and
believers, speaker and audience operate in a mutually reflexive manner.
It seems, therefore, that in the comparative enterprise, in the act
of comparing one aspect in a religion with the same aspect in another
religion to come to a greater understanding of a vaguer category,
that those who are speaking authoritatively for the religion will have
their words taken at face value (hence the truth claims are not ques-
tioned), but at the same time their words will be evaluated against
the context to which they are being applied, in order that the aspects
being compared are placed in their proper contexts, and, thus, receive
their appropriate and authentic meaning.34 This anchoring of the
speaker’s words in context is not to demand that the speaker per-
suade the audience, which, in Lincoln’s words, would reduce the
speaker’s authoritorial status. It is just that the audience, the con-
text, now as authoritative, is respected for what makes for relevant
or appropriate or contextually authentic speech. Comparison is not
unilateral, but a dialogue between two authorities, between speaker
and audience.
To see how authority relates to the comparative process, it may
be best to walk through the comparative process to see where it
comes into play.
When we compare, we take an aspect or category of religion and
look at how that aspect or category is found in another religion.
Then, from studying how these aspects or categories compare and
contrast, we shed light on a broader, encompassing third variable
that we wish to understand better.
In the “Comparative Religious Ideas Project,” to which I have
referred, Robert Neville and Wesley Wildman define comparison this
way:
34
Refer again to Nomanul Haq. See footnote 26.
40 david cave
The shortest possible version of our conception of comparison is the

following. In any comparison, the things compared are compared in
some respect. The ‘respect of comparison’ is a vague category. So, for
instance, to compare religious traditions or texts in respect of what
they say about the human condition is to treat the human condition
as a vague category that is made specific in different ways by what
the traditions or their representatives say about it.35
The project takes three purposely “vague” concepts in religious stud-
ies—the Human Condition, Religious Truth, and Ultimate Realities—
and, comparing what the Chinese, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Islamic,
and Christian traditions have to say about these concepts, seeks to
arrive at a fuller understanding of these concepts. The authors of
each tradition draw upon core texts in the religious tradition. Whether
the author is a believer or not, in either case the author takes author-
itatively what the tradition, or the texts, have to say about these
concepts. That is, the comparativist takes as trustworthy what the
texts and adherents have to say about this concept. The compara-
tivist does not need to be persuaded by the claims of the texts, by
what the text might say about the human condition, for example.
In fact, she should not expect the claims to persuade her necessar-
ily, for the claims are arbitrary; they get their rationale and legiti-
macy within the context of its particular religious tradition.
The “Comparative Religious Ideas Project” focuses on philosoph-
ical and theological ideas. The same need to respect authority applies
if the comparative process were to center on more concrete con-
cepts of a tradition, such as initiation, ritual, sacrifice, priesthood,
divination, sacred space and time, etc. Whatever the category com-
pared, it is important to take as authoritative that category or con-
cept as it exists in each of the traditions compared, in order to have
a rightful equation. So, to compare, say, the significance of scrip-
ture for affecting human action in Christianity and Islam, it is a
false equation to accept the Bible as the word of God in Christianity
but take the Qur’an as the product of Mohammed: the Bible is given
transcendent legitimation while the Qur’an is taken as a historical
creation, a cultural artifact for establishing Arab unity. The words
of the Bible are taken as untainted by human machinations for
35
Neville and Wildman, Religious Truth, p. 4.
power; whereas the Qur’an is taken as the product of human and,

therefore, flawed motivations.36
For the comparativist, not to take as authoritative what the audi-
ence regards as authoritative—that both the Qur’an and the Bible
are divine discourses—but, instead, to explain either or both as a
historical, sociological, or psychological product, is to, in Lincoln’s
terms, turn the authority into an argument, to take it to the level
of persuasion. As a result, the comparativist minimizes the arbi-
trariness of the religious claims, thus diminishing the impact, the
consequence, the challenge that the authority makes upon one. To
take away the authority, the arbitrariness, is to reduce that category,
that expression in the religious tradition, to something else, to some-
thing that is persuasive to the outsider. The comparativist, in short,
is made the authority, as the one who governs the rationale, the dis-
course, on what is truly so.
Within a religious tradition, however, the locus of authority is not
the same for everyone. The divide between those who have a more
open view of canon and tradition from those whose view is more
closed, suggests a difference of where the authority resides. For
Christians or Muslims who are open to taking the authoritativeness
of the Bible and the Qur’an, respectively, out of the realm of the
divine and placing it within the human realm, the authoritative is
still there; it is just not placed outside the human realm. The arbi-
trariness and consequentialness of authority in the within-the-human-
realm position can still be there, in like manner as the arbitrary
claims of myth arise from its blurred historical origins: “we have
always done it this way from time immemorial.” The comparativist,
therefore, is to be attuned to the kind of audience she is studying
and to the audience’s presuppositions for what they perceive as
authoritative.
So, if the Qur’an is taken as a human product by a particular
group of Muslims, an audience within Christianity that takes the
Bible as a human product must be found. From there, having a bal-
anced equation, the comparativist can see the effect of the Bible and
the Qur’an as paradigmatic and transcendent—albeit not divine—
36
Wilfred Cantwell Smith probes the assumptions of believers and scholars on
the provenance of the Qur’an and the Bible in his essay, “Is the Qur’an the World
of God?” in Smith, Religious Diversity.
42 david cave
authorities for the discourse, practices, community, and institutions

of a particular group of Christians and Muslims. Whether as a divine
or human product, the Bible and the Qur’an are authorities from
which the adherents of Christianity and Islam get their meaning.
Moreover, the authority establishes the hierarchy against which less
important components or texts in Islam and Christianity are ranked.
“The scriptures of certain traditions are ranked according to their
level of spiritual authority,” says Barbara Holdrege.37 And adds, “in
such cases the primary criterion for ranking is generally an onto-
logical distinction in which those scriptures that are held to be a
divine revelation or direct cognition of reality are ranked as most
sacred and authoritative, above scriptures that were composed by
inspired human authors.”38
The team of scholars in the “Comparative Religious Ideas Project,”
focus on the principal texts of each tradition as a way to arrive at
(the) core positions in the religion studied, and thus at what is author-
itative. Indeed, one of the objectives of comparison is to separate
the important from the trivial.39 Not to arrive at the authoritative is
to weaken the comparative enterprise and the capacity for it to yield
significant comparisons. By its very definition, authority is conse-
quential. It does not need to persuade or coerce. It is effectual sim-
ply by being taken as it expresses itself. Wrestle with it and you get
at the heart of the matter.
By focusing on the authoritative, however, that does not mean
that we cannot and do not compare lesser components in the hier-
archy. It is only that comparing the lesser yields less than substan-
tial change, dialogue, and progress. Of course, we often must start
with lesser aspects, the more peripheral, before we move to the
authoritative; but we should at least be moving in the direction of
the authoritative.
For instance, if we intend to study the iconic nature of sacred
texts, posing the question, “Why are sacred texts, using the Qur’an,
the Bible, and the Lotus Sutra, as examples, capable of being author-
37
Holdrege, “The Bride of Israel,” in Levering, ed. Rethinking Scripture, p. 182.
38
Holdrege, “The Bride of Israel.” She adds that this ranking does not always
hold in practice. p. 240, n. 3.
39
Neville, Religious Truths, p. 3.
itative for those within a tradition without every having been read,
understood, or even opened? That is, what is the material significance
of sacred texts?”, we would not get much insight if we merely, and
straightaway, said, “Because believers claim these texts to be of divine
origin.” It would be more insightful and productive if we first stud-
ied the perceptions of text, writing, codices, and canon, etc. in the
history of the tradition before moving to the texts’ divine prove-
nance, to the rationale most believers would give for these texts’
authoritative status.
On the other hand, it is better at times to go straightaway to what
is preponderant in a tradition, passing over secondary components,
if we are to get at the authoritative, at the most consequential. Wendy
Doniger, in comparing Western to Indian views of myth and dreams,
draws on “the most dramatic (and often the most extreme) antithe-
sis within each culture.”40 For, she adds, “to show the contrast between
what most people think and what philosophers think, not only in the
West but in India, and . . . to show the contrast between what most
people think in India and what most people think in the West . . . one
is necessarily led to concentrate on the famous Western credos,”41
that is, on what is most broadly authoritative.
Focusing on sacred texts in the comparative process is an oft chosen
way to look for the authoritative in a given religious tradition.42
Miriam Levering identifies four ways by which scriptures or sacred
texts are distinguished from all other texts within a tradition, thus
qualifying them as authoritative: Scriptures are authoritative, 1) for
the allegations made about their origin and ontological status. “. . . they
are believed to be revealed by transhuman powers, to convey eter-
nal truths, or to replicate the speech of the gods;” 2) for their func-
tional purposes: “they are used as normative or authoritative bases
for communal life . . .;” 3) for how they are regarded: “they are
treated as ‘sacred,’ that is, powerful and inviolable;” 4) for the way
they are received: for the way “people respond to the texts, the uses
they make of them, the contexts in which they turn to them, their
understandings of what it is to read them, or to understand them,
40
Doniger O’Flaherty. Dreams, Illusions and Other Realities, p. 9.
41
Doniger O’Flaherty, Dreams, Illusions and Other Realities.
42
That is why the Comparative Religious Ideas Project chose to focus on the
principal scriptures of the traditions being studied. Neville, Religious Truths, xviii.
44 david cave
and the roles they find such words and texts can have in their reli-
gious projects.”43
Sacred texts can also transmit their authority through their iconic
status as a material object. The Qur’an, the Lotus Sutra, the Torah,
Veda, the Bible, the Guru Granth Sahib, have expressed iconic sta-
tus throughout history. The texts need not be read, understood, even
opened to convey authority.44
Within and among religious traditions, there are, in addition, other
or different authoritative “texts,” particularly when we consider non-
literate cultures. Aside from the oral tradition, Larry Sullivan refers
to other non-textual transmitters of authority—such as music, canoe
making, pottery, house construction, dreams, weeping, sounds and
shadows, and the human body.45 Determining the locus of author-
ity within a religious tradition is part of the comparative process as
we try to find the most compatible vocabulary and components
between two religions. So, for instance, as a center of authority, it
is more accurate to equate the Qur’an with Jesus and the Hadith
with the New Testament than it is to equate the Qur’an with the
Bible and Jesus with Mohammed.46
When we compare religious texts, then, we evaluate their author-
itativeness and look at how the perception of their authoritativeness
has been upheld in the respective tradition. We also look at how
43
Levering, “Scripture and its Reception,” in Levering, Rethinking Scripture, pp.
58–59. It is not merely the content, then, which makes the sacred text authorita-
tive, but how the text functions within the community. Barbara Holdrege makes
this point strongly in her Veda and Torah, by emphasizing scripture’s “cosmological
dimension,” meaning that scripture gets its authority for how it “embodies” the
divine as a “living aspect,” and also, on a more mundane level, for how it articu-
lates the structure of reality, the order of society and its performances, through the
“divine language” of the text. Holdrege, Veda and Torah, pp. 16–17. The text is
authoritative for what it represents and constructs, not so much for what it says or
who happened to have “written” it. Holdrege wants to move away from the text
simply as holy writ and as oral, pp. 3–5.
44
We find this iconic status in Buddhism well expressed in the following guide,
found in the back of a book on Tibetan Buddhism that advises the reader on the
care of Dharma books: “Dharma books contain the teachings of the Buddha; they
have the power to protect against lower rebirth and to point the way to liberation.
Therefore, they should be treated with respect—kept off the floor and places where
people sit or walk—and not stepped over. They should be covered or protected for
transporting and kept in a high, clean place separate from more ‘mundane’ mate-
rials,” and continues, Dalai Lama, World of Tibetan Buddhism.
45
Sullivan, “Seeking an End to the Primary Text,” in Beyond the Classics?, Reynolds
and Burkhalter eds., p. 58.
46
Smith, Religious Diversity, p. 24.
that authoritativeness has permeated the tradition, in its ritual, art

and architecture, soteriology, ethics, perceptions of the Other, etc.
By comparing sacred texts, one of the most identifiable centers of
authority within a tradition, we get at, not just at what is core to
the religion, but at the supporting structures that give and uphold
the texts as authoritative and the effect of these texts throughout and
upon the tradition.
As it has been stated, whenever we deal with the authoritative,
our comparison of religions becomes more fruitful. There will always
be authorities within the religions studied and within our own posi-
tion. Authority is the platform upon which ideas and values rest,
from which they spring into new ideas and values, and upon which
confidences in judgment are based. To rely on authority does not
mean there are no more open-ended questions, that the book has
somehow been closed, as in the boundedness of canon. Rather,
authority, while always there, is not always there in the same way.
Texts, practices, institutions, discourses, all travel within and among
traditions, across and through time. In so doing, they become different.
Comparable to what Edward Said said about theories, that, though
they may dissipate in their relevance as they travel to different con-
texts, only to be revitalized and reframed by their engagement with
new social and political conditions,47 so do authorities come out re-
styled and revised, but still definable in their general parameters, as
they come into new settings and face new comparative strategies,
hence the importance that dialogue and comparison have and the
anchoring of authority in its context. The Pope is a different author-
itative figure in the United States than he is in Italy. The story of
the Buddha’s enlightment took on different degrees and expressions
of authoritativeness as it traveled from India to Japan.
When we come up against authorities in the comparative process,
we must not get stuck over truth claims or butt truth claims against
each other—“the Bible is of God; the Qur’an is not.”48 Instead, our
orientation should be one of empathy, of standing back to see the
authority in its network of relationships. Positioning authority this
way takes it out of its naked, blunt isolationism and puts it instead
47
Said, “Traveling Theory,” in Edward Said Reader, Bayoumi and Rubin, eds.,
pp. 195ff.
48
See Smith’s essay on this polarization, “Is the Qur’an the Word of God?” in
Smith, Religious Diversity.
46 david cave
into a family of associations, which serves to show its interrelated-

ness, interdependence, and place, for without these associations it
would not be anchored in history, but would be an abstraction,
wholly other—thus beyond our capacity to understand it.49 It would
be alien.
Whenever and however an authority is contextualized, it is impor-
tant to recognize that when we draw out a tradition’s authority or
authorities, we are addressing that which, for the fact that the author-
ity permeates multiple components of the tradition, envelops the
adherent in a network of meaning, emotions, actions, and historical
associations involving discourse, rituals, beliefs, moods, personal and
corporate traditions, visions and reflections, and questions of ethics
and boundaries. There is much that swirls around a practitioner’s
authority. There is a whole range of emotions, perspectives, experi-
ences, beliefs and practices linked to it. I realized this network of
emotive and conceptual associations that come attached to an author-
ity when I was talking with a colleague who could not grasp that I
do not regard Christianity as the preeminent religion. As I explored
the implications of some of his tenets (his authorities), which, to some
degree he was willing to modify, he soon realized that by modify-
ing these tenets one by one the religious orientation he had held for
a number of years began to be, in his view, dismantled. Naturally
feeling uncomfortable with that dismantling, he turned to me, wan-
dering if I had any authority (-ies) of my own, and asked if I at
least held to the authority of a belief in God. This exchange demon-
strated to me not how and that we are to dismantle an adherent’s
authority, but how it is that when comparison is undertaken, par-
ticularly when confessional stances come into play, people bring a
whole emotive, epistemic, and historical body of associations to the
table that must be taken into account when evaluating the conse-
quential impact of their authoritative structure.50
49
Jonathan Z. Smith frames the issue as when religious phenomena are claimed
to be “unique.” See his study, Drudgery Divine, p. 35ff.
50
Rene Gothoni, writing on the comparative enterprise, speaks of the network
of associations that come into play when one seeks to understand a religious ori-
entation, and when comparing another religion with it. So when he studies Jewish
and Buddhist monks, he aims as much as possible, using a range of tools, to enter
into their world, and determine how he feels within in, and, if he would, to remain
in it, Attitudes and Interpretations, pp. 38–41.
Keith Ward refers to a belief system’s authoritative structures as

“basic principles.” “Basic principles” serve as the “practical certain-
ties” needed to live out a meaningful and workable belief system, in
an otherwise uncertain world. Says Keith Ward,
It is difficult to lay out the conditions under which one may be justifiably
certain . . . One’s whole outlook in philosophy, morality, art, and reli-
gion tends to be governed by some basic principles, from which more particular
judgments are derived, in conjunction with particular experiential beliefs.
When one gets back to such basic principles it is hard to see what
they, in turn, could be derived from. Philosophers tend to argue for
them in terms of such criteria as the richness, adequacy, and fruitful-
ness of the conceptual schemes which they generate. Such criteria are
themselves disputable, however, and so it often turns out that one will
accept a scheme if it is a workable framework which one has learned
from an early age and if its foundational principles seem simple and
persuasive, and so not raise great problems when applied to the data
of experience. Such principles will be certain, in that they form the basis of a
whole scheme; they are the framework within which one thinks and acts in these
areas. They are not unquestionable, but if one questions them one is questioning
a whole system of particular judgments, not merely some isolated particular judgment.51
Ward says these “principles,” these authorities, are not unquestion-
able. But they just as well might be for the epistemic and experi-
ential load they carry, that if questioned, could destabilize the whole
system.52 “If you hold down one thing you hold down the adjoin-
ing,” says Saul Bellow’s Augie March, implying the interconnection
of things.53
Through comparison it is possible to draw out the authoritative
structures behind a religion’s belief system, way of practice, community
and religious institutions, those elements in a religion by which the
practitioners conceptualize a workable and experientially affirming
worldview.54 That is why dialogue, “structured empathy,”55 and the
willingness to be “penetrated” by the other,56 to have the demands
51
Ward, Religion and Revelation, p. 8. Italics Mine.
52
Bruce Lincoln speaks of the inherent precariousness of authority that gets its
validation from religious truth claims. For if a religious truth claim is undercut, the
legitimacy of the authority is undermined. Lincoln, Authority, p. 113.
53
Bellow, Adventures of Augie March, p. 3.
54
Smith, “Comparative Religion,” in History of Religions, Eliade and Kitagawa,
eds., p. 48.
55
Smart, Worldviews, p. 20.
56
Brooks in Journal, p. 818, and Neville and Wildman, in Religious Truths, p. 205.
48 david cave
of the text, of the authority, to act upon the scholar, are so critical
in the comparative process. It is not that we are to buy into truth
claims (for that is beyond the province of the history of religions).
Rather, the authoritative, in acting upon us, can help us come to a
new understanding of our own experience, of our own categories,
and of the vocabulary we use. The comparative process, Neville and
Wildman remind us, is ongoing. It is a circular path of even more
refined and probing understandings.57
There are problematics with focusing on the authority. By zero-
ing in on the authoritative we may not be sufficiently prepared to
deal with it meaningfully. It is approached with less than a full quiver
of appropriate methodologies, facts, and perspectives. We get over-
whelmed. It is too unwieldy. So our efforts become futile and frus-
trating. If we were to compare the Qur’an with the Lotus Sutra on
the subject of the text as a symbol, an icon, a material, self-authen-
ticating authoritative source within a religious tradition, it does not
serve to go straight to comparing the Qur’an as the literal word of
God and the Lotus Sutra as the embodiment of the Divine Law.
To compare at this level is to take on the authorities straight out,
to deal squarely with what is uncompromising. Instead, we can look
first at the ways each text has been expressed within its tradition,
how each has been upheld as authoritative, and the references in
the text that sustain this view. The Qur’an says three hundred times
that it is a text to be recited.58 The Lotus Sutra says that one is to
“accept, uphold, read, and recite” it, “memorize it correctly, prac-
tice and transcribe it . . .”59 So in the Nara and Heian periods in
Japan, it was the most copied Buddhist text of any other.60 Comparing
the way in which the Qur’an and the Lotus Sutra articulated their
authoritativeness through cultural means, rather than by comparing
whether and how they are true in the metaphysical sense, enables
the comparative process to deal with each text as an authority, show-
ing how authoritativeness is articulated through culture.
57
Neville, Religious Truths, p. 4.
58
See Graham’s essay, “Earliest Meaning of Qur’an,” in which he says that the
earliest meaning of the Qur’an is that which was meant to be recited “aloud,” such
that the “recurring imperative Qul!, “Say,” occurs three hundred times; in, Qur’an,
Style and Contents, p. 165.
59
The Lotus Sutra. Trans. by Watson, p. 323.
60
Kornicki, Book in Japan, pp. 83, 87.
Moreover, a problematic with focusing on the authoritative is that

it can put us up against obstacles, intransigence. Because the author-
itative is held unquestionably, we can potentially engage in a fruit-
less comparative enterprise, going nowhere, because there is no room
for analysis, self-analysis, or compromise. There is no desire to move
toward a synthesized new understanding; each side claims its author-
ity as the absolute truth. Comparison becomes not to advance knowl-
edge but to state positions, to make threats, or to close discussion
into retreat. Authority becomes obstructionist.
Another problematic is to mix authority with persuasion or coer-
cion. That is, one side settles into persuasion and reductionism while
the other sticks with the authority as authoritative, not reducing it
to something else. If two religions or aspects are compared phe-
nomenologically, that is, taking the believer’s point of view, then the
believer’s point of view of each religion must be respected. If a reduc-
tionistic explanation is resorted to, such as explaining a phenome-
non sociologically, then the sociological method must be applied to
both religions. Phenomenology and reductionism need not be antag-
onistic to each other, says Arvind Sharma. They can complement
and supplement each other.61 The important point is to keep the
terms of engagement equal.
Similarly, there can hardly be fruitful comparison if one religion
or aspect overrides the other, aiming to be the dominant position,
without there being any compromise, or adjustment for moving for-
ward. It is easy for an authoritative position, because it is authori-
tative, to monopolize and dominant, to coerce. This coercion, or
patronization, can happen when one position, religion, or aspect is
claimed to be unique while the other position, religion, or aspect is
taken to be conventional.
The purpose of comparison, in the end, is to advance knowledge,
to help us come to a better understanding of a particular religious
idea, to find how two religious positions might address a particular
human problem, to refine a methodology and a vocabulary, and to
enrich our spiritual and creative lives, among other objectives. All
involve moving forward in some way, not just to compare and con-
trast for the purpose of defining each side’s position—though that is
61
Sharma, “What is Reductionism?” in Religion and Reductionism, Idinopulos and
Yonan, eds., p. 137.
50 david cave
a valuable preliminary step. It is in dealing with that which is defined

as authoritative, and respecting it as authoritative, as trustworthy and
consequential, that the act of comparison itself becomes consequen-
tial, for the advancement of knowledge and for our own develop-
ment. In our world today, of too many authorities (violently) confronting
each other, it is important that we learn how to understand and
engage with the authoritative in a way that leads to the enrichment,
not the destruction, of the human community.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE MOTHERING PRINCIPLE IN THE COMPARISON

OF RELIGIONS
. . . a matured comparative method is as much con-

cerned with determining where comparisons should
not be made as with drawing conclusions from
comparisons instituted.
—Morris Jastrow
The Study of Religion (1902)
Comparing religions is a dangerous business best avoided. This is

true for a number of reasons. The religious people I have known,
the truly religious (rarely professors of religious studies), do not com-
pare religion to anything, much less to another religion which they
would almost certainly find deficient when compared to their own.1
Kierkegaard spoke of religious truth as “subjectivity” and made a
point of saying, “practice your faith and keep quiet about it.” The
implication: for better or worse the study of religion, including the
comparison of different religions, is an intellectual endeavor carried-
out by people who need not have any practical religious faith of
their own.2
Recently, without explanation, Miami University’s Department of
Religion (in which I teach) renamed itself the Department of
Comparative Religion. The name change seems to bestow a certain
scientific or social scientific status and prestige on my department.
Yet we offer no courses in comparative religion per se and what
courses we offer on religious studies methodology fall short of “com-
parative religion.”
1
See Sharpe, Comparative Religion and Bouquet, Comparative Religion.
2
This point of keeping quiet about one’s religious faith is stressed by Kierkegaard
in Fear and Trembling and Concluding Unscientific Postscript.
52 thomas athanasius idinopulos
This brings me to a point; the phrase, “comparative religion,” if

it means anything should mean comparing actual religions. Yet any-
one who has struggled for years to master the elements of one or
two religions, cannot but see comparing different religions as a task
fraught with peril. Max Müller, commenting on the complex demands
of religion scholarship, wrote: “He who knows one religion, knows
none.”3 Most of us would respond by admitting we know none. And
in truth we know none because there is so much to learn. After all
any living religion continues to live, grow, and change, long after
we’ve read books about that religion. Therefore, there are always
more books to read and write. The known dead or defunct religions,
like Mithraism, about which there could be fixed knowledge, are few
in number.
The problem of knowledge is compounded when the task of com-
parison assumes knowledge of more than a dozen religions. Who
among us can speak of knowing even a half-dozen different religions
which could be brought into some meaningful and legitimate (not
superficial and bogus) comparison? In this respect consider a sim-
ple, accurate definition of religion offered to us by Samuel Sandmel.
In his brief and also bright book, We Jews and Jesus, Sandmel writes:
“A religion is . . . a complex of more than just theological viewpoints,
for a religion has its own tone and texture which arise from its his-
tory, its group experience, its mores and norms, and even its folk-
ways.”4 Assuming Sandmel’s definition and then moving to compare
the theology, tone and texture, the history of group experience, the
mores and norms and folkways, and doing all this of a living and
changing religion—of not only one religion but of two or three—
well then (I ask) who has time to talk or read the newspaper? Nobody
knew this better than Sir James George Frazer, who (if the anec-
dote can be trusted) had written into his marriage contract that the
only days he need be absent from his study were Christmas and
Easter.5
We commonly try to short-circuit the problem of our humanly
limited knowledge by focusing on a set of questions or considera-
3
Müller, Introduction to the Science of Religion, cited in Sharpe, Comparative Religion,
p. 31.
4
Sandmel, We Jews and Jesus, p. 111.
5
This anecdote was related to me by my colleague Wayne Elzey, Professor of
Comparative Religion, Miami University of Ohio.
the mothering principle in the comparison of religions 53
tions stated beforehand and applied to the religions under compar-

ative scrutiny. This “short-circuiting” usually takes one of two forms.
The first is the pedestrian way of approaching religion as a matter
of comparing the belief-contents of different religions, using the famil-
iar formula: “Buddhists believe . . . Christians believe . . . Hindus
believe . . . Jews believe. . . .” Of course there is no problem to draw
up lists of different religious beliefs or teachings and compare the lists.
What such lists have to do with actually comparing religions is uncer-
tain, and in my opinion the comparison invites superficiality and mis-
understanding. For the belief-content of any given religion is only one
aspect of the religion, and not necessarily the most important aspect.
The second way of short-circuiting knowledge is the pseudo-phe-
nomenological practice of identifying certain religious patterns and
comparing religions by the way in which these patterns are exemplified.
For example, take the “pattern” of pilgrimage. One could examine
Judaism or Christianity or Hinduism by the way in which pilgrim-
age is exemplified in that religion. This approach is more sophisti-
cated because it does not limit itself to a narrowly intellectual (“What
is believed”) approach and seems to reach out to the “mores and
norms and folkways” of religion.
But I refer to this as the pseudo-phenomenological approach
because the “phenomenon” under scrutiny is not an element of an
actual religion (something both particular and complex) but rather
the artificially constructed category labeled “pilgrimage.” The weak-
ness of this approach (what justifies calling it “pseudo-phenomenol-
ogy”) lies in that what appears to be an historical-empirical approach
to religious practice and expression, is actually a covert form of ide-
alism or dogmatism. Consider, for example, the so-called “sacred
tree” pattern; it is pre-selected by the scholar and then employed as
a form by which to render intelligible a given religion and to facil-
itate the comparison of one religion to another. Whether that form
or pattern actually renders religion and the comparison of religions
intelligible is not a matter decided by empirical-historical investiga-
tion. The fact that “sacred tree” appears in one or more religion
gives the impression that this form must appear in every religion.
Intelligibility seems to be decided formally, according to the terms
of the schema. In other words, religion’s intelligibility appears to be
dogmatically decided by schematic fiat.
In addition to the problem of knowledge there is the problem of
sameness and differences. We can agree that sameness tells us little
or nothing and that without differences and comparison of differences,

we would know little.6 Having said that let us here agree to some
common-sense logical truisms. Totally dissimilar things cannot be
compared because there is no basis of comparison. A wholly unique
religion certainly cannot be compared with another wholly unique
religion. But there is no wholly unique religion or anything else
wholly unique that falls within the limits of knowledge. Yet we do
use the word “unique” with meaning. We do so because we can
acknowledge uniqueness without diminishing the qualities of same-
ness and differences. We can best illustrate this point by referring
to art.
No one doubts that it makes sense to refer to a given work of art
as unique whether the artist is famous or unknown, expert or ama-
teur. Uniqueness or “one-of-a-kindness” attaches to a work of art
because it came from the mind and hands, from creative endeavor,
of a particular individual—an artist. Uniqueness bears the hallmarks
of origination or originality. It is also true that we can discuss a
unique piece of art work in terms of the elements that entered into
its creation; these elements are formal: the use of light, color, shad-
ing, tone, composition, perspective, depiction, mood, effects, and a
host of others. The “originality” of a given work of art has to do
with how uniquely the formal elements are wielded by the artist. My
point is that the necessary presence of these formal elements in any
and every work of art, however unique or original the example,
makes the comparison of art works possible. If uniqueness in art
bestows something of the mysterious, the ineffable, then the formal
elements of artistic creation provide the intelligible or comparable
and knowable dimensions of art. What is compared is not the art
work qua uniqueness but the art work qua comparableness.
To apply my point to religion through the analogy to art, I should
say that religion has both its unique, mysterious, incomparable aspects,
and its formal or formalistic elements that render religion intelligi-
ble as religion and make comparison among different religions pos-
sible. We can organize the formalistic elements around such binaries
as: power and powerlessness; matter and spirit; revelation and his-
6
On classifying as an inevitable method of rendering religion rationally intelli-
gible see Smith, Drudgery Divine, especially chapter two; and Jastrow, The Study of
Religion, p. 94.
tory; eternity and time; prophecy and priesthood; infinite and finite;
knowledge and ignorance; error and truth; sin and salvation; divine
and human; location and dislocation; sacred and profane. I should
say that religion is recognizable as religion and that religions (which
are otherwise unique in their content) can be compared as to same-
ness and differences according to how these binaries actually have
shaped the contents of any given religion. An understanding of these
binaries in religion would be achieved empirically, through descrip-
tion of the actual practices of the religion. My approach to religion
here is genuinely phenomenological in combining both historical-
empirical (descriptive) and interpretive functions of inquiry. The methods
of such an inquiry must include epoche (as Joachim Wach talked about
it) and the pursuit of eidetic vision or intuitive sense of the whole
as shown in the works of M. Eliade and G. van der Leeuw.7
Further it seems to me that there need be no quarrel in religious
study between area studies specialists and religious studies compar-
ativists because both endeavors are basically descriptive. I would sug-
gest that more adequate comparison of religion is possible the more
one knows empirically about religions. This means that area studies
logically should precede comparison as “data” upon which the com-
parativist draws. What is to be avoided is methodological imperial-
ism, as I would call it. Methodological imperialism occurs when a
scholar presumes to stand above religions, personally committed to
none, and “value-free,” when the scholar presumes to decide which
religion best exemplifies the formal elements. Imperialism occurs
when, for example, “spirit” or “sacred” or “infinite” goes beyond a
descriptive category of meaning and becomes a controlling value in
an evolutionary schema of religions.
II
If religion is the voice of humanity speaking, then humanity speaks

in many voices.8 Anyone trying to understand the emergence of
Christianity out of Judaism, and of Islam out of both Judaism and
Christianity, will appreciate that religion, certainly monotheistic reli-
7
See Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion; Van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and
Manifestation; Wach, Sociology of Religion; and Long, Significations.
8
See Bouquet, Comparative Religion.
gion, is humanity speaking in many voices. The reason has to do

with the richly complex and layered structure of religion, which
includes, history, culture, geography, economics, politics, the past,
the present, and future time. We can gain a sense of the immense
complexity of religion by recognizing, for example, that the emer-
gence of Christianity out of Judaism had less to do with the fact
that Jesus was a Jew than the process by which Jesus was divinized
in the period following his death. Without that process of diviniza-
tion the fellowship that gathered around Jesus would have amounted
to little more than one of the many Jewish sects that arose in first
century Roman-governed Palestine and then died out with the exe-
cution of their leaders (see below my essay on the emergence of
Christianity from Judaism). The act of comparing Judaism and
Christianity requires us to go beyond the consideration of merely
formal elements like the belief contents of the two religions into an
inquiry about how Christianity emerged as a religion out of Judaism,
and how Judaism continued to be a religion separate and distinct
from Christianity. A formal statement of the differences and simi-
larities of belief among Jews and Christians does not touch on the
central question of the emergence of one religion from the other.
Understanding the historical process of emergence is crucial to any
useful comparison of religions.
Recognizing the sheer difficulty of gaining adequate knowledge to
make comparisons forces us to take seriously the limits of compari-
son itself. Nothing is to be gained by ignoring the historical context
in which a religion is born, grows, and continues to develop. The
most fruitful comparisons of religions are those in which the histor-
ical context is respected. This means that every religion has a mother.
Judaism mothered Christianity; Judaism and Christianity together
mothered Islam. Comparing Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as three
exemplifications of ethical monotheism, points usefully to sameness
and differences, continuities and discontinuities, between these three
religions. On the other hand one should not suppose that any use-
ful comparison can be made by comparing a religion of ethical
monotheism to the religions of Hinduism and Buddhism. The absence
of historical context and the absence of a mothering principle remove
the ground of comparison. The absence of such a ground exposes
the vacuity of such old expressions as “world religions.” The only
authentic world religions are those which have shaped their message
and mission to appeal to adherents across ethnic or national lines.
In that respect, whereas Christianity and Buddhism and Islam because

of the international or non-national factor are world religions; Judaism
(the religion of Jews) and Hinduism (the religion of Hindustanis) are
technically not “world religions.”
The evolution of one religion out of another is a complicated,
protracted, painful, and wondrous event, like human birth. Such an
event could not have occurred if the impetus for separation were
not there in the mother religion. The daughter need not have found
fault with the mother. No failing need be assumed in the birth of
one religion from another. The birth of the new may be attribut-
able to an inspired leader, to a fresh insight, to a revelation of some
sort, to the discovery of a novel way to tackle a common human
problem—or to some combination of these stimuli. The important
point to be made here is that every religion has a maternal ground,
a maternal ground that includes language, place, and time. The
understanding of the evolution of the new from the pre-existing
maternal ground must take all these factors into account.
So it is that I conclude that one of the most important tasks in
the comparison of religions is to study the birth process for the sake
of understanding how the new and the old are connected, each to
the other. These “connections” between religions are properly the
subject of comparative religion studies. E. O. James, writing of the
emergence of religion itself, well understands the importance of dis-
cerning these “connections.” After identifying birth and fertility, the
food supply, and the seasonal sequence—death and the afterlife as
the “foundations” out of which the ancient gods assumed their sev-
eral forms and functions, James speaks of the achieved goal of the
comparative task: “From these foundations the subsequent course of
development and diffusion has been traced and the interconnection
and correspondence between various elements in this complex and
widespread structure of faith and practice have been determined.”9
9
See the preface of James, The Ancient Gods.
CHAPTER FIVE
THEATERS OF WORLDMAKING BEHAVIORS:

PANHUMAN CONTEXTS FOR COMPARATIVE RELIGION
William E. Paden
The plea for radical contextualization in the study of religion has

had its therapeutic necessity and effects. Yet the study of religion
without connective, generalizing concepts only yields sets of unre-
lated data, with no continuity from one culture to another. For the
postmodernist, there is little noticed about what recurs in human
behavior, because human behavior is itself one of the suspect cate-
gories: Whose notions of human behaviors? Which humans are the
models for human behavior? What is the social class, gender, or polit-
ical orientation of the person who is describing human behavior and
of the persons being described? To many, the notion of compara-
bility seems simply not to have survived the erosive effect of these
deconstructive interrogations.
The challenge to comparability is genuine enough. Essentialist cat-
egories need to be exposed, cultural biases shaken, and religion needs
to be seen as something real people do and not just as a floating
topic. This is not to say that the topical approach is all wrong: The
classical comparative study of religion did well to put the matter of
recurring forms of myth and ritual on the table. Still, this brought
problems of comparability, since comparativists seemed to be illus-
trating the meaning of those forms with examples deeply embedded
in culture-specific significations. If one starts with culturally formed
ideas taken from religious vocabularies it is hard to do stable com-
parative work unless one self-consciously chooses to compare cross-
cultural materials with clearly admitted cultural prototypes.1
1
As described by Saler, in Conceptualizing Religion. Methodological issues of apply-
ing religious concepts to different historical cultures are examined in depth in the
three-volume Comparative Religious Ideas Project, ed. by Robert Cummings Neville
and published by the State University of New York Press (2001).
60 william e. paden
In this essay I propose that panhuman behavioral dispositions and

functions, and not just religious topics, would be a good place to
look for some bases of comparability. Panhuman can refer to what
recurs cross-culturally, and it can also refer to evolved, species-specific,
genetic dispositions for certain kinds of behavior, particularly our
capacities for sociality. Without trying to adjudicate exactly what is
cultural (or “learned”) and what is biological (or inherited genetic
wiring), I do think that there are ways of construing patterns of reli-
gious worldmaking such that they can be shown to correlate gener-
ally with evolved biological or cognitive tendencies—that is, with our
common organic ancestry. In this paper, then, I explore a model
that can constitute a productive, mediating bridgework between our
subject matter and the human sciences.2 Practitioners of the natural
sciences would be amazed to find that postmodern humanities folks
find nothing to compare between human cultures, considering that
those cultures are all invented and sustained by the same species. I
have also found this interpretive model3—to be developed below—
a useful way, though not the only way, of contextualizing the post-
theological study of religion in the contemporary, secular classroom.
2
This essay extends and amplifies an earlier sketch of these points published as
“Universals Revisited,” 276–289, and anticipates a book-length treatment of the
subject. I have been much inspired in this by Burkert’s ground-breaking Creation of
the Sacred. Earlier influences included Fox’s work on “behavioral repertoires” and
“grammars of behavior,” as in The Search for Society, 20ff., 116ff.; and Lopreato,
Human Nature and Biocultural Evolution. Most books on human ethology, though, have
little to say specifically about religion, for example, Eibl-Eibesfeldt’s immense com-
pilation, Human Ethology. An exception is Hinde’s Why Gods Persist. The newer “cog-
nition and religion” movement is of course also related to this approach, as in
Atran’s In Gods We Trust, or Boyer’s Religion Explained, though they and other cog-
nitivists focus more on the level of psychological computation and inference than
on behavior. Although concentrating on explanatory issues, and thus different than
my focus on comparative patterns, Sweek also calls for an ethological approach to
religion in “Biology of Religion,” 196–218. An excellent overview of developments
as they might concern the field of religious studies, is Geertz, “Cognitive Approaches
to the Study of Religion,” 347–400.
3
I use the term “interpretive” deliberately. I do not enter into the huge jungle
of scientific debates about the relative role of culture or learning in evolution, or
about any particular evolutionary theory. I do try to shift some of our hermeneu-
tical repertoire in a way that indicates points of continuity between the history of
religions tradition and the findings of the natural sciences.
panhuman contexts for comparative religion 61
Worldmaking as a Human Behavior
Getting behind the cultural level to the human level means taking
a big-picture, evolutionary view, stepping back from the particular-
ities of religious contents and styles and looking at some of what
seem to be our persistent behavioral infrastructures. This is not to
limit our subject matter in some simplistic way: Humans not only
select mates, defend territories, and make tools, but also construct
and transmit language worlds, and accordingly build systems of sci-
ence, art, and religion. We are world makers. “Behavior” in the
broadest sense then means not just specialized actions such as canoe
building but also includes the larger, “silent” group behaviors related
to the formation of cultural worlds.4 In this panoramic scope, all civ-
ilization, including religion, is a theater of behavior, and we are its
actors.
Cross-cultural or macro-evolutionary patterns are invisible to the
normal, culture-bound insider. It is natural to see the world through
the boxed, insular categories of one’s own daily language. Even if
our students are science majors, they live in a society that keeps sci-
ence and religion in separate lexicons and compartments. Yet, aware-
ness of the patterns that underlie cultural behavior, as studied by
the evolutionary sciences, will help contextualize some of the other-
wise kaleidoscopic variety that we see in the history of religion. These
are the stabilizing and interactive patterns of social world building
and communication.
Among these panhuman, infrastructural commonalities is world-
making itself.5 In naturalistic language, worldmaking is habitat making
and environment formation. Habitative behavior is a mark of any
organism. It provides stability and continuity by forming a relatively
controlled environment over against an otherwise chaotic universe.
4
In referring to “group behaviors” I mean 1) the collective activities of sets of
individuals for common causes and the precipitates of those activities in the form
of language, values, technologies, and material culture that in turn significantly
influence, motivate or constrain individual behavior, and 2) the sociality of the brain
that is predisposed to collective loyalty, conformity, submission to authority, reci-
procity, etc., as these all form relationships between one or more individuals. This
does not imply that cultural contents are simply downloaded into individual minds.
5
I take the term partly from Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking, whose philosoph-
ical considerations about “world versions” I share, but develop it in terms of social,
religious, and ethological considerations.
62 william e. paden
In this sense, the many human cultures and subcultures are all vari-
ants of the activity of environment selection, each with its language,
social expectations, position in space, collective memory, and skills.
Seeing cultures as habitats allows us to describe them both as nat-
ural eco-systems that are part of an evolutionary history and as sys-
tems of values and practices that have rich and interesting contents
as experienced by their insiders. Looked at from the naturalistic, out-
sider’s viewpoint they appear as niches, enclaves, ecological popula-
tions, hives, versions of hominid environments—but from the insider’s
viewpoint they are the world itself. From the outside, they look like
stagings; from the inside, they are the stage, they are reality. This
double perspective on worldmaking allows us to acknowledge the
very great difference between the insider’s and comparativist’s view-
points. To the inhabitant, the world is a singular experience and has
an absoluteness; to the observer, it is an instance of common processes
of construction and function. In this sense I find “worldmaking” an
effective interpretive concept in the teaching process, providing a
connective middle ground between the humanities and the natural
sciences. Two realities are joined and become homologous in this
notion: first, our biological inheritances as habitative life forms and
social creatures who build niches in environments, and, second, our
cultural inheritance as peoples who inhabit lived worlds of meaning
(phenomenological notions of “life worlds” have a long and impor-
tant pedigree here, and a relevant application). As humans, our roots
are in both. We are hominids and we are also Muslims and Pure
Land Buddhists; we are organisms, and we are also Ukrainians and
Chinese.
Worldmaking, then, is not just a matter of building something,
but also of inhabiting something, as beavers build dams and inhabit
them, and as bees build hives and structure their society within them.
We make worlds, and having made them, become players in them.
The worlds are then at once human products but also environmental
objectivities that leverage styles of cognition and responsiveness.6 They
6
That a social construction can come to function as an objectivity, an ontology,
is a basic concept in the sociology of knowledge, as summarized in Berger, The
Sacred Canopy, chapter one. From a different, but very promising, cognitive science
point of view, Day also examines ways cultural artifacts and practices can play a
role in generating and maintaining religious cognition. See his “The Ins and Outs
of Religious Cognition,” 241–255.
can also be changed or modified. Classic notions of sacred space

and sacred time easily fit into this approach, and continue to be
effective illustrations of the subject in the classroom.
Worldmaking, accordingly, can be seen as a group (and individ-
ual) behavior with variant cultural contents, and thus becomes a key
comparative concept for the study of religion. That all groups form
worlds is universal; the content of human worlds is cultural, in process,
and always contextual from moment to moment. Likewise, that every
group “invents” a past is universal; but the content of that past is
always different from world to world, and even changes within the
history of any one group. That groups invest certain objects with
authority and charisma is universal; what the objects are is diverse.
That groups defend and maintain their own order is universal, but
what it is that constitutes “the order of things” varies completely.
Social groupings within cultures form subworlds in their distinc-
tive ways with their own expectations for behavior. Monasteries,
marine training camps, chemistry labs, and tennis courts have their
behavioral parameters and standards of performance. We alternate
in such environments, each with its special terminologies and pro-
tocols. A world or subworld, here, is the horizon of language and
behavioral expectation that any group, subgroup or individual assumes
at any time for its frame of reference—a kind of theater in which
roles are played out and a place where the forms and experiences
of that world can have revelatory power for its inhabitants. Religious
systems are such domains.
Conceptually and methodologically, “world” does not imply fixed
entities “out there.” It does not imply that there are independently
existing worldview containers with edges and transmitted as “wholes.”
Worlds are the ever-changing precipitates of processes of selection
and transmission by which individuals chose imagined continuities
from the past and versions of that past applied to the present. As
an etic term, a world is not a set of fixed meanings, but a content-
less analytical concept referring to how one environment differs from
another at any point in time in terms of behavioral contexts and
expectations. It is an indicator of domain difference and specificity,
directing observers to the kinds of settings in which subjects oper-
ate, the kinds of horizons that individuals assume and in which they
participate, so that one can be more attentive to the particular con-
textualities and schemas self-constituted by those environments.
“World,” then, entirely points to these differential contents, but has
64 william e. paden
no template content in itself; as a concept, it does not override cul-

tural and historical particularity, but exposes it. Worldmaking, as a
verb, makes this into a behavioral process that recognizes worlds to
be acts and choices of subjects.
Religion as Human Behavior
Religious worlds, to form a simple, stipulative characterization as a

starting point, are those where gods are referenced and honored in
some manner. By referring to gods as the prototypal religious objects,
I do so loosely, including in the notion any superhuman entities such
as buddhas, spirits, ancestors, or living gurus. Religions, per se, would
then be collective, organized systems of behaviors that reference such
beings. Usually these are routinized ritual systems, and come into
play during times of life passages, times of critical needs, or fixed,
periodic times of regular services or festivals. Religious systems often
interact with other behavioral zones, such as politics or art. Note
that this definition does not assume the independent existence of
gods, only that religious people assume them to exist. As linguistic
and ritual objects, transmitted with ontological status, the gods acti-
vate an interactive realm of behavioral possibilities, both inspiring
and constraining the lives and subjectivities of their populations.
Religion and religious language, in this view, are normal forms of
behavior that happen to be responsive to or directed to gods.
If one zooms in from a wide-angled “generic kinds of behavior”
(e.g. worldmaking) lens to a more microscopic focus, one sees that
religious life draws on any kind of activity. Thus, if intended to honor
gods, any of the following are “religious” (in my stipulative sense):
walking on coals, bathing in a river, studying scripture, climbing a
mountain, dancing, or chanting. Likewise, any number of presum-
ably opposite behaviors could be religious: dressing up but also going
naked, killing people but also refraining from killing people, being
quiet or shouting, fasting or feasting, putting on a hat or taking a
hat off.
“Behavior honoring gods” does not imply that religion is good or
socially functional. It is whatever humans do, raw or refined, dys-
functional or functional, in the name of gods. There is nothing nor-
mative or idealized here, just behavior. This unadorned view of
religion is one to which observers and students of contemporary
world affairs can often relate. Referencing a god and holy scripture
is exactly what was going on in the minds and piety of the 9/11
hijackers,7 not to mention various abortion clinic bombers.
Ways of Inhabiting the World
The macro-behavior of worldmaking can be parsed into many pan-

human dispositions. For illustrative purposes I will discuss the rele-
vance of the following for the study of religion: kin loyalty, giving
sacred status to certain objects, making pasts, maintaining order, sub-
mitting to rank, social reciprocity, display behaviors, making mean-
ing, and reflexive self-modification. All of these are expressions of
our wiring for sociality, our phylogenetic experience of living in
groups, our social brains. Obviously societies are different in terms
of environmental and cultural adaptations, but they are all varia-
tions on sociality, and religions are themselves biodiverse forms of
social experimentation and innovation.
Kin Loyalty Behavior. A powerful, foundational, species-level behav-
ior that religious life draws upon is kin loyalty.8 Readiness for loyalty
to one’s group—whether a family, club, clan, team, gang, military
unit, school, ethnic identity, country, religion, or any coalition of
individuals that bonds them against non-group threats—is a mental
mechanism that has ruled much of the history of our species and
indeed, of many others. In the realm of human culture, “kin” behav-
ior does not necessarily depend on close blood relations. It can also
be a sociocultural construction, while still drawing on deep biologi-
cal instincts. Moreover, when the disposition for group loyalty is
fused with religious notions that “our people” and its institutions are
sacred because endowed by divine authority, and when the group
7
Lincoln, Holy Terrors, 1–18, which analyzes the instructions found in the lug-
gage of Mohamed Atta.
8
Kin selection is a well-known theory in evolutionary science, in essence show-
ing that individual animals (and social insects are a representative illustration) will
be willing to sacrifice their individual lives (and hence genes) for others to the extent
that the genes are the same. In mainstream evolutionary thought, though, the
emphasis has been on individual self-interest rather than on group self-interest. A
concise summary of the issue of individual vs. group “selection” is Borrello, “The
Rise, Fall and Resurrection of Group Selection,” 43–47. The relevance of kinship
“belief ” for understanding religion is drawn out in MacIntyre, “Was Religion a
Kinship Surrogate,?” 653–694.
66 william e. paden
is designated with identity markers and “flags” (“Christians,” “Muslims”)

and thus forms an essentialized entity in the minds of adherents,
then one has a potent chemistry. Defending group honor, whether
imaginary or not, is not only serious but sometimes noxious (Third
Reich rhetoric about “making sacrifices for our sacred, noble blood”
is still in collective memory). Displays of loyalty become critical indi-
cators of the strength and survival of the group.9 These dispositions,
after all, have formed over millions of years. What we have here is
Durkheim’s basic insight, but combined with the biological forces
that were missing from his theory.
From the notion of group-as-world we can more easily understand
how it is that groups make certain objects sacred, construct “histo-
ries” (read: myths) to validate the foundations of their own institu-
tions, and monitor behavioral boundaries to prevent the erosion of
their social order.
Making Objects Sacred. Groups place marked values on certain objects.
The behavior that makes a record-breaking homerun baseball worth
millions is the same kind of behavior that makes objects sacred, invi-
olable or charismatic in religious contexts. Human groups clearly
attribute esteem, status and signification to objects way beyond their
surface, pragmatic worth.
Scan the many cultural worlds of time and space and one will
see concentrations of activity around certain focal points. These hot
spots, magnets, or basins of attraction are the objects that groups
have made sacred—shrines, stones, authorities, scriptures, icons, places,
rites. Around them a number of observances and precautions clus-
ter. Like nuclei of a cell, they appear to give orientation, stability,
and empowerment to the group and its authority system, function-
ing as a kind of inviolable cultural DNA or place-holder for group
continuity and survival.10 As identity markers they are enhanced both
by the force of collective tradition and by the supernatural aura sur-
rounding them, an aura that is itself the result of a mythicization
(itself a behavior) that elevates the prestige of the objects verbally
9
For interesting empirical research on the adaptational value of “costly” behav-
iors that “signal” group loyalty see Sosis and Alcorta, “Signaling, Solidarity, and
the Sacred, 264–274.
10
Rappaport develops this notion of sanctified objects as “functional replace-
ment(s) for genetic determination of patterns of behavior,” in his Ritual and Religion,
418.
and ritually. The sacred objects are immunized from harm by way
of protective laws, ritual taboos, or other sanctions.
Religious worlds form around these manifestations of the gods. In
interaction with them arise many of the kinds of religious behaviors
with which we are familiar: e.g. pilgrimages, worship, festivals, and
personal interactions such as vows and prayers. One can even speak
of the revelatory function of these objects, just as one could of the
“stuff ” of any cultural formation such as music, philosophies, liter-
ature, theoretical science, or human relationships.
Here “the sacred” is not a matter of theology, but of ethology—
the study of behavior, animal and human, in an evolutionary con-
text. Attributing sacrality or prestige to objects is evidently a form
of species behavior. Technically speaking, it is a manifestation of
what is called the human phenotype—the expression of our genes,
the genotype, relative to social environments. Again, I am here
extending Durkheim’s secular treatment of “the sacred.”11
Making pasts. Human worlds “have” pasts, but those pasts are
“made” in acts of transmission just as worlds are. Someone, some
“kin” group, put them there and keeps them there, as its family
album, as its memory of key persons and events. As with the con-
struction of sacred objects, forming a history is a natural group
behavior. Past-making takes place through mnemonic acts of oral
recitation, ritual and festivals, icons and chants, shrines, writing, read-
ing, and styles of education. At those junctures, pasts are given mean-
ing and interpretation. These “histories” are major ingredients—or
in the present context, major behaviors—of religious worlds, and
weigh heavily on them. Each group transmits its history of the world
in a way that reflects and grounds its place in the world. The his-
tories function as repertoires of exemplary figures or precedents for
legitimizing or inspiring one’s behavior. They are memories that must
be recalled and re-selected, or the world they held together would
vanish. No past, no culture; no past, no religion.
The sacred histories, the origins, are therefore remembered through
their re-enactments. This collective mnemonics relies on repetition,
whether of a constant reiteration, or in periodic, great festival times
with their marked choreographies and often vivid displays, special
11
As previously described in Paden, “Creation of Human Behavior,” 15–26; and
“Before ‘The Sacred’ Became Theological, 198–210.
68 william e. paden
foods and music, and other forms of body memory. Religions are
in this sense elaborate memory machines, and nation states often
parallel them in the way they transmit their traditions.12
Maintaining order, punishing its violations. Humans protect their worlds,
as any organism will. A good deal of religious behavior, in fact,
seems to be maintenance behavior: keeping to the existing order,
enforcing tradition, obeying the precepts, avoiding infractions of the
laws, performing ordained social roles, attending the rituals, bestow-
ing or receiving punishment for any infractions of the order. Most
religions have terms for sacred order, for example, Dharma in
Hinduism, T’ien or T’ien-li in Confucianism, or Sharia in Islam.
Incentives for moral behavior and disincentives for immoral behav-
ior rule the social world.
Protective behavior also entails regulating or re-balancing—in some
cases, purifying—the system when there is transgression. Every soci-
ety has its rules, but also its punishments. Keeping violation away
is one thing, but dealing with it after it is present is another. The
historical, cultural and situational varieties here are endless—every-
thing from public executions to mild apologies, from excommunica-
tion to bathing, from exorcising to repentance. Rules of purity and
the removal of impurity keep social orders intact, and religions often
require concentrated forms of these practices. In short, religions
become instances of a rule of nature: system regulation.13
Submitting to Status and Hierarchy. In-groups not only evoke loyalty,
but within them often evoke submission to rank.14 Dominance and
submission relative to status are found throughout the human and
pre-human worlds. In the case of religions, not only religious lead-
ers, but also gods and religious heroes can take on the attributes of,
so to speak, “alpha” beings. Like the queen bee, humans who are
esteemed as kings and saviors have the identical genetic make-up of
any of their kindred beings—the difference is simply that the group
12
An excellent treatment of collective past-making, with examples from both sec-
ular and religious cases, is Zerubavel, Time Maps. On group memory and body
memory see also Connerton, How Societies Remember, and on the active nature of
history construction, Tonkin, Narrating Our Pasts.
13
For a fuller study of the concept of sacred order see Paden, “Sacrality as
Integrity, 3–18.
14
Burkert’s treatment of hierarchy in Creation of the Sacred, op. cit., ch. 4, is a mas-
terful treatment of submission behavior.
cultivates them, through special behaviors, for their special social role
in the system. Again, in many religions, the disposition to respond
to “status” seems to sometimes be blended with the disposition for
allegiance to the group, particularly where the god of the group is
both an object of status and authority, and a guarantor of the group’s
tradition itself. Displays of subordination, humility, deference, sacrificial
acts and respect are of course the very stuff of large swaths of reli-
gious behavior and history of spirituality. Depending on their types
of social structure, religious groups naturally vary in the way in which
social respect for leaders and gods is displayed.
Reciprocity behaviors. The disposition for reciprocal interaction, the
heart of sociality, is also one of the great domains of evolved human
behavior generally and is the subject of extensive research that may
bear on the study of religion.15 Human life, and hence religious life,
is lived in relationships and mutuality, and this includes giving and
receiving, trust and confidence, communication, negotiation and
appeasement, and in general, accountability. In religion, this mutuality
is seen in relations with gods.
Readiness for relationship, readiness to relate to objects as if they
were person-like, readiness to talk to and listen to someone “out
there,” seem to represent a kind of default setting of the socially
constructed human mind. From the earliest age, infants begin inter-
acting and bonding with their caregivers, and one’s first love is indeli-
ble. Relationship is so important that humans will invent it if necessary,
with pets, dolls, cars, angels and other imaginary beings. We are
prone to listening to the world and making a conversation with it,
prone to bonding and forming stable relationships, prone to making
and receiving signals. Enter, the gods. Indeed, some cognitive anthro-
pologists have noticed that spoken language is based on dialogue,
and that this “dyadic premise” may be the foundation for the social
construction of unseen powers, i.e. gods.16 Onto these culturally trans-
mitted objects, the gods, we attribute human, social minds—and cog-
nitivist research, again, explains much about our disposition to perceive
15
A representative account of social reciprocity from the point of view of evo-
lutionary psychology is Cosmides and Tooby, “Cognitive Adaptations for Social
Exchange,” 163–228.
16
On this see Goody, ed., Social Intelligence and Interaction, especially Goody’s chap-
ter, “Social Intelligence and Prayer as Dialogue,” 206–220.
70 william e. paden
agency in the environment and attribute anthropomorphic qualities

to it.17
Religions, then, provide an interactive space, an environment, for
idealized and intensified sociality behavior, a place to act out the
deepest human hopes and fears. This clearly has an enduring func-
tion. Difference of culture or subculture will determine the difference
of roles and interactive protocols, e.g. whether these are hierarchic
or egalitarian. The gods, in this sense, are reflections of cultural
behaviors, but also models for them in that their behaviors can show
exemplary instances of qualities such as mercy, righteous anger, sta-
bility of promise, sacrificial love, allegiance, or even care for the
dispossessed.
Display Behaviors. Signaling is a fundamental behavior of life forms
at all evolutionary levels. As communicative animals we give signs,
show our intentions, express who we are and what we want. We do
this with our bodies, clothes, environments, images, collective demon-
strations. We make overt displays of respect, power, authority, humil-
ity, loyalty, celebration, ecstasy, spectacle, rebellion. Religious behavior,
for its part, is typically an enhanced and often dramatic illustration of the
power and process of the language of display and signaling found throughout the
natural world. It is conspicuously manifest in collective ritual and the
construction of visual actions and spaces, but is also seen in the way
individuals act out their religious roles.
Ritualization, in particular, is in many ways a controlled focusing
of communicative display. It “says” with actions, choreography and
iconic settings what could only be conveyed in embodied, dramatic
fashion, and not simply in words. The same display effect can be
seen in the most opposite kinds of contents or foci of ritual: for
example, the tea ceremony but also the Penitente’s literal reenact-
ment of Jesus’s Passion; or the silence of a Quaker meetinghouse
but also the ordeals of a warrior’s initiation. And it is seen in the
way ritual, with its controlled environments, constructs idealized dis-
play scenarios to be held up as models and memories, as with rites
of passage or inaugurations. The public burning of a heretic or the
destructive “statements” of terrorists, are also display behavior, as is
mimetic or sympathetic magic generally. Temple complexes as well
as the decorated canopies built by the male bower birds of Australia
17
Examples include: Guthrie, Faces in the Clouds; and Boyer, Religion Explained.
(to attract females) each display attempts to impress, entice, please,

accommodate.
Making meaning, making explanations. The brain is always making
meanings. We do this through speech, whether spoken outwardly,
inwardly (thought), or in writing. In many ways worldmaking is a
linguistic enterprise, where the categories of language schemas, being
prior to sensory experience, become the ineluctable lenses through
which we perceive, conceive, and explain the world. Language con-
verts whatever happens in experience into its own categories. We
are, as one author put it, the “symbolic species.”18 Language is an
outcome of our evolved, shared social consciousness.19
Here my main point is to emphasize the way language and its
derivatives, such as theologizing, can essentially be understood as
behavior.20 We make words and we listen to words. We explain and
codify. Through words we simplify and reduce what is otherwise
infinitely complex or chaotic. We imagine what we will, with ease.
We say words over our misfortunes to alleviate our pain, explain ill-
ness by speaking of karma or divine punishment, make schemas for
the origin of the world and for the causes of things, and write tomes
to build elaborate explanatory universes. All of this is a form of
“doing,” constructing, behaving. Religion is inconceivable without
speech behavior and its interpretive power. Gods are part of that
repertoire.
Modifying the self. Behavior is not just external world building, it is
also inner world building. It includes mental acts of reflexively act-
ing back upon one’s own subjectivity, adjusting one’s interior envi-
ronments. Regimens of self-construction illustrate the mind’s proclivities
and abilities to monitor itself and introspect, and religious paths in
particular contain extensive repertoires of ways to recondition the
possibilities of selfhood, moral responsiveness and emotion. Mental
and emotional states can be scrutinized, modified, acted upon. This
illustrates the macro behavior of the brain’s capacity for learning to
learn—learning to make changes or adjustments, to re-form its
18
Deacon, The Symbolic Species.
19
On the co-evolution of language and the development of social culture, see
Donald, Origins of the Modern Mind.
20
A strong case for studying religions as semantic universes is made in Jensen,
The Study of Religion in a New Key.
72 william e. paden
responses, to override some of its own cruder dispositions. Reflexivity,

too, is part of our inheritance as evolving organisms.
Concluding Points
This has been a brief review of some kinds and aspects of behav-
ior that figure into religion and how their roots may be linked with
our scientific knowledge of the history of the species. Naturally there
are endless kinds of evolutionary dispositions and social categories
connected to religious behavior—and one could mention research
on subjects such as attachment,21 ritual form,22 imitative behavior,23
emotion,24 and memory25—but the above are basic and illustrative.
Religion builds on, improvises on, and interacts with such mental
and social hardware.
Nature does not speak English. It speaks behaviors. We need to learn
that language, just as previous generations of comparative religion
scholars thought they needed to learn the language of hierophanies
and symbols. There is nothing in the above behaviors—admittedly,
characterized in broad strokes—that is not biological and that would
not be understood by evolutionary science, and there is nothing about
these behaviors that should be unfamiliar to historians of religion.
Nor is there anything about them, at least in my mind, that tilts
towards any particular ontology.
The study of religious behavior feeds into our general under-
standing of human behavior, and the other way around. Nature, I
imagine, makes no such distinction as religious vs. nonreligious. Not
only are there resemblances between Tenrikyo pilgrims taking home
a thread from the kimono of their founder, Hindus taking home dirt
from Govardhana hill, and Hajjis taking home water from the sacred
well at the Kaaba, but there are resemblances between these and
their secular analogues, where fans (of music, sport, or politics) bring
home souvenirs and mana-laden emblems connected with their objects
of devotion.
21
Kirkpatrick, Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion.
22
McCauley and Lawson, Bringing Ritual to Mind.
23
Tomasello, The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition.
24
Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens.
25
Whitehouse, Modes of Religiosity.
Behavior patterns are not only a basis for constructive compara-

tive work, but they are themselves also the result of comparative
perspective. This is to say that these patterns would not be noticed
in the first place if one were only familiar with a single society. The
comparative study of religion is one of the few academic endeavors
to have built scaffolding for forming generalizations about behav-
ioral forms that connect the historical cultures of the world, forms
that would otherwise be obscured or invisible.
How then does this ethology of religion relate to postmodern crit-
icisms of comparativism? Does the above program figure to extract
all the juice out of lived religious and cultural life? Does it suppress
difference? Does it reduce its subject to static, cookie-cutter molds?
Are the exemplifications of these human behaviors robbed of their
difference, their voice, and reduced to being instantiations of the
“same” hierarchic thing?26
While this paper is mostly about restoring some bases of com-
monality, in the context of a very general exercise in conceptual
modeling, it is not intended to exclude or subordinate the impor-
tance of difference. In the present endeavor, that would mean exploring
the variations on the commonalities relative to changing environments.
The variations, or improvisations, would show the extant range
of possible historical human behaviors relative to the patterns—
theoretically speaking, all the possibilities of “making things sacred,”
all the possibilities of “self-modification,” all the possibilities of “main-
taining order.” Of course the cultural versions themselves are all
embedded in variables of political, class, and gender dynamics,
as well as constant historical change. As such, there is nothing
particularly bloodless or abstract about such a comparative process.
Finding how groups “do” pasts, how they conceive and transmit
them differently, indeed, how they may revise or dismantle received
histories, all require on-the-ground attention to cultural specificity
and voices.
Being part of a general behavior pattern does not make instanti-
ations of that behavior “the same,” any more than the generic activ-
ity of “doing sports” makes soccer and swimming the same. A
pilgrimage to Presley’s Graceland is not the “same” as a pilgrimage
26
For a review of issues in the modern comparative study of religion see Paden,
“Comparison in the Study of Religion,” 77–92.
74 william e. paden
to Mecca, even though there are some shared behavioral aspects.

All comparison, in other words, is aspectual.” The abstraction that apples
and oranges are both “fruits” (or even that they are both “round”
or “edible”) calls attention to common patterns of function and struc-
ture but does not reduce apples and oranges to sameness. They are
similar in some ways, not others. The common pattern or feature
is not the “whole” of each of its instantiations, but a feature of it.27
This would be my understanding of the descriptive and explanatory
use of the behavioral patterns outlined above.
There is no foundationalism in the above model in terms of depen-
dency on any particular evolutionist theory or any particular form
of naturalism. But in understanding the diverse dynamics of religious
behaviors we can start to become free of the persistent tendency to
reduce religion to single frames. We can also form a potential two-
way street with the work and data of the human sciences. Empirical
studies of any of the collective or communicative behaviors described
above, and the historian of religion’s study of their recurring cul-
tural expressions, can be mutually informative and productive.
I have found this an apt interpretive framework for presenting the
study of religion in the secular, liberal arts setting of a state uni-
versity, where classes are filled with students from the sciences, social
sciences and humanities alike. Relating comparative religion to the
language of species-level behaviors, including “worldmaking,” pro-
vides a kind of Verstehen in a new key. Here it is the archetypes of
behavior, so to speak, rather than archetypes of meaning, that invite
study, and that help students relate otherwise different and distant
cultural expressions to “known,” intelligible human realities. As well,
the notion of world versions helps contextualize and make normal
the endlessly different languages about sacredness and gods.
Translation of religion into patterns of human behavior is of course
not the only way to study the subject matter, and it is not the only
basis or level of comparison, but I have tried to suggest some of its
functions and opportunities.
27
Poole’s essay on controlled, aspectual comparison remains a cogent analysis of
the epistemological basis of comparative method: “Metaphors and Maps,” 411–457.
Part Two
THEORY INTO METHOD: COMPARISON OF RELIGIONS

IN THE STUDY AND THE CLASSROOM
CHAPTER SIX
COMPARING RELIGIOUS IDEAS: THERE’S METHOD IN

THE MOB’S MADNESS
Wesley J. Wildman
Introduction
Methodological wrangling over simple tasks is a waste of time; it is

better just to get on with the work at hand. If reflection on method
in relation to the task of comparing religious ideas has value, it is
because comparing religious ideas is an important and complex task.
Self-conscious debate about comparative method ought to be useful
because there is confusion and fierce debate about the primary task,
from how best to do it to whether to attempt the task at all.
This essay surveys a number of attitudes and approaches to com-
parison in the study of religion. One of these was developed in the
Crosscultural Comparative Religious Ideas Project (CRIP), a Boston-
based research effort running from 1995–1999. Under the leadership
of Robert Neville, CRIP brought together six tradition specialists (Frank
Clooney, David Eckel, Paula Fredriksen, Noman al Haq, Livia Kohn,
Anthony Saldarini) and four comparative generalists (Peter Berger,
John Berthrong, Robert Neville, Wesley Wildman), as well as a num-
ber of graduate students. The double aim was to test a methodol-
ogy for comparing religious ideas by actually using it to make
comparisons, and to explore a small-community-based pedagogical
approach to the formation of potential future experts in compara-
tive religion. The project produced three volumes of results that
appeared in 2001 entitled Ultimate Realities, The Human Condition, and
Religious Truth.1
1
Neville, ed., Ultimate Realities. This essay is a significantly revised and expanded
version of ch. 9 of Ultimate Realities. I owe a great deal to other members of CRIP,
but especially to Robert Neville, with whom I collaborated closely throughout the
project, co-writing many chapters, including the one profoundly revised here. Though
I was first author on the original chapter and Neville’s contributions were minor,
it is impossible to overstate his influence on the way I understand comparison of
78 wesley j. wildman
My purpose here is to join the ongoing conversation over com-

parative method by showing how the CRIP approach relates to oth-
ers. I shall make a three-fold case on behalf of this view of comparison.
First, I shall indicate how it draws on the strengths of existing
approaches. Second, I shall identify a pervasive weakness in extant
approaches to comparison of religious ideas and show how the CRIP
approach overcomes it. Third, I shall show how the CRIP proposal
answers the challenges issued by various comparativists, including
Jonathan Z. Smith in a famous article analyzing approaches to com-
parison.2 It follows that this essay is not only a survey of approaches
to comparison but also an argument for the particular method for
comparing religious ideas that the CRIP used in its research.3
The organization of the essay expresses its argumentative charac-
ter. I classify a number of attitudes and approaches to comparison
according to how they would answer an increasingly detailed sequence
of questions. Some reject the possibility of comparison whereas I
argue for its possibility. Others reject explicit categories for com-
parison whereas I argue that explicitness about the inevitability of
comparison in categories (or respects) is a virtue overall. Still others
justify categories from existing theories whereas I argue for limiting
(not eliminating) this kind of justification in order to make categories
more vulnerable to correction and more easily able to change in
response to the process of comparison. And yet others justify cate-
gories directly from similarities in the data whereas I argue, with
Smith, that this is too arbitrary a procedure.
The CRIP view, by contrast, is that there should be a dialectic
between data and comparative categories whereby the task of under-
standing through comparison can build progressively on previous
results. Categories can come from anywhere so long as a dialectical
process of improvement and correction is in place. Justification of
religions. In particular, the seeds of the CRIP approach to comparison were planted
in Neville’s earlier works, especially Normative Cultures. Neville has given his permis-
sion for me to rethink and rewrite the original chapter; I take full responsibility for
the result.
2
Smith, “In Comparison a Magic Dwells,” The paper was initially presented to
the History of Judaism section of the American Academy of Religion, 1979.
3
There are many useful surveys to which those seeking more comprehensive and
less quarrelsome coverage can turn. Other ways of summarizing approaches to the
study of religion and the comparison of religious ideas include Sharpe, Comparative
Religion; Ringgren, “Comparative Mythology,” Smart, “Comparative-Historical
Method”; Tracy, “Theology: Comparative Theology”; Capps, Religious Studies; and
Clooney, Seeing through Texts.
comparing religious ideas 79
comparative categories is a complex process depending both on data

identified and described and on theories in which the categories get
meaning by playing key roles. The CRIP approach presupposes a
corporate effort to make and improve comparisons, to assemble and
analyze data, and to root out bias and short-sightedness. It eschews
exclusive reliance on the genius insights of brilliant comparativists
and instead builds these into a wider and messier corporate approach
that includes ordinary scholars as well as the occasional compara-
tive genius. It is a method for the mob. It may seem untidy but,
like the natural and social sciences, it may be able to achieve results
where nothing else can. The requirement of a community of inquiry
that can stabilize hypotheses for investigation lies at the heart of the
pedagogical significance of the CRIP approach.
I begin by discussing comparison in general terms and describing
the CRIP approach in more detail. The bulk of the paper analyzes
alternative views of comparison. In the penultimate section, I review
the aforementioned argument of Smith and show how the CRIP
approach to comparison, though it may have weaknesses all its own,
does not fall prey to the criticisms he rightly levels against extant
approaches. I conclude with some reflections on the pedagogical
implications of this approach to comparison.
What is Comparison?
Comparison is controversial when it reaches across cultures, lan-

guages, religions, worldviews, and forms of life. I venture a general
discussion of this topic in an attempt to establish a relatively non-
controversial basis for the subsequent discussion of strategies for com-
paring religions, and specifically religious ideas.
What is comparison? The Oxford English Dictionary’s online
definitions for the transitive verb “compare” are: (1) “To speak of
or represent as similar; to liken”; and (2) “To mark or point out the
similarities and differences of (two or more things); to bring or place
together (actually or mentally) for the purpose of noting the simi-
larities and differences.” Both definitions are relevant to most kinds
of comparison. We usually begin by noticing that two things are
curiously alike and then we proceed to examine them closely, noting
similarities and differences. To “bring or place together for the pur-
pose of noting the similarities and differences” is in effect to invoke
and impose a respect of comparison on the cognitive process. We
usually compare in respects that interest us, often neglecting respects

that do not. The respect in which we compare constitutes a com-
parative category for the comparison.
A prosaic example may be in order. When we seek to compare
oranges and apples in respect of being fruit, we use “fruit” as a com-
parative category. As fruit, apples and oranges are similar in some
respects and different in others; these more specific respects of com-
parison are subordinate comparative categories. In respect of surface
texture, oranges are dimpled whereas apples are smooth; in respect
of rind qualities, most oranges have a thick and fleshy rind while
apple rinds are thin, and both are slightly bitter; in respect of inter-
nal structure, oranges are segmented and apples are not but both
carry seeds in a segmented arrangement. The respects of compari-
son thus define a complex array of categories, some subordinate to
others, and each the basis for noting similarities and differences.
Every comparative category must be vague in order to register
differences. Vagueness here does not mean perverse refusal to be
specific. Rather, vagueness refers to a logical characteristic of a cat-
egory, namely, that the law of non-contradiction does not apply to
what falls within it. For example, the comparative category of “fruit
rind” must be vague to accommodate the quite different cases of
apples, oranges, watermelon, avocados, and kiwi fruit. Propositions
expressing the characteristics of fruit rinds—“Fruit rinds are thick
and smooth” versus “Fruit rinds are thin and furry,” for example—
specify the category of “fruit rind” in ways that seem to contradict
but in fact do not contradict because of the vagueness of the cate-
gory “fruit rind.” The vague category is a meaningful basis for com-
parison and the many possible specifications of it fill out its content.
To say this is not yet to say that the comparative category is useful
or interesting. In fact, I selected a mundane category just to make the
point that we must distinguish the logical analysis of the vagueness
of a category from judgments about whether a vague category helps
to detect anything interesting about important subject matters, such
as religion.
All comparison is interested, because it is the act of interpreting
beings. We usually are unaware of our interests, which is why meet-
ing people with different interests can be so entertaining or dis-
turbing: encountering the other heightens our awareness of our own
particularities. We compare apples and oranges in respect of health
benefits, cost, ease of production in a local climate, seasonal demand,
shelf life, flavor, and what our kids will eat. We shift with ease among
these various respects of comparison as our interests dictate and we
think little of it because nothing of intellectual or moral significance
seems to be at stake. But this is not always so; sometimes important
moral or intellectual issues are at stake in the comparisons we make.
The vagueness and interestedness of comparative categories can
combine in unexpected ways to produce bad comparisons. Specifically,
we conceive categories poorly (a) when they lead to uninteresting
comparisons, (b) when we fail to make them vague in just the right
ways to accommodate the things we are interested in comparing, or
(c) when they depend on mistaken theories about aspects of reality.
I will give examples of all of these in what follows.
(a) “Rind texture” is vague in just the right way to handle the
varied surface characteristics of fruit, but it is not especially inter-
esting in isolation from some theoretical account of why fruits have
rinds and why the rinds vary in character. “Large-scale segmenta-
tion” is not much use as a comparative category if we are interested
in comparing apples and oranges because the category only succeeds
in registering apples negatively, as not having any large-scale seg-
mentation. In fact, if we are not properly attentive, we may con-
clude that apples have no segmentation at all because they do not
have the segmentation we see in tangerines and oranges, and our
attention is focused only on large-scale segmentation. If we were to
consider the broader category of “segmentation,” we might happily
make comparisons between apples and oranges with respect to sev-
eral different kinds of segmentation (large-scale, sub-structure scale,
seed-scale, surface bump patterns, etc.) We handle vagueness of the
“segmentation” category by specifying subordinate categories to flesh
out the dimensions of meaning of segmentation that the data demand.
(b) There is nothing inherently wrong with comparative categories
lacking the ideal level of vagueness. But two practical problems can
arise, especially when we unthinkingly adopt existing categories for
new purposes. On the one hand, too much vagueness gives undue
freedom to our overactive pattern-recognition skills, permitting us to
see similarities and differences that suit our interests, whether or not
those interests are ideologically innocent. Thus, sometimes it may
suit us to compare apples and oranges in respect of their reminding
us of glorious summer holidays in the south of France. Far less inno-
cent comparisons of the same sort are possible, though perhaps not
in the domain of fruit. On the other hand, our comparisons can
lack richness and insight when we use insufficiently vague categories

to describe ill-suited subject matter. Consider again the comparative
category of “segmented fruit structure,” for example. This category
must be vague to allow for the segmented macro structure of tan-
gerines, the segmented seed casings of apples, the fact that some
apples have minor large structure segmentation (in the form of bumps
at the bottom of the apple) and others do not, the symmetry of
peaches and nectarines, and the fact that some oranges have deli-
cate internal substructures and others do not. If we unconsciously
understand the comparative category of segmentation to refer only
to comprehensive macro-structural segmentation, then our compar-
ative category may lead us to overlook other types of segmentation
in fruit, as when the claim that “Oranges are segmented but apples
are not” leads us to overlook segmentation of the apple core.
Consciousness of this problem is the first step in avoiding distorted
descriptions of segmentation in apples. The most useful strategy is
to develop an array of categories within which broader categories
are specified by subordinate categories. This leads us to look for sub-
tle features. It is precisely for this reason that classification schemes
have been so important in the history of thought.4 While promot-
ing more detailed observation, however, classification schemes also
carry hidden theoretical assumptions about which we must strive to
be aware lest distortion of description and flawed understanding go
unnoticed.5 Thus, one of the tricks in improving comparisons is to
allow the details of the process of comparing to make us conscious
of narrowness in our comparative categories, whereafter we can either
narrow the definition of a comparative category to conform to the
way we were using it or broaden the definition to accommodate the
features of the data that interest us. In either case, the categories of
comparison are responsive to the process of comparison.
4
Witness the impact of Carl Linnaeus’s famous taxonomy of animals and plants.
The first edition of Linnaeus’s taxonomy, Systema Naturae, was published in 1735
and it subsequently went into many editions, growing from a slender pamphlet to
a multi-volume work. It is still in use today, though with many changes and expan-
sions. This is but one example of the many taxonomies and classifications in use
our age, from product catalogues to types of religion.
5
The criticisms of Linnaeus’ taxonomy are legion but the deepest problems with
the taxonomy arise when morphological similarity makes organisms seem related
yet genomic information suggest evolutionary distance, thereby clouding the very
concept of species, which is one of the most crucial comparative categories of the
classification.
(c) Some comparisons are invidious and lead to intellectual mis-

understandings and moral disasters. When Aristotle compared human
beings in respect of the independence and completeness of intellec-
tive soul, he concluded that slaves had none of these qualities and
that women require a man’s fully developed intellective soul to guide
and complete their own partially developed intellective soul.6 Aristotle
seems unaware of his powerful desire to rationalize existing social
practices, yet his comparison reflects this interest in a way that is
obvious to people with different interests (such as Plato7) and still
more obvious to people who live at a time when better data makes
Aristotle’s comparison seem silly, despite the fact that it was gener-
ous for its time in some ways (not everyone clearly distinguished
women from slaves, as Aristotle did).
Where precisely does the problem with Aristotle’s comparison lie?
The mistake is in the meaning he gives to the comparative category
by which he attempts to diagnose similarities and differences among
men, women, and slaves, namely, the independence and complete-
ness of intellective soul. The meaning of this category derives from
mostly mistaken theories about human nature, the intellect, and
human reproduction, and from mostly mistaken estimates of the
power of social context to condition interpretations. Aristotle was
empirically minded enough to recognize that some women did not
fit his model but treated them as “contrary to nature” exceptions
rather than as the few women able to break through oppressive social
circumstances to realize some of their intellectual power despite the
almost insurmountable difficulties they faced. And Aristotle was just
wrong about reproduction, as when he speculated that women had
to be incomplete men because their bodies were unable to heat
menstrual fluid to the point that it could become semen. Of course,
he thought that semen was the source of the non-material parts of
a human being, including especially intellective soul. The theoreti-
cal framework for his comparative category of “the independence
and completeness of intellective soul” was defective and we are enti-
tled to wonder whether he did enough to test and improve the
category.
6
See Aristotle, Physica 1252b; Generation of Animals, I 728a (Loeb Classical Library).
7
See Plato’s Republic, in which Plato allows women a role in the ruling class.
But in Timaeus 90e, the best that women can hope for in the process of rebirth is
to become a man.
The lesson here is that special interests interfere with the refinement
of comparative categories. Interested comparison is inevitable but
bad interested comparison is not. We can control for interests by
seeking correction and refinement of our comparative categories. We
can strive both to make them sensitive to the variations in the data
for comparison (as when we have to avoid unconscious rigidity in
our understanding of segmentation in fruit) and to give them mean-
ing through embedding them in superior theoretical frameworks (as
when we have to have accurate theories of reproduction if we are
to avoid Aristotle’s mistakes in wielding the category of the inde-
pendence and completeness of intellective soul).
This discussion of interested comparison drives home the some-
times-overlooked fact that behind every act of comparison there lurks
an interpreter with only partially conscious interests, incomplete
knowledge of the world, and an enormous capacity for making del-
icate discriminations to suit ruling interests, to rationalize desired
actions, and to bring comfort and assurance that the “other” is com-
prehensible and controllable rather than terrifying. The neurological
conditions for comparison are important here. Human beings have
highly developed pattern recognition skills, which are especially use-
ful for recognizing the significance of facial expressions.8 These skills
misfire from time to time in interpreting faces. They also lead us to
expect patterns where none exist, or at least none at the level we
seek. This is one of the great liabilities that human beings bring to
observation and inquiry, and psychologists have documented its effects
in great detail.9 It is equally a liability in comparison, where untrained
human beings are too ready to find similarities on the basis of a
quick glance. This maximizes vulnerability to error due to over-
confidence, and marginalizes the careful observation and analysis of
theoretical frameworks that we need to save comparative conclusions
from becoming victims of casual hubris borne of over-active pattern-
recognition skills.
To summarize, comparison is a cognitive activity that involves
8
See Brothers, Friday’s Footprint.
9
There are many compendiums of errors due to biological limitations on human
rationality and overactive pattern recognition, including examples of the ways that
unscrupulous people exploit such vulnerabilities for their own profit and amusement.
See, for example, Gilovich, How We Know What Isn’t So; Piatelli-Palmarini, Inevitable
Illusions; Plous, Psychology of Judgment; Randi, Flim Flam; Sagan, The Demon-Haunted
World; Shermer, Why People Believe Weird Things.
construing multiple things as instances of a vague comparative cat-

egory. Good comparison works (a) empirically by keying categorical
vagueness to comparative data, (b) conservatively by allowing for
over-active human pattern recognition skills, (c) theoretically by attend-
ing to the way categories derive their meaning from existing inter-
pretations of aspects of reality, and (d) humbly by seeking correction of
comparative hypotheses in light of changing observations and theories.
Comparison in the Crosscultural Comparative Religious

Ideas Project
To explain the CRIP approach to comparison in more detail, we

need to move beyond this basic understanding of comparison, and
of what makes comparison good. In particular, we need to shift the
focus to religion rather than the banal topic of fruit. The CRIP
approach to comparing religious ideas has several characteristics.10
First, the CRIP approach is focused on religious ideas, rather than
religious practices or religions in general. Focusing on ideas is not
as limiting as it may seem at first since even religious practices are
available for comparison as ideas when they are described verbally
and framed theoretically. In fact, comparing practices in isolation
from the ideas that make them important and relevant to people is
probably futile. The point of focusing on ideas is to keep elements
of interpretation in the comparative picture. Comparative categories
derive their meaning from theoretical interpretations of aspects of
religion and the comparative venture collapses into mere impres-
sionism if we pretend that comparative categories somehow appear
from nowhere, contextless and free of the distortions of history and
the colorings of interpretation. When texts do not exist to document
aspects of the meaning of religious beliefs and practices, as is the
case for many modern tribal religions, cultural anthropologists and
other observers of these religions must create interpretations of what
they see to guide subsequent comparison.
Second, the CRIP approach is committed to a particular inter-
pretation of the history of comparative categories. Many compara-
tive categories owe their origins to translation decisions about how
10
Perhaps the most compelling account of the CRIP approach to comparing
religious ideas is Neville and Wildman, “On Comparing Religious Ideas”.
to render in European languages key terms in the sacred texts of

the world’s religions. From there, those categories have had a huge
impact on subsequent discussions—and not just explicit comparisons.
Even apparently neutral description makes use of available termi-
nology and so is inherently comparative in nature. When some activ-
ity is identified as a ritual, some person as a priest, some place as
sacred, or some time as propitious, the descriptions presuppose com-
parative judgments. The comparative categories of “ritual,” “priest,”
“sacred place,” and “propitious time” are stretched in these new
usages and they also lead interpreters and subsequent readers of
these descriptions to interpret the things described in terms of exist-
ing patterns of usage of the key categories. Comparison suffuses
description and thus the only way forward even for description is to
take responsibility for comparative judgments wherever they arise.
Third, the CRIP approach proposes that taking responsibility for
a comparative judgment involves explicitly thematizing the category
involved, subjecting it to scrutiny regarding its origins and existing
usages, examining the theoretical frameworks that give it meaning,
and testing to see whether it leads to distorted readings of the things
described by means of it. In other words, comparative judgments
are inevitable so we must create a process whereby we can correct
comparative judgments and the categories they involve.
Fourth, this commitment to constant correction and improvement
requires us to treat comparative judgments as fallible hypotheses, not
indubitable propositions. Moreover, this commitment to correction,
while freeing us to work with comparative categories regardless of
their convoluted histories, leads us to be suspicious of all compara-
tive categories and to look for the three problems identified above:
categories suffering from theoretically suspect framing, categories
insufficiently vague to avoid distortion, and categories so vague that
there is insufficient resistance to our tendency to form hasty impres-
sions of similarity.
Fifth, the CRIP approach assumes that comparisons aim to be
true, in the dyadic sense that locates the truth or falsity of a propo-
sition in the accuracy of interpretation of its subject matter. Famously
hidden within this apparently simple dyadic understanding of the
meaning of truth is the far more complex process of interpretation
that associates a claim with a subject matter in a particular respect, and
locates the act of interpretation itself in a concrete social and polit-
ical situation. It follows that we must evaluate the truth of a propo-

sition expressing a comparative judgment in relation to the way the
respect of interpretation—the comparative category—forges a link
between comparative judgment and subject matter. And we must
concern ourselves with the effects of comparing religions because
comparison inevitably is a socially and politically contextualized act
of interpretation.
Sixth, the CRIP approach proposes that justifying comparative
categories begins with using the category to describe and compare
religious ideas fairly, where fairness is judged by the standard that
Wilfrid Cantwell Smith so ably defended: “qualified adherent ap-
proval.” But the CRIP approach also involves taking responsibility for
the fact that a category derives its meaning from large-scale theories
of the subject matter. That is, a category such as “ultimate reality” is
not just an empty vessel that we say contains other ideas such as
Allah, Brahman, Chance, Dao, Emptiness, Form, or God. Ultimate
reality is itself an idea with meaning that derives from the various
ways it is specified in comparisons and by theories that explain how
these various specifications are related to one another (in Max Weber
or Paul Tillich, for example). Some comparativists balk at entering
the theoretical territory limned here but I think it is futile trying to
avoid theoretically loaded comparative categories. The most prudent
course of action is to make these theories explicit and to seek to refine
them as opportunity allows. I shall discuss in more detail later how
to manage the theoretical elements of justifying comparative categories.
Finally, the CRIP approach achieves objectivity and accuracy in
comparison not by trying to avoid the many hermeneutical difficulties
of comparison but rather by embracing them as inevitable and seek-
ing, indeed constructing, a procedure whereby we can locate mis-
takes, overcome distortions, and improve the theoretical frameworks
underlying comparisons. In this sense—here at last I offer a com-
pact definition—the CRIP method is a dialectic of theory and data
sustained within a large-scale social process devoted to the discov-
ery, improvement, and correction of comparative hypotheses.
Comparison as Impossible
The sequence of questions by which I survey the field and promote

the CRIP approach begins with the basic one reflecting the con-
tention surrounding comparison in contemporary religious studies: Is

comparison possible? If we take this question in its narrowest sense,
as asking about the sheer possibility of comparison of religious ideas
and practices, it is unproblematic. I think it undeniable that com-
parison has actually occurred, whether well or badly done.
The question is more interesting if understood as a question about
the possibility of successful comparison. The ideal of “success” is
contested but I think the discussion above reflects most people’s hopes
for what success should mean: allowing for over-active human imag-
ination, minimizing the effects of biased interests, identifying impor-
tant features of the things compared, and winning approval of
descriptions from qualified adherents, where “qualified” means experts
trained in the disciplines of comparison. To this I would add the
meta-constraint that the purpose of making comparisons should be
morally legitimate. Understanding success in this five-fold way, I con-
tend that relative success in comparing religious ideas is possible, at
least some of the time. The views denying the possibility of suc-
cessful comparison11 do so in at least the following three ways.
First, some are so impressed by the differences between cultures
and religions that they speak of incommensurability and deny the
meaningfulness of talk about vague categories that express common
respects of comparison. Even when common respects of comparison
seem to be present, these critics insist, we cannot assure ourselves
that real commonality exists because intricate cultural embedding
makes the ideas involved incommensurable. To this “incommensu-
rability objection” my answer is three-fold. (a) The biological structure
of human life places a limit on the problem of cultural impenetrability
and gives a solid basis for speaking of common features of hu-
man culture. (b) The phenomenon of multiple religious and per-
sonal identity (for instance Confucian Christians, Jewish Buddhists)
shows that the claim of incommensurability is strained. (c) What is
difficult to communicate or translate at one time and place may not
be so always and everywhere because language and culture are
mutable, dynamic phenomena. To say that comparison is a social
and political act is precisely to allow that it can change circum-
stances, including by creating previously non-existent possibilities
11
For example see Wiebe, Religion and Truth; Beyond Legitimation.
of communication and crosscultural understanding. These three

considerations do not automatically assure the meaningfulness of
speaking about common respects of comparison but they do check
objections that would arrest from the outset all attempts to identify
meaningful respects of comparison. Once the comparative process
has begun, at least on the CRIP understanding of that process, the
existence or creation of common respects of comparison is largely
an empirical matter.
Second, some are so impressed by the human tendency to become
attached to familiar ways of interpreting the world that they view
the problem of bias as intractable. They deny that we can treat reli-
gious practices, texts, and traditions as specifications of comparative
categories without fatal distortion, no matter what pains are taken
to be fair. Perhaps we can imagine creatures capable of fair inter-
pretation through being less thoroughly indebted to biologically con-
gealed habits of understanding than human beings are. But we cannot
imagine ourselves capable of overcoming the limitations of imagi-
nation and perspective that plague our attempts to be fair-minded
in human affairs. My reply to this “bias objection” turns on a differ-
ence in judgment regarding the degree to which bias is problematic.
I take the existence of adaptable forms of inquiry such as the natural
sciences to be evidence that people are capable of establishing so-
cial arrangements wherein vulnerability and improvement of inter-
pretations is prized. Moreover, the “qualified adherent approval test,”
in spite of its complexities, assures us that our efforts to be fair
are sometimes relatively successful. Once again, however, nothing
in this reply guarantees fairness, nor even a recipe for achieving it.
Fair interpretation is an art form in which success turns on skill and
effort as well as a clear-headed method.
Third, some might grant the meaningfulness of respects of com-
parison and even the possibility of making allowance for bias, yet
view the purpose of comparison as essentially immoral, thus making
successful comparison impossible where “success” connotes worthi-
ness. Whether the goal of comparison is to satisfy curiosity, to enhance
understanding, to build theories, or something else, the “morality
objection” insists that comparison is an exercise of cultural power
for which it is hard to take full and fair responsibility. If not a bla-
tant exertion of cultural force, then it is at the very least a danger-
ous form of transformative praxis: comparison changes things, both
the things compared and those making the comparisons. My reply
to the morality objection begins by granting that comparison is inter-

ested and transformative praxis. Indeed, the very purpose of com-
parison in the social context of interreligious dialogue is to bring
about cultural and personal change through mutual understanding.
I think that purposes in making comparisons or religious ideas are
often and perhaps usually morally legitimate. There are no guaran-
tees, however, for moral judgments of this kind change with time
and place. I have no trouble imagining settings in which curiosity
should be checked and understanding sacrificed for the sake of some
relatively higher moral purpose, such as the protection from scrutiny
of an exquisite and fragile cultural phenomenon.
The incommensurability, bias, and morality objections to the pos-
sibility of successful comparison are potent. My reply in each case
turns heavily not only on the conception of comparison I am defend-
ing but also on the social process of comparison that plays an essen-
tial role in making corrections and adjustments in comparative
judgments. My resistance to non-empirical pronouncements about
what is possible and what is impossible in comparison makes sense
only in the context of a serious positive viewpoint that moves beyond
hopeful speculation about comparative method. That alternative is
a properly empirical procedure that prizes vulnerability of compar-
ative hypotheses and actively seeks to improve them in as many ways
and with as much diligence as possible. This is the CRIP approach.
Comparison as Something Other than an Explicit

Cognitive Process
Positions answering the question of possibility in the affirmative can

be differentiated by their responses to a second question: To what
extent should comparison proceed as an explicitly cognitive process
with the results of comparison represented as (hypothetical) ideas?
The argument that an act of comparison presupposes a respect of
comparison (a category) is sound; it is simply a part of the gram-
mar of comparison that two things are similar or different somehow—
and the how is the respect or category of comparison. Nevertheless,
comparisons of religious ideas sometimes avoid any explicit mention
of the operative categories. This may be because of lack of interest
or because of inconsistency, which would be serious defects. This
silence also may serve a constructive goal: resistance to making the
act of comparison an explicit cognitive process. To suppress discus-
sion of the category of comparison while still making comparisons

is effectively to leave the results and categories of comparison implicit
in the comparative act itself.
There are at least two reasons why this goal sometimes seems
important. First, if we view knowledge as an event of illumination
within a dynamic process, we might feel averse rather than drawn
to explicit hypotheses about religions voiced explicitly in terms of
comparative categories. Rather, proper knowledge is attained when
the results involve a seeing-as with potentially transformative effects.
Second, refusing to make the results of comparison explicit in the
form of clear hypotheses is a hedge against so-called logocentrism.
Vigilantly deconstructing comparative conclusions as fast as they
materialize keeps the mind agile, avoids the ironic trapping of the-
orists by their own comparative conclusions, and most adequately
respects differences among traditions. Some theorists deem these
virtues so important that they willingly forsake the rather different
virtues of self-consciousness of procedure, vulnerability to correction,
and detection of bias that pertain to acts of comparison structured
as explicit cognitive processes along CRIP lines.
There are a number of examples of this reticent approach to com-
parison. They vary in the degree to which they oppose representa-
tion of comparison as an explicit cognitive process and of comparative
conclusions as ideas but they uniformly insist on the value of com-
parison in absence of a cognitive representation of the results as a
third thing. Such approaches may use respects of comparison drawn
from narrative structures12 or metaphors.13 Alternatively, they may
juxtapose points of view14 or facilitate intellectually illuminating play
across differences.15 These approaches avoid large-scale theories about
categories of comparison (such as the human condition, ultimate real-
ities, or religious truth). Moreover, they tend to be suspicious of
accounts of causal factors that purport to explain conceptual simi-
larities between traditions or texts.16 The suspicion is understandable:
12
Doniger, Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts; Dreams, Illusion and Other
Realities.
13
Eckel, To See the Buddha.
14
Clooney, Theology after Vedanta; “Comparative Theology,” 521–550.
15
Smith, Imagining Religion; Smith, Map is Not Territory.
16
See Ultimate Realities, ch. 8, where such causal explanations appear.
theories about comparative categories and causal analyses tend to be

seriously underdetermined by the comparative data.
I have some sympathy for these indirect approaches to compari-
son. They highlight a genuine weakness, albeit one that fades with
time (I hope), in the CRIP approach to comparison. These views
hold in common that successful comparison is a moment of genius
insight in which an illuminating similarity is grasped intuitively and
then expressed gracefully, avoiding the unattractive mistake of smoth-
ering the insights with an unwieldy theoretical apparatus. Almost any
broad theoretical framework either will be too abstract to explain
anything or will quickly predict not only the insight under investi-
gation but a horde of other comparative conclusions as well. In fact,
it will predict so much on the basis of such slender data that the
theory will collapse under the weight of its own pretensions. A the-
ory about a comparative category is, on these views, drastically under-
determined by the data, and thus extensively stipulates what ought
to be the case, invariably getting too much wrong to be attractive.
Making comparison into an explicit cognitive process with a dialec-
tical methodology of vulnerability, debate, and improvement seems
too facile, too unrealistic about the complex data to be accounted
for in comparisons, and too optimistic about the power of theories
to coordinate the disparate data consistently. What is left for com-
parison, then, except to be the domain of genius insight? And what
is the point of rendering comparison an explicit cognitive process
except boldly to hide from the fact that we simply cannot regulate
comparative efforts in the way the CRIP approach claims is possible?
Note how modest is the objection to the CRIP approach that I
infer from these viewpoints. It does not claim that successful com-
parison is impossible on a priori grounds. Rather, it plausibly argues
that a slender base of comparative data about religious phenomena
and a worrying history of distortion and arbitrariness in previous
comparative efforts combine with the irreducible complexity of the
task to make the safest approach one of avoiding too formalized and
aggressive an approach to comparison. Leave it to those deeply ini-
tiated into several traditions. Let us be content with their moments
of illumination and the comparative insights they produce. Let us
avoid systematization and cognitive fretting. It’s just not worth it.
The relationship between this view and the CRIP view resembles
the relationship between Mahayana and Theravada sensibilities in
Buddhism. In Theravada, the focused journey toward enlightenment
is for the monks, for the genius experts. In Mahayana, enlighten-

ment is for the masses; not being genius experts, however, they must
find ways to work together. In the same way, I am urging that the
process of comparison should be made more public, that many kinds
of people should combine forces to search for stable comparative
hypotheses, and that the key to this approach is an explicit method.
This method must prize stability and vulnerability to correction in
comparative hypotheses, render its provisional conclusions as ideas
on the way to theories about religious matters, and demand careful
justification for the comparative categories that make stable com-
parative hypotheses feasible. The CRIP approach goes even further,
however—and here the Buddhist analogy begins to strain, though
the “egalitarian rebellion” version of the origins of Mahayana keeps
the analogy alive. I argue that the genius insight method of com-
parison was never sufficiently productive of deep insights and that
such insights as were won were never made as fruitful as they might
have been for the work of others. In short, there is a scientific
approach to comparison that promises far better results due to the
coordinated work of many in place of the rare, uncoordinated insights
of the few genius comparativists.
The question becomes, therefore, whether the CRIP method works.
As sympathetic as I am to the criticism I have been discussing, I do
think that more can be achieved than it allows. I return to these
matters below. For now, the relation between the CRIP approach
and this family of critics suggests an amusing image, flattering to
both sides in different ways yet gently mocking both, too. What
begins as conflicting bets over what would be gained by self-
consciousness about method in comparison ends with the reticent,
Theravada approach having nothing to do but watch while the enthu-
siastic Mahayana crowd uses every available resource to maximize
the impact of their combined efforts. The members of the disciplined
monkish group, amazed at the innocence of their non-adept friends,
with some justification predict that the corporate experiment will
begin in optimistic methodological stipulations and, chaotically stum-
bling along a host of mistake-ridden paths, end in utter failure. The
large, noisy group, for its part, is unconcerned with the adepts’ opin-
ions because time is on its side. Where the adepts can only watch
in amusement, already pressed hard up against their self-imposed
limits for what is possible in comparison, the corporate experiment’s
refusal to accept any limitations a priori on what comparison can
achieve gives it time and opportunity to learn from its many mis-
takes and to generate new approaches and new forms of coopera-
tion. The outcome remains an intriguing question. I bet on the mob.
Comparison Based on Categories Justified by Existing

Theories of Religion
Approaches to comparison that produce explicit cognitive represen-

tations of the process and results of comparing religious ideas con-
stitute a large group, though it is diverse and produces results of
uneven quality. We can distinguish these views based on the answers
they provide to the question about how we should justify the cate-
gories used for comparison. A later section of this essay deals with
approaches that attempt to justify categories directly from “similar-
ities” in the data of religious ideas and practices; this is an extremely
dubious procedure but it has its own special virtue, as we shall see.
The current section deals with approaches that borrow or deduce
categories for comparison from existing theories of religion and jus-
tify the use of those categories by virtue of the plausibility they gain
from those theories. We can distinguish such approaches, though not
without overlap, by the nature of the theory of religion that furnishes
and justifies the categories. I present them here for convenience in
family groupings.
First, one family of approaches begins from a confessional reli-
gious perspective, approaching other religious traditions in terms of
categories dominant within the home tradition.17 An important social
phenomenon connected with this is interreligious dialogue, in which
representatives of religious traditions join in discussion over shared
issues of practical importance or simply to increase mutual under-
standing. Surely this is the most natural way, in the sense of being
simplest and most direct, to approach the task of making compar-
isons among religious ideas. What could be more straightforward or
more morally satisfying than to approach the plurality of religions
from one’s own perspective? I heartily affirm the moral and exis-
tential naturalness of this kind of approach to comparison. Yet it
17
See, among numerous others, Rahner, “Christianity and the Non-Christian
Religions,” 115–134; Pannenberg, “Toward a Theology of the History of Religions,”
pp. 65–118.
has an obvious downside in that the categories for comparison are

so heavily indebted to a particular confessional perspective that they
cannot be as responsive to the data as scholars and theorists of reli-
gion require. An ideal dialogue encounter for many religious-believer
comparativists may not be ideal for comparativists for whose pur-
poses the inflexibility of categories derived from and justified by con-
fessional commitments interferes with the scholarly task. Flexible
categories are better in the CRIP approach because comparative cat-
egories always need improvement, and any theory that produces and
justifies categories always needs refinement.
Second, another family of approaches justifies the key categories
for comparison by means of a theological-mystical-metaphysical
theory. This is true in very different ways of the perennial philoso-
phy,18 various archetype and Jungian approaches,19 and even certain
contributions in the philosophy of religion.20 The theory in question
may be more or less complete and more or less empirically driven,
yet it is persuasive enough to commend its principal theoretical cat-
egories to the comparativist. There are many examples that we might
consider here but, for the sake of specificity, I shall discuss the peren-
nial philosophy.
The perennial philosophy offers a way to see how adepts of all
religious traditions hold certain key ideas in common, albeit under
sometimes radically different descriptions, while explaining why non-
adepts could flatly disagree with each other about religious beliefs
and practices. The existence of this purported common core is the
reason the perennial philosophy is sometimes called the primordial
tradition. It is defended by thinkers who in some cases—and pre-
eminently in the case of Huston Smith, its best known contempo-
rary representative—have spent a great deal of time learning about
religious practices and texts from all over the world.21 Its advocates
would say without hesitation that its plausibility derives mainly from
the fact that it can make sense of a great deal of data. Just because
18
For example, see Huxley, Perennial Philosophy; Schuon, Transcendent Unity of
Religions; Smith, Forgotten Truth.
19
For example, see Campbell, The Masks of God Eliade, Cosmos and History; Eliade,
Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries; Eliade, Images and Symbols; Eliade, Sacred and the Profane;
Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion; Eliade, History of Religious Ideas.
20
For example, see Hick, An Interpretation of Religion.
21
The fruits of this research effort are especially evident in Smith, The World’s
Religions.
of this, we are told, we should not hesitate to adopt categories from

the perennial philosophy for the sake of making detailed compar-
isons. From its hierarchical ontology of the Great Chain of Being
we receive the categories of Godhead (nirguna Brahman), God (saguna
Brahman), discarnates and other intermediate beings, human beings,
animals, plants, and inanimate objects. Its cosmology offers categories
such as the human condition, ultimate and proximate religious
truth, savior figures and bodhisattvas, ignorance and liberation. Its
view of the religious quest leads to other comparative categories such
as morality, ritual, sacred texts, and special revelations, each of
which is interpreted through the lens of the ontology and cosmology
of the perennial philosophy. When a powerful large-scale theoretical
interpretation of religion furnishes categories, perennialists urge, com-
parison can proceed untroubled by the problem of categorial justi-
fication, focusing instead on comparative details. Ultimately, on this
view, the result is the further illumination and consolidation of the
theory of religion that furnishes the categories in the first place.
What happens, however, when some data beg for comparison in
fundamental categories other than those served up by the perennial
philosophy? The existence of such data is predicted within the peren-
nial philosophy approach and explained by means of the distinction
between what is ultimately and proximately true; in this way the
contraindicative force of such data is contained. Ultimately, the con-
traindicating data are really not so important even if, proximately,
they are pervasive and central. Going further, what happens if, by
following this procedure, most of the interesting details of religious
practices and ideas are effectively eliminated from having a say in
what the fundamental categories for comparison should be? For
example, the majority of scholars in religious studies simply cannot
accept that pervasive themes in religion such as food and purity can
be marginalized in the way that the perennial philosophy does. As
beautiful as the perennial philosophy is, it has few followers. This is
partly because of an ontology that is opposed to the naturalist ten-
dencies of modern western science but also because its handling of
comparative data is felt to be arbitrary. The sense of arbitrariness
derives from the fact that the theory furnishing the categories for
comparison is too neat, too easily able to deflect objections, and thus
too convenient, too invulnerable, too unresponsive to criticism, and
too uninterested in correction and improvement.
For all that, of course, the perennial philosophy might be correct,

at least in its essentials. The point here, however, is that the vulnera-
bility of comparative categories is at least as important a virtue as
the coherence and simplicity of a theological-mystical-metaphysical
theory that might produce them. The same goes for other members
of this family, including especially the various archetype theories of
religion, regardless of whether we provide a metaphysical or other
explanation for the universality of the archetypes: vulnerability of
categories is an essential hedge against ignorance about religion and
the wider reality in which religion exists.
A third family of approaches justifies comparative categories by
virtue of one or another scientific-causal theory about the origin and
nature of religion. Such approaches, including many of the bright-
est stars in the sky of the scientific study of religion, usually have
begun from particular scientific or social-scientific disciplines, there-
after leading out into proposals for more or less comprehensive the-
ories of religion. Examples are legion, and usually emphasize a
particular discipline such as evolutionary biology,22 anthropology,23
sociology,24 neuroscience,25 cognitive science,26 or psychology.27
The word “causal” in scientific-causal is helpfully vague. On the
one hand, it cuts in the direction of the second family’s expectation
that there are naturally occurring limitations on how religious ideas
fit together. Of course, the third family explains these limitations in
terms of the sphere of interest of the leading scientific discipline
22
Frazer, Creation and Evolution; Frazer, The Golden Bough; Spencer Harrison, Nature
and Reality of Religion; Tylor, Primitive Cultures.
23
Durkheim, Elementary Forms; Lévi-Straus, Totemism; Lévi-Straus, Structural Anthropology;
Douglas, Natural Symbols; Douglas, Implicit Meanings.
24
Weber, Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism; Weber, Essays in Sociology;
Weber, The Religion of China; Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures; Geertz, “Deep Play,”
Berger, The Sacred Canopy; Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality;
Berger, ed., The Other Side of God.
25
Jaynes, Origin of Consciousness; Ashbrook, The Human Mind; d’Aquili, Laughlin,
and McManus, The Spectrum of Ritual; d’Aquili and Newberg, “Religious and Mystical
States,” 177–99; d’Aquili and Newberg, “The Neuropsychological Basis of Religions,”
190–91.
26
Boyer, Religion Explained; Boyer, Naturalness of Religious Ideas; Wilson, Darwin’s
Cathedral; Atran, In Gods We Trust.
27
Freud, Future of an Illusion; Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents; Erikson, Young
Man Luther Rizzuto, The Birth of the Living God.
(e.g. social patterns, brain structure and function, psychological mech-

anisms) rather than in the second family’s more metaphysical or mys-
tical ways. On the other hand, causation points in the direction of
historical influence whereby certain comparative categories achieve
a high degree of naturalness, as when the historical emergence of
Buddhism and Hinduism from earlier Brahmanic religions means
that samsara and moksha are natural categories for both. The histor-
ical influences in question might vary widely, from the effects of
trade contacts or missionary zeal to planned cultural engineering.
Some approaches in the third family make appeal to both kinds of
causation to justify comparative categories. This is true especially of
approaches to comparison that allow the philosophy of history to
play as large a role as historical details.28 Unfortunately, sometimes
these views presuppose influence where none has been shown to
have any historical-causal basis. Alternatively, they presuppose an
evolution of ideas where the close-knit cultural competition needed
for the natural selection of ideas cannot be demonstrated.
The third family displays relatively less interest in the first fam-
ily’s approach to religious pluralism, beginning from one’s personal
religious point of view. It also contrasts with the second family by
limiting attention to recognizably scientific theories or to historical
causation, at least in intention if not always in practice. The prob-
lem with the third family of approaches, however, is the same as
the problem in the first and second families: comparative categories
need to be more vulnerable to correction than these approaches
allow. We must be able to take account of all that is learned about
religious traditions in the process of making comparisons.
It would be churlish to criticize the many instances of creative
genius in the study of religion that abound in these three families
of approaches. Let me be clear that in no case is it the source of
comparative categories that troubles me. Each of these types of the-
ories of religion has bequeathed valuable categories for comparing
religious beliefs and practices. The problem is rather the rigidity that
categories suffer when we justify them mainly with reference to large-
scale theories of religion. These theorists themselves, and I daresay
the bulk of those making use of their comparative categories, have
not said clearly enough how these categories can respond to resis-
28
Hegel, Lectures. Also see Toynbee, An Historian’s Approach to Religion.
tant data. My contention is that, regardless of the source of cate-

gories for comparison, the methodology of comparison must prize
vulnerability of comparative categories and of the comparisons they
permit.
Comparison Based on Categories Justified from

Similarities in Data
When categories receive their justification from an existing complete

or partial theory of religion, they are even less flexible and respon-
sive than the theories themselves. When too much data is not reg-
istered well enough by an array of categories, the dependence on a
background theory makes flexible correction of categories almost
impossible. This has long been sensed within the study of religion
and by reaction has produced a fundamentally descriptive group of
approaches to comparison. In this group, the justification of com-
parative categories derives from how well they express the relative
importance of the data and of the relations between data.
Justification of this sort is a delicate procedure. Sometimes com-
parativists have justified comparative categories merely on the puta-
tively self-evident character of the similarities themselves. The failure
of “what just seems similar” to justify categories of “the similar” is
notorious,29 however, for two reasons. On the one hand, the role of
the interpreter is so powerful in appeals to the obvious that it can
swamp the ideal of descriptive impartiality. On the other hand, it
continues to be difficult to figure out when phenomena are “essen-
tially similar”; comparison seems not to advance this phenomeno-
logical task so much as codify persistent perplexity about it (but see
below for a brief account of how philosophical phenomenology is
supposed to overcome this challenge). Despite these problems, some-
thing like an appeal to the obvious is indispensable to the justification
of categories in these approaches because of their insistence on allow-
ing data to speak for themselves. The problem is unavoidable, there-
fore; it must be managed rather than avoided. I cluster the views
in this group into families based on strategies for managing the chal-
lenge of impartiality in judging obvious similarities.
29
This criticism is made forcefully in Smith, Imagining Religion.
First, experience and brilliance matter, and thus one family of

approaches simply does the descriptive task well. That is to say, some
writers adduce descriptive categories on the basis of intensive ground-
ing in multiple religious traditions, with the benefit of ongoing dis-
cussions with a wide variety of people. The result is descriptions of
religious phenomena and ideas that win the grudging but secretly
appreciative approval of large numbers of experts. Under this head-
ing I include the luminaries of description in the study of religion.
Some of these could be called descriptive phenomenologists of reli-
gion, as against philosophical phenomenology to which I will return
presently.30 For others the phenomenological label is less apt but they
are nonetheless expert observers and describers of religious phe-
nomena.31 There are many others of both sorts.32 There are also
many figures from the previous sections whose projects crucially
depend on expertise in description so it is as well to remember that
this group is distinguished primarily by a commitment to descriptive
adequacy as primary justification for comparative categories.
Second, another family of approaches to comparison manages the
problem of bias in description by partially relying on the lines of
justification already discussed. This has to be done in precisely the
right way, however: the aim is to relieve pressure on descriptive ade-
quacy as the sole justification for comparative categories while still
avoiding reliance on large-scale theories of religion in order to main-
tain the close ties between categories and data. One example of such
a judicious hybrid approach is the comparative strategy advocated
by Rudolf Otto in The Idea of the Holy.33 In that work Otto blends
phenomenological description with a partial theological viewpoint.
There is no fully worked out theory of religion underlying Otto’s
categories of mysterium and tremendum; he himself says that he only
30
For example, see van der Leeuw, Religion; Kristensen, The Meaning of Religion;
Jastrow, The Study of Religion.
31
Sharpe, Comparative Religion; Sharpe, Understanding Religion; Smart, The Phenomenon
of Religion; Smart, “Comparative-Historical Method,” Smith, Faith and Belief; Smith,
Towards a World Theology.
32
One of the most pervasive suppliers and reinforcers of comparative categories
should be mentioned under this heading, though it is less systematic than any of
the examples so far mentioned: the almost universally used classification system of
the United States Library of Congress. See Library of Congress Classification Schedules
Runchock and Droste eds.
33
Otto, Idea of the Holy. Also relevant here are Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil;
Ricoeur, Conflict of Interpretations.
focuses on the irrational element in religion, which leaves out an

enormous amount of data. Yet the categories achieve justification
not only by observations of the recurrence of phenomena that are
arguably identical in substance, but also by a partial worldview that
postulates the religious potency of reality.
Third, another hybrid family of examples uses various kinds of
higher-order classifications of the data to supplement justification of
comparative categories by means of their adequacy for describing
data. Examples are plentiful, including the classification systems of
Watson and Dilworth34 and Paul Tillich’s analysis of God concepts.35
In such cases, structural similarities in the ideas of diverse religious
traditions suggest a classification. This classification is then supported
in at least one of four ways: (a) by elimination of alternative classifi-
cations, (b) by the theoretical beauty and economy of the classification,
(c) by the classification’s efficacy in organizing further data, and (d)
by the classification’s production of new insights. These classifica-
tions may or may not be ideal, in the sense of being defined by key
features that are rarely realized purely in actual instances, and they
may be partial or exhaustive.
All of the approaches to justifying categories discussed in this sec-
tion prescind from heavy reliance on well worked out theories of
religion. By contrast with the views discussed in previous sections,
they cleave to whatever relevant data is available, without the aid
of much in the way of a theoretical superstructure to add authority
to the classifications and categories that result. This is so even in
hybrid approaches to justification (the second and third families). The
attempt to stay closer to the data by resisting the potentially blink-
ered influence of large-scale theories is to be lauded, in spite of the
problems of justification merely from impressions of similarity. From
this we learn the crucial lesson that, difficult though it may be, we
must limit (not eliminate) the role that big-deal theories of religion
play in the justification of comparative categories.
Yet anti-theoretical, data-driven comparison is too arbitrary, so we
must not exclude large-scale theories of religion altogether from the
justification of comparative categories. We must maintain a distinction—
it can never safely be made rigid—between the task of comparison
that produces and justifies comparative categories and the subsequent
34
See Watson, Architectonics of Meaning; and Dilworth, Philosophy in World Perspective.
35
Tillich, Systematic Theology.
task of theory building that takes the categories as well-attested ways

of organizing data. In this way we arrive at the necessity for a dialec-
tical approach, which is the CRIP way.
Comparison Based on a Dialectic of Data and Categories
The final group of approaches to comparison attempt, by contrast

with all approaches discussed so far, to introduce procedures that
gradually improve categories, however they are produced. The most
feasible procedure for such improvement is a thoroughgoing dialec-
tic between the raw data and the categories used in making com-
parisons of the data. These approaches tend to be unwieldy because
of the number of variables involved. Not only is there a large amount
of data to manage, but this data needs to be effective for the cor-
rection of the categories in use. Moreover, the theories guiding inter-
pretation of the data are themselves complex and subject to correction.
I discuss here three dialectical approaches.
The first and most famous is E. Husserl’s philosophical phenom-
enology.36 Husserl’s attempt to allow phenomenological generaliza-
tions to respond to data is truly impressive. The CRIP approach
follows him in this respect, though in few other ways. Husserl’s pro-
gram is burdened by awkward philosophical assumptions that it is
less than optimally helpful for a general theory of comparison. In
particular, his foundationalist epistemic project seems wrongheaded
and produces confusions in his method that obscure the details salient
for a general theory of comparison. His elaborate procedure for guid-
ing phenomenological reflection is both too little in respect of attend-
ing to too few sources of corrective wisdom, and too much in respect
of being thoroughly overbearing and impossibly demanding. If ever
there were a comparative method for adepts it is Husserl’s. That
said, I do admire his attempt to found a discipline of comparative
phenomenology, his scientifically minded respect for vulnerability of
categories inferred from data, and his use of a dialectic of data and
categories to drive his phenomenological method.
The second example also focuses on phenomenological reports:
the heterophenomenological method advocated by D. C. Dennett.37
36
Husserl, Ideas; Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology.
37
Dennett, “A Method for Phenomenology,” pp. 66–98.
Dennett’s approach can be regarded either as an attempt to correct

some of Husserl’s excesses or as a simplified version of Husserl’s
own procedures. Unfortunately, Dennett does not say enough about
Husserl’s method to enable a fair judgment of the relationship between
the two. Suffice to say that Dennett sees clearly the philosophical
problems associated with the comparison of phenomenological reports
and he is as keenly aware as Husserl was of how splendid it would
be to have a way to know when apparently different descriptions
were really essentially about the same phenomenon. I heartily agree
with both Dennett and Husserl in this regard. I am betting, how-
ever, that the vision of effective comparative phenomenology will
never be realized until neurophysiology advances to the point that
it can make meaningful contributions to judgments about the essen-
tial similarity and difference of the experiences giving rise to the
phenomenological descriptions being compared.38
The third example is the CRIP approach, summarized above.39 I
confine myself in the next section to some comments on the mean-
ing and significance of the dialectic between categories and data that
the CRIP approach advocates.
The Significance of Comparison Conducted as Dialectic

between Categories and Data
A brief excursus in the territory of philosophy of science may prove

illuminating at this point. In the 1960’s, Imre Lakatos proposed a
fairly detailed model for the operation of the natural sciences (the
so-called methodology of scientific research programs).40 It succeeded
in overcoming to a significant degree the discontinuity between
scientific work within a paradigm (“normal” science) and what Thomas
Kuhn had identified as “paradigm shifts.”41 The discontinuity had
38
For one account of how neurophysiology might make such a contribution to
the study of religious experience, see Wildman and Brothers, “A Neuropsychological-
Semiotic Model of Religious Experiences”.
39
Also see Ultimate Realities, ch. 8, and the summary in ch. 1 of that volume. A
fuller account is furnished in several parts of The Human Condition. For a more
detailed presentation, though lacking some of the insights accrued during the CRIP
process, see Neville, Normative Cultures.
40
Lakatos, “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes”.
41
Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
proved awkward because the history of science suggested on the

whole that paradigm shifts fit into the flow of science more easily
than Kuhn’s proposal allowed. Lakatos’s own proposal was also con-
troversial, however. Though it allowed for paradigm shifts, it tended
to make them more rational than the history of science suggested
has been the case. The controversy between Lakatos’s relatively ratio-
nal account of theory change and Paul Feyerabend’s insistence that
changing between scientific research programs cannot finally be given
exhaustively rational justification42 is one of the great debates of twen-
tieth-century philosophy of science. It appears that, although reasons
can be given for abandoning an apparently degenerating scientific
research program in favor of a more progressive alternative, the deci-
sion remains a judgment call that cannot be decided completely
rationally.
This shows that the dialectic between data and theoretical cate-
gories is a delicate one even in the natural sciences. Its management
depends on having stylish good judgment about one’s work, akin
perhaps to what John Henry Newman called “illative sense.”43 That
is how one balances the virtues of switching to a promising new
hypothesis that (hopefully temporarily) flies in the face of important
data, on the one hand, and the virtues of staying with a trusted old
hypothesis that might be more consistent with data but seems to be
running out of predictive steam, on the other. Newman’s illative
sense is the key to efficient, potent argumentation as much as it is
the key to making decisions between two competing hypotheses that
each call for the investment of time and energy. This ineradicably
artistic dimension of human reason is a sharp reminder that any
dialectic between data and categories will be as subtle as it is complex.
Perhaps Lakatos’ most important insight was his detailed account
of the complex path from data to theory and back again, in con-
trast with Karl Popper’s more straightforward focus on falsification.44
In the natural sciences, data is incomprehensible apart from theo-
ries of instrumentation, which themselves are justified both by the
sense they make of raw data and by their derivation from active
theories about how nature works. Additional essentially interpreta-
42
Feyerabend, Against Method.
43
Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent.
44
Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery.
tive theories are also needed for guiding the relating of data to the-
ory, and for picking out essential features of the gathered masses of
data. Most important is the way that the data, already multiply inter-
preted in these ways, can have an impact on the central hypothe-
ses that guide the research program. No good scientist would ever
throw over a well-tested hypothesis because of one piece of con-
traindicating evidence. Rather, attempts would be made—frantic
attempts, perhaps—on the one hand to test the data by replicating
an experiment or confirming theories of instrumentation, and on the
other hand to explain the data with an auxiliary hypothesis that
effectively protects the central hypotheses from falsification. It is partly
the extension of theories to new data, even to potentially threaten-
ing data, by means of auxiliary hypotheses that helps to make research
programs in the natural sciences seem progressive. Another sign of
a progressive research program is its ability to predict novel facts.
Of course, if novel facts are no longer forthcoming and explanations
of threatening data seem contrived and merely face-saving, then the
operative research program would be judged, sooner by its critics
than by its advocates, to be degenerating.
What is true in the natural sciences is no less true in the study
of religion: the relationship between data and theoretical terms, in-
cluding comparative categories, is exceedingly complex.45 Most of
the views I have discussed recognize this. Determined recognition of
complexity is the precondition for resisting the extremes of data-
blind enthusiasm and theory-blind confusion. This acknowledge-
ment also involves a discriminating appreciation of similarities and
differences among the various kinds of inquiries we see around us. The
subject matters of religious studies are very different from those of the
natural sciences or economics or literature. Nevertheless, Lakatos’s
methodology of research programs, when appropriately generalized,
fairly describes the way effective inquiry works in any context from
the natural sciences to the humanities and even to common sense
problem solving. The same characteristics are crucial: a conservative
approach whereby a feasible hypothesis is relinquished reluctantly,
and a sense of adventure that prizes vulnerability to correction by
whatever means are available given the nature of the inquiry.
45
Lakatosian research programs have been proposed as models for the study of
religion in Clayton, Explanation from Physics to Theology; and Murphy, Theology in the
Age of Scientific Reasoning. They are used in Wildman, Fidelity with Plausibility.
Charles Saunders Peirce, and then John Dewey, first appreciated

the potential generality of this sort of theory of inquiry.46 Peirce actu-
ally anticipated Lakatos in many details relevant to inquiry in the
natural sciences.47 Peirce’s more impressive achievements in this area,
however, were his rich awareness of the complex relations between
data and theory and his vision for extending a generalized theory
of inquiry from the natural sciences all the way into the humanities
and metaphysics. I share Peirce’s and Dewey’s basic intuition.48 I see
no reason why the confusing data of religious beliefs and practices
cannot be given flexible interpretative structures that render them
able not only to inspire but also to correct theories of religion and
of religious topics such as the human condition, ultimate realities,
and religious truth.
What form should such flexible interpretative structures take? They
should take the form of the provisional conclusions of the study of
crosscultural comparative religious ideas and practices, which is pre-
cisely what CRIP attempted to produce. That is to say, the com-
parative results of the CRIP effort are the first step toward a more
effective approach to the generation and testing of theories of reli-
gion and religious topics. The categories within which comparisons
of religious ideas and practices take place are precisely the flexible
means of organizing data that constructive theoretical efforts require.
In effect, these comparative results are the analogue of theories of
instrumentation and interpretation in the natural sciences: they allow
theorists of religion to do better work by stabilizing data in a net-
work of comparative categories.
The CRIP approach thus conceives comparative categories as
flexible interpretative structures or theories of instrumentation that
make data available to wider theory-building efforts in religious stud-
ies while maintaining a dialectical relationship with data that is strong
enough to force changes in the comparative categories and in the
theories that make use of them. This hints at the ways theorists jus-
tify the comparative categories they use: justification comes both from
the data side and from the theory side. To be more explicit about
46
Peirce, “The Fixation of Belief,” Dewey, Logic.
47
Peirce, Essays in the Philosophy of Science.
48
For more details on the general theory of inquiry suggested here, see Wildman,
“The Resilience of Religion in Secular Social Environments”.
this, I offer the following parsing of the task of justifying compara-

tive generalizations.
Each part of the task of justifying comparative categories corre-
sponds to an impulse present in one or more of the approaches to
comparison that I have discussed in this essay. Coordination of these
lines of justification is essential, as is remembering that we speak
here of justifying categories for comparing religious ideas. There needs
to be (a) a delimiting of possibilities whereby the ideas of interest
within a comparative category are set in a wider framework of plau-
sible religious ideas of the same sort, so as not to overlook vital alter-
natives; (b) an account of the dynamic logical connections among
these various possible ideas so that the category is specified not merely
by a list of ideas but also by relationships among the ideas them-
selves; (c) a genetic analysis of specific symbolic representations of
these religious ideas, so that historical influences among ideas and
social-cultural influences on the origins of the ideas are explicit; and
(d) analyses of the circumstances that accompany the key shifts in
symbolic representation during the history of the religious ideas within
the category. If all four of these theory-side lines of justification are
accomplished convincingly, with no detection of excessive arbitrari-
ness or distortion, then we will have good reason to think, from the
theory side at least, that our comparative category is doing useful
work. To these theory-side considerations we must add the basic
phenomenological point on the data side, namely, that (e) our sense
of what is similar, when carefully conditioned by scrupulous prepa-
ration and exposure to many variations, really should count as par-
tial justification of comparative categories.
These five requirements for justifying comparative categories draw
on standard commitments within the history of religions, the phi-
losophy of religion, and the phenomenology of religion. I shall list
those debts more formally below. They are the tests by which we
determine whether comparative categories organize the data well and
thus whether the categories themselves are adequate. It is perfectly
clear that these tests are theoretical endeavors related to the larger
theories of religion and of religious themes for which comparative
categories serve as the organizers and mediators of relevant data.
With all of those lines of explanation and justification in place, the
CRIP approach to comparison leads out in interesting directions: to
the birth of systematic comparative metaphysics; to a strengthened,
potentially progressive, multidisciplinary investigation of religious phe-
nomena; to a more unified approach to the scientific study of reli-

gion that coordinates the typically more isolated disciplines of the
history of religion, the phenomenology of religion, and the philoso-
phy of religion; and to a particular view of pedagogy in religious
studies.
CRIP was primarily concerned with the preliminary task of orga-
nizing data by means of categories for comparison in a complex
dialectical process—precisely as complex as the formation of a com-
munity of inquiry from differently-minded scholars, including spe-
cialists and generalists. There were forays into more adventurous
theoretical efforts but that is secondary. The categories used were
shamelessly begged, borrowed, or stolen from multiple sources, includ-
ing early translations of sacred texts, many of the various sources
mentioned in earlier sections of this essay, and the creative intuition
of project members. Comparison always begins in the middle of data-
processing. Yet the CRIP effort also actively sought ways to correct
comparative categories in an effort to organize the data of religious
ideas in the most natural, efficacious ways. In fact, it adopted a
promiscuous attitude to correction, excluding a priori no source of
potential wisdom, grading sources according to their actual fruitful-
ness for making data relevant to the refinement of the comparative
categories and the comparisons they permit. The three CRIP vol-
umes are a kind of test: if the primary task of comparison has gone
well enough, then we will have good reason to think that flexible
structuring of the wild data of religious ideas is possible and that a
more critical and data-aware form of theory building ought to be
possible.
Learning from the Past
By way of summarizing the CRIP approach, I recite a list of debts

and corrections to existing comparative approaches. First, compara-
tivists borrowing categories from existing theories are exercising a
kind of wisdom. They are backing categories that are at least par-
tially attested by the theory that gives them meaning and they seek
in that way to extend the core theory itself to new tracts of data.
That is why I can admire the perennial philosophers’ dogged adher-
ence to their interpretation of the world religions. Without fidelity
to core hypotheses, even sometimes to the point of arbitrary han-
dling of data, we will almost certainly overlook some special virtue

of the core hypothesis. Such devotion to research programs is vital
to the stability of interpretative theories. Without stability, vulnera-
bility for the sake of progressive correction is impossible. From these
laborers in our vineyards we can learn to take good categories from
wherever we find them and to be unafraid of the need for persis-
tence in testing any theory of religion against data. However, we
will still seek a fairer and more flexible approach to the data itself.
Second, comparativists that refuse to make explicit the categories
in respect of which they make comparisons could well be exercising
another kind of wisdom. In this case it is the recognition that ana-
logues of scientific theories of instrumentation do not exist in the
study of religion to any great degree, at least not yet. Thus, they
prefer moving gracefully among the forest of data to trying to map
and regulate the data’s wildness for the sake of evaluating its force
for or against the particular interpretations of it implied in the explicit
use of comparative categories. From these fellow workers we can
learn not to underestimate the complexity and disarray of the data
of religious studies. It may be, however, that we can develop within
the scientific study of religion decent analogues for data-handling
theories of instrumentation in the sciences.
Third, comparativists who try to maximize the virtue of empiri-
cism in generating comparative categories from data are wisely rec-
ognizing that there must be some degree of self-conscious distance
between the comparative task and the task of larger theory building
in religious studies. From them we can learn that categories are a
middle-level beast. They help to organize data for the sake of big-
deal theory construction yet they derive their justification as much
from their polished data management as from the theories that use
them. However, I remain sharply aware of the problem pointed out
by J. Z. Smith of justifying comparative categories on the basis of
apparent similarities in data.49 The CRIP solution to this problem
is the four theory-side criteria for justifying comparative categories
in conjunction with an affirmation on the data side of the useful-
ness of phenomenological intuition of respects of similarity and
difference, though only when the phenomenological imagination is
49
See Smith, Imagining Religion.
properly prepared. I reaffirm Peirce’s insistence that categories derived

from theory for classifying data need to be checked against inde-
pendent phenomenological analyses of the data to determine their
suitability.50
Fourth, in addition to the important critique of intuitions of sim-
ilarity just mentioned, J. Z. Smith also argues that, at the date of
his writing, there was no approach to comparison that produces or
discovers, as against constructs, comparisons,51 and further that there
was no satisfactory approach to comparison under discussion any-
where.52 I agree on the second point but demur, slightly, with regard
to the first. In Smith’s language, nobody “has presented rules for
the production of ” discoveries in the domains of the natural sciences
either, yet discoveries happen. Moreover, the insights of well-trained
describers and comparers of religions can be novel, at times, and
those insights can transcend the level of the flimsy associative con-
nections that Smith rightly attacks. I agree, however, that discovery
occurs too rarely. The scarcity is because it is so difficult to acquire
the competence that makes novel insights also profound ones. The
CRIP proposal helps by requiring less the genius of comparative
adepts than the scrupulous hard work of ordinary expert compara-
tivists. Many of the novel ideas that can be put into the dialectic of
categories and data that CRIP described and enacted may turn out
to be of little use; certainly the project disposed of a lot more cat-
egories than it kept. Similarly, some categories and comparisons may
never achieve the multi-faceted justification on which CRIP insisted;
it surely is a demanding five-fold standard for justification, after all.
We can fairly describe those categories that do make the grade as
profound, however, and in at least some cases, novel. After that, dis-
covery is a matter of learning to look for what worked elsewhere in
new situations, tentatively extending the reach of data-management
that the web of comparative categories enables, and always seeking
for the kinds of dissonance that should force revisions. The CRIP
approach answers Smith’s call for a comparative method that can
escape the weakness of extant approaches.
50
On this mater, see the discussions in Neville, ed., The Human Condition, chs.
1–2; and Neville, Normative Cultures, pp. 74–84.
51
Smith, Imagining Religion, p. 21.
52
Smith, Imagining Religion, p. 25.
Finally, I also take seriously the alternatives to explicit method-

ologies of comparison discussed above by trying to incorporate their
strengths into the corrective procedures of the proposed approach.
This is present, for example, in the way that theoretical justifications
for categories help to deconstruct assumptions about what seems
obvious. Moreover, judgments of similarity, for all their dangers, can
call forth theoretical efforts of justification—and all this for the sake
of fidelity to the data. Nevertheless, the CRIP approach is explicit
about the categories and the provisional results of comparisons. Here
I enter my wager in favor of the loosely coordinated march of many
feet, all contributing to the task of generating and improving com-
parative hypotheses. This bet includes the gamble that the chaos will
in time yield to something more like the organized frenzy of the
natural and social sciences. I do see reasons to think that such a
transformation in comparative religion will be difficult. After all, the
forging of the CRIP community of inquiry was a demanding, drawn-
out process.53 And then there are the intimate existential entangle-
ments that link comparativists to their subject matters in ways that
do not occur, say, for physical chemists. That is the nature of reli-
gion: its study is often profoundly self-referential. These difficulties
notwithstanding, I see no reasons to think that my bet on the future
of the CRIP approach to comparison must necessarily lose. On the
contrary, especially because of its promise for aiding a more criti-
cal, data-aware era of theory-building in the scientific study of reli-
gion and comparative theology, we have every reason to be hopeful.
Pedagogical Implications
The pedagogical implications of all this are now close to the sur-
face. The CRIP approach absolutely demands a community of inquiry
that stabilizes comparative judgments for investigation, capitalizes on
diverse insights and types of expertise, and introduces novices into
procedures and habits of thinking that facilitate effective comparison
of religious ideas. In fact, the CRIP project was explicitly designed
with these pedagogical considerations in mind. The four-year effort
53
See the appendices to each of the volumes of the CRIP project for my account
of the CRIP process.
funded one comparative-religion graduate student for each of the six

tradition-specialists involved in the project. These students observed
the roughly two hundred hours of in-meeting conversation and debate
among the six specialists and four generalists, and participated more
and more freely as time passed. They had formal opportunities to
present their ideas and in some cases they became co-authors with
the specialists on papers for the project’s publications. They gave us
feedback on the dynamics of the community-formation process and
commented on what about the project’s approach seemed to work
and what did not. In this way, these fortunate students were initi-
ated into a community of scholarship whose values were coopera-
tion and mutual respect, and whose mission was the identification
and ruthless criticism of candidate comparative categories for mak-
ing comparisons among the vital ideas of the world’s religions.
The aim of initiation expresses the distinctive contribution of the
CRIP approach to pedagogy in religious studies. Of course, in one
sense, all scholarly learning is initiation into ways of thinking, key
literatures, and disciplinary meta-questions of method and value.
Initiation means something more concrete in the case of the CRIP
approach to comparison, however, because the community of inquiry
is indispensable. Thus, initiation is not just learning the ropes and
sails, after which the student can go off sailing by him or herself. It
must also mean accepting a place within a community of investiga-
tion that has differentiated roles and a common goal. It means being
apprenticed not just in a specialty with its languages and literatures,
but also in general theoretical issues in the study of religion, in the
philosophy of comparison, and in both the theory-oriented and data-
oriented aspects of the task of justifying comparative categories. It
means committing to an ideal of scientific comparison for which
mutual reliance and information sharing are crucial.
This understanding of initiation into a community of inquiry makes
sense in the context of students capable of research so long as there
is a real community devoted to comparison in which the study can
materially participate. This happened in the CRIP project but it
does not always happen for graduate students in comparative reli-
gion. Like doctoral students in most fields, they are often alone in
their work, and up to a point this is inevitable and good. But the
ideal of participation in a community of inquiry is unhelpfully abstract
when the community can only be imagined. Graduate programs in
religion should strive to cultivate a working community of inquirers,
and possibly (as happened in the CRIP project) an intentional com-

munity of inquiry with a concrete goal. These differently equipped
inquirers should learn not only their specialties but also the classic
works in comparative religion and the central methodological debates
that arc across and through its various disciplines. This is how stu-
dents become bonded together despite their differences and the dis-
ciplinary fights they study.
At the undergraduate level, initiation begins as introduction. There
is an enormous amount of raw information to grasp in introductory
religion classes. I do not pretend that many novices in comparative
religion can meaningfully participate in any community of inquiry
capable of making corporate headway on problems of identifying,
testing, and justifying comparative categories and producing com-
parisons of religious ideas by means of these categories. For religious
studies majors, however, something approximating the graduate stu-
dent’s experience of initiation into a working community of inquiry
should be possible in the later years of a degree program, particu-
larly through seminars devoted to in-depth discussion of a particu-
lar theme or problem in religious studies.
The most perplexing problem facing all of these pedagogical rec-
ommendations is the fractured state of the community of religious
studies scholars. This slightly desperate situation makes constructing
actual working groups of comparativists more difficult than it should
be, and calls for significant social engineering efforts. As long as com-
parativists want to work only with ideologically like-minded colleagues,
the kind of community that the CRIP was and calls for will remain
rare. Scholars of religious studies themselves need to initiate each
other into the central tasks and problems of comparative religion,
even if this means reaching uncomfortably beyond the narrow confines
of their disciplinary specializations. The discomfort was visceral for
the CRIP working group and the community obligations exhaust-
ing, at times. Yet the group achieved what no one member could
achieve alone, despite individual brilliance. This is the heart of the
CRIP approach to comparison: we can do more and better by work-
ing together.
CHAPTER SEVEN
COMPARATIVE RELIGION FOR UNDERGRADUATES:

WHAT NEXT?
John Stratton Hawley1
Two rubrics serve to structure the multi-traditional study of religion

in American departments of Religious Studies today: the “history of
religions” and “comparative religion.” When I was doing doctoral
work to prepare for a life of teaching in the field, I personalized
these. Being at Harvard, where we thought we were doing comparative
religion, I looked anxiously over my shoulder to the University of
Chicago, where it was all about the history of religions—or at least,
so the catalogue read. Where did the difference really lie? And was
there some elusive third that was being excluded by forcing this par-
ticular world of study once again into a posture of binary opposition?
Perhaps we were all missing the practical politics of religion, reli-
gion beyond the classroom, where history and comparison are felt
realities—felt and sometimes carefully hidden.
In the pages that follow, I hope to reconsider the first two cate-
gories—history of religions and comparative religion—and at least
glance out the window at the third. I will do so not by speaking in
purely theoretical terms but by thinking about the realm where so
much theorizing screeches to a halt: on the pavement, in the classroom.
1
This essay began as the 2002–2003 Wabash Lecture at the Divinity School of
the University Chicago, presented on November 1, 2002 as part of the Chicago
Forum on Pedagogy and the Study of Religion and now published in the Martin
Marty Center Occasional Papers, vol. 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Divinity School,
2005), pp. 18–33, 54–55. I am grateful to Lucy K. Pick for that invitation, and to
faculty and students at Chicago for their response to the lecture. I am also grate-
ful to colleagues, students, and friends in New York and elsewhere who reacted to
the essay as it was taking shape: Courtney Bender, Christian Novetzke, Rebecca
Mermelstein, Laurie Patton, Matt Weiner, and my wife Laura Shapiro. My indebt-
edness to the many students with whom I have worked at Columbia and Barnard
will become plain in the course of the essay itself. It will be a pleasure to be able
to mention at least a few by name and to cite their writings. I have secured their
permission to do so and am grateful for that privilege.
116 john stratton hawley
Historicizing History of Religions
For someone of my generation it’s hard to think of Chicago and

Harvard as schools for teaching global religion without thinking of
Mircea Eliade and Wilfred Cantwell Smith. There’s an irony about
these two great men, if we see them in relation to the institutions
where they flourished. Given their own deep predilections, each
seemed best suited to sit in the other’s chair.
Take Eliade. Despite his sustained efforts at being an “historian of
religion,” history was actually a subject of great anxiety for him. The
book I think of as being his signature publication, The Myth of the
Eternal Return (French 1949; English 1954), was not so much about
what history had created as about what it had obscured. Eliade was
at heart a comparativist, as his magnum opus, Patterns in Comparative
Religion (English 1958), so clearly revealed—despite its original des-
ignation, in French, as Traité d’histoire des religions (1949). Meanwhile
Smith, who played the lead role in fashioning the graduate program
Harvard called comparative religion and who virtually hand-picked
the younger scholars (William Graham and Diana Eck) who were to
missionize Harvard’s undergraduate curriculum along the same lines—
this arch comparativist was at heart a historian. His book, The Meaning
and End of Religion, is about how the idea of religion as a feature of
post-Enlightenment reality came into being through a complicated
course of contingent historical events. Thus if we follow the Mercator
projection and imagine geography as primarily a horizontal reality
(the great trade routes are east-to-west), then plot time against space
as the vertical “other,” Smith’s work emerges as the longitude of
history of religions, and Eliade’s as the latitude of comparative reli-
gion. All this, as I say, fights with the fact that Chicago and Harvard
laid institutional claim to exactly the opposite gradients.2
In the half century since Smith’s and Eliade’s privotal works
appeared, it’s become ever more clear that a two-dimensional grid
such as this just won’t do. The Mercator projection is passé: both
men’s attempts to define the field in universal conceptual terms seem
2
I realize that this simplifies a more complex history in the case of both insti-
tutions. At comparativist Harvard, George Foot Moore entitled his influential two-
volume masterwork History of Religions while at historicist Chicago A. Eustace Haydon
held a professorship from 1919 to 1945 that was dedicated to the field “compara-
tive religion.”
comparative religion for undergraduates: what next? 117
in hindsight too parochial. Eliade’s hierophanies, his sacred and pro-

fane; Smith’s sense that “we” are “the modern western academy,” and
that religion could be translated as faith and tradition—these points
of departure seem more provisional now than they did in 1960. Smith
certainly anticipated this, but I think Talal Asad is largely right when
he suggests in a recent issue of History of Religions that Smith’s uni-
fying category “faith,” so self-consciously inspired by Islamic iman,
was crypto-Protestant nonetheless, since its primary point of refer-
ence was irreduceably the individual—or as Smith preferred, the per-
son.3 In other aspects of his writing, Smith showed he was quite
aware that the resonances of the term “person” were loudest in the
Christian tradition, but he felt he had to retain it all the same.
All this calls for a renewed dedication to the task of historicizing
“history of religions”—moving beyond the Mercator or any other
kind of one-time projection to a historical atlas of the field. We must
do this not just as a prolegomenon to further effort, or in the footnotes,
but in actual classroom practice. Suppose we start where most of the
textbooks do when they introduce the field: with the notion of “world
religions.” What will this mean?
First of all, we will face the question of whether to use a textbook.
Many people think it’s best to wash their hands of that one-dimensional
3
Asad, “Reading a Modern Classic,” pp. 205–222. In characterizing Asad’s argu-
ment in this way, I am adopting a shorthand that may not be entirely defensible.
I am seeing Asad’s comments on the particular sort of “residual essentialism” (217)
that animates Smith’s writing about faith and personhood in relation to the obser-
vation he makes about the congruence between Smith’s approach and “the mis-
sionary’s standpoint” (216). These, in turn, I am relating to Asad’s earlier and
intriguingly similar criticism of Geertz’s understanding of belief as an overly “mod-
ern, privatized Christian” point of view (Genealogies of Religion, p. 47). The connec-
tion is ironic, of course, given Smith’s own critique, on similar grounds, of the
notion of belief, but it seems to me this irony is just what Asad is getting at in his
charge of “residual essentialism.”
Smith enunciated his personalist point of view in many publications. Two are
particularly noteworthy: “A Human View of Truth,” pp. 6–24; and “Comparative
Religion—Whither and Why?,” pp. 31–58; reprinted with abridgements in Willard
G. Oxtoby, ed., Religious Diversity: Essays by Wilfred Cantwell Smith (New York: Harper
and Row, 1976), pp. 138–157; see especially p. 142. As to his awareness of the
special centrality of the notion of personhood in Christianity, see for example “The
Study of Religion and the Study of the Bible” in Oxtoby, ed., Religious Diversity,
p. 45. If I were to respond more at length to Asad’s response to Smith, I would inves-
tigate a series of antinomies that seem to me to appear persistently in Smith’s work.
Three of these, as I sketch them to myself, are historicism vs. personal, subjective
faith; formal verbiage vs. “interior” personhood; and Smith’s polemic against Protestant
belief vs. his crypto-Protestant emphasis on faith as a generic reality.
projection, that master-narrativity, and I thought the same thing

when I first stepped into Columbia’s pre-existing course “Introduction
to Eastern Religions” way back in 1984. I preferred using a series
of books that would feature the varying historical logics and canon-
ical constructions of different religious traditions by confining them-
selves to those traditions per se: Hinduism, Buddhism, Chinese
Religion, Shinto. The problem was, of course, that to use these books
was to reinscribe the “ism” prism as I went.
A decade later Angela Zito and I revamped the course so that it
would be more determinedly comparative, featuring issues of “self
and society” in India and China. That made us feel we needed the
backdrop of a single big book that represented the interrelated history
of Asian religion(s) and could serve as an overall point of reference.
Even so, we were constantly bumping into the ghost of “world reli-
gions” in rubrics like Daoism (with its founder Laozi, of course) and
Confucianism (or “Confusionism,” as some students insisted on spelling
it). The concept of world religion(s) and the “ism”-type building blocks
it assumes seemed constant enemies no matter which way you went
with the textbook issue. Is there any way to beat this problem?
One clear-headed approach is to wage a steady program of guerilla
warfare against the hapless textbook—perhaps even against the stated
subject matter of the course itself. You begin with a historicizing de-
construction of terms such as “East” and “Asia” and continue in week-
by-week asides/assaults throughout the course. Honestly, I doubt you
can do more in a course whose primary purpose is to help students
consolidate some overall sense of the lay of the land. And I think it’s
a worthy objective to get this much history into one room at one time,
though several of my colleagues at Columbia think it’s self-defeating.
“Who can do all that with a semblance of integrity?” they ask.
I would still carry the torch for a basic two-term historically con-
structed course on world religions—the interconnected, interregional,
intercultural dimension is key—but I wonder if the guerilla warfare
approach to this reigning paradigm is sufficient. Could you actually
do the history of religions at the same time that you did the history
of the history of religions? Could you possibly pull it off if you focused
on the concept that most clearly constructs the field today: “world
religions”? I have to confess that I haven’t tried it yet at the under-
graduate level, but in Spring of 2001 and again four years later I
organized a seminar for graduate students called “World Religions:
Idea, Display, Institution.”
The course started with Chicago and the World Parliament of

Religions and proceeded to the erecting of the massive walls that
were soon to encase the University of Chicago and its monumental
program in the history of religions, located within the Divinity School.
These events provided a way to survey the “founding fathers” of
comparative religion—Tiele and Müller had both been on the World
Parliament’s invitation list—and moved on from there.4 Beginning with
the Chicago Exposition seemed a good way to highlight the perfor-
mative and institution-building dimensions of the theme—the museum
aspect, right down to the drafting of staff from the Smithsonian and
Peabody; the perpendicular plotting of culture and civilization as the
Midway Plaisance intersected the lakeside axis of the White City; the
politicking about who got to be on the Parliament program; the sub-
version and opportunism that brought figures like Swami Vivekananda
to prominence; and question of whether the project could have been
launched at all if its planners had not assumed liberal Christian theo-
logical views about “other religions” as normative.5 We got into the
whole business of what counted as a world religion and why, and
we pondered why it should have been the case that Islam repeat-
edly emerged as conceptually problematic.6
4
Had the course been given in Europe, one might have started with the First
and Second Congress(es) of Orientalists held in Paris in 1873 and London in 1874.
See Girardot, “Max Müller’s Sacred Books,” pp. 213–250 and especially 222–225.
5
One should not jump to the conclusion that the Parliament’s organizers placed
those other religions on an equal footing with Christianity. John Henry Barrows,
minister of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago and chairman of the general
committee on religious congresses of the World’s Congress Auxiliary, said the fol-
lowing in his preface to the published version of the Parliament’s proceedings:
This Book will also be read in the cloisters of Japanese scholars, by the shores
of the Yellow Sea, by the watercourses of India and beneath the shadows of
Asiatic mountains near which rose the primal habitations of man. It is believed
that the Oriental reader will discover in these volumes the source and strength
of that simple faith in Divine Fatherhood and Human Brotherhood, which,
embodied in an Asiatic Peasant who was the Son of God and made divinely
potent through Him, is clasping the globe with bands of heavenly light.
Barrows, The World’s Parliament of Religions, p. ix.
6
E.g., Tiele, “Religions,” pp. 381–382. Tiele was worried about (or perhaps
rejoiced in) “national” traces that survived in Islam and made it “little better than
an extended Judaism,” by contrast to the supranational claims that made it appear
a “world religion” comparable to Buddhism and Christianity. Masuzawa discusses
the larger contours of this dilemma in “The Question of Universality,” which was
the Lester Lecture on the Study of Religion, 2000. An earlier example is to be
seen in Clarke’s widely read Ten Great Religions, where Christianity and “Moham-
medanism” are set apart from the others as religions not “limited to a single nation
With Chicago still firmly at the center of our collective field of

vision, let’s step aside for a moment and look at a scaled-back ver-
sion of the course syllabus. This will provide a chance to see how
the course presented itself on paper: the general rubric and required
readings, shorn of all the rest. I hope that some of the momentum
I anticipated will also emerge, but I’ll return shortly to comment on
the course further—and to keep pace with the course’s own expan-
sion beyond its Chicago origins.
Religion G8130: Colloquium in

Comparative Religion
“WORLD RELIGIONS”: IDEA, DISPLAY,

INSTITUTION
Part I: The Founding of ‘World Religions’
Week 1. Chicago and the theatre of world

religions.
Eric J. Ziolkowski, ed., A Museum of Faiths: Histories and

Legacies of the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions (Atlanta:
Scholars Press, 1993; subsequently, Oxford University Press),
introduction and Parts I–II, pp. 1–162; also, three essays
in Part III, by Kitagawa (pp. 171–190), Seager (pp. 191–218),
and Ziolkowski (pp. 305–324).
John Henry Barrows, The World’s Parliament of Religions:
An Illustrated and Popular Story of the World’s First Parliament of
or race” and therefore unworthy to be called “ethnic religions”; yet Islam fails to
attain the pleroma or Geist that makes Christianity truly universal (pp. 30–31). For
this reason Clarke was hesitant to class Christianity as a religion in the same sense
that the others were—in his schema, it was the ten of them plus Christianity. Yet
the number ten seems to have retained its magical aura all the way to the Chicago
Parliament. Roman religion, which Clarke included on his list somewhat hesitantly
(he omitted it from his introductory diagram), was also omitted at Chicago on
account of its not being in current practice. This moved us back from eleven great
religions to ten. Historically speaking, then, it seems to have been no historical acci-
dent that the Parliament’s inaugural bell tolled ten times, as we are told.
Religions, held in Chicago in connection with the Columbian Exposition

of 1893 (Chicago: The Parliament Publishing Co., 1893),
front matter including table of contents, pp. i–xxiv.
Week 2. Comparative religion and its

“founding fathers.”
Eric J. Sharpe, Comparative Religion: A History (London:

Duckworth and New York: Open Court, 1975), chapters
1–2, 4, 6, pp. 1–46, 72–96, 119–143. If time permits, a
scanning of the intervening and following chapters will obvi-
ously also be beneficial.
Tomoko Masuzawa, “The Question of Universality:
Counting the ‘World Religions’ in the 19th Century,” Second
Annual Robert C. Lester Lecture on the Study of Religion,
University of Colorado at Boulder, March 16, 2000, pp. 7–29.
Timothy Fitzgerald, The Ideology of Religious Studies (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2000), chapters 1–2, pp. 3–53.
David Chidester, Savage Systems: Colonialism and Comparative
Religion in Southern Africa (Charlottesville: University of Virginia
Press, 1996), preface and chapter 1, pp. xi–xviii and 1–29.
Week 3. Reading academics against theatrics,

Asians against Euro-Americans
Conrad Cherry, Hurrying toward Zion: Universities, Divinity

Schools, and American Protestantism (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1995), introduction, pp. 1–25.
Ziolkowski, ed., Museum of Faiths: Asians at the Parliament,
in Part III, pp. 219–304.
Max Müller, for example:

F. Max Müller, “Essays on the Science of Religion,” in
Chips from a German Workshop, vol. 1 (New York: Charles
Scribner, 1869; reprint, Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985),
preface, pp. vii–xxxiii.
F. Max Müller, ed., “Preface to the Sacred Books of the

East,” in Sacred Sacred Books of the East, vol. 1 (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1879), pp. ix–xlvii.
M. Winternitz, A General Index to the Names and Subject-
Matter of the Sacred Books of the East [constituting volume 50
of the SBE], introductory materials (including a preface by
A. A. Macdonell, an introduction by Winternitz, and a list
of the forty-nine volumes of the SBE), pp. vi–xvi.
Tomoko Masuzawa, In Search of Dreamtime (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. 58–75 [on Max
Müller].
Donald Wiebe, The Politics of Religious Studies: The Continuing
Conflict with Theology in the Academy (New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1999), chapter 2, pp. 9–30 [on Max Müller].
Part II: ‘Ism’ization
Week 4. The invention/discovery of Hinduism
David Lorenzen, “Who Invented Hinduism?,” Comparative

Studies in Society and History 41:4 (1999), pp. 630–659.
John Stratton Hawley, “Naming Hinduism,” The Wilson
Quarterly 15:3 (Summer 1991), pp. 20–34.
Wendy Doniger, “Hinduism by Any Other Name,” The
Wilson Quarterly 15:3 (Summer 1991), pp. 35–41.
Ronald Inden, Imagining India (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1990), chapter 3, pp. 85–130.
Heinrich von Stietencron, “Religious Configurations in
Pre-Muslim India and the Modern Concept of Hinduism,”
in Vasudha Dalmia and H. von Stietencron, eds., Representing
Hinduism: The Construction of Religious Traditions and National
Identity (New Delhi: Sage, 1995), pp. 51–81.
P. J. Marshall, The British Discovery of Hinduism in the
Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1970), introduction and chapter 1 ( John Zephaniah Holwell,

chapters on ‘The Religious Tenets of the Gentoos’), pp.
1–106.
Week 5. Disputing ‘Hinduism’
Richard King, Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory,

India, and ‘The Mystic East’ (New York: Routledge, 1999),
chapters 2–5, pp. 35–118.
S. N. Balagangadhara, ‘The Heathen in His Blindness . . .’:
Asia, the West, and the Dynamic of Religion (Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1994), introduction, chapter 7, the concluding sections of
chapters 8 and 9, chapter 10, and chapter 11:3–4. The
pagination is pp. 1–10, 223–262, 307–317, 362–438, and
475–500.
Some reactions to Balagangadhara’s book are collected
in “Editorial Introduction,” Cultural Dynamics 8:2 (1996),
pp. 115–118; Vivek Dhareshwar, “The Trial of Pagans,”
pp. 119–136; Philip C. Almond, “ ‘The Heathen in his
Blindness’?,” pp. 137–145; and David A. Pailin, “ ‘I Cannot
Tell How All the Lands Shall Worship . . .’: A Response
to S. N. Balagangadhara’s Study of the Understanding of
‘Religion’,” pp. 171–187.
Week 6. The discovery/invention of Buddhism
King, Orientalism and Religion, chapter 7, pp. 143–160.

Philip C. Almond, The British Discovery of Buddhism
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), entire (pp.
1–141).
Donald S. Lopez, Jr., ed., Curators of the Buddha: The Study
of Buddhism under Colonialism (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1995), introduction, pp. 1–29.
Charles Hallisey, “Roads Taken and Not Taken in the
Study of Theravada Buddhism,” in Lopez, ed., Curators of
the Buddha, pp. 31–61.
Week 7. The birth of the Judeo-Christian

Tradition
Jesse T. Todd, “What the New York World’s Fairs Tell

Us About the Rise and Fall of the Judeo-Christian
Tradition,” unpublished paper.
Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, “Exhibiting Jews,” in
Destination Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1998), pp. 79–128.
Mark Silk, “A New Creed,” in Spiritual Politics (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1988), chapter 4, pp. 40–53.
Deborah Dash Moore, “Jewish GIs and the Creation of
the Judeo-Christian Tradition,” Religion and American Culture
8 (Winter 1998), pp. 31–53.
Part III: America again: cities, schools, and the

institutionalization of “world religions”
Week 8. The Chicago “school.”
By this designation, which could certainly be disputed, I

mean especially Joachim Wach, Mircea Eliade, Joseph
Kitagawa, Jonathan Z. Smith, and Wendy Doniger. Of
course, the presence at Chicago of a host of other wit-
nesses—and actors—also bears on the formation of this
“school,” if we may call it such.
Prefatory:
Katherine K. Young, “World Religions: A Category in
the Making?” in Michel Despland and Gerard Vallee, eds.,
Religion in History: The Word, the Idea, the Reality (Waterloo,
Ont.: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1992), pp. 111–130.
On Chicago:
Cherry, Hurrying toward Zion, chapter 2, pp. 54–86.
Joachim Wach, The Comparative Study of Religions (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1958), preface, intro-
duction (by Joseph Kitagawa), and chapter 1, pp. ix–xlviii

and 2–26.
Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion (New York:
Sheed and Ward, 1958; a translation of Traite d’histoire des
Religions, 1949). Scan the book’s organization, and sample
a section or two that interest you.
Mircea Eliade, editor in chief, The Encyclopedia of Religion
(New York: Macmillan, 1987), especially the preface by Eliade
and the foreword by Joseph Kitagawa, vol. 1, pp. ix–xvi.
Peter Byrne, “The Theory of Religion and Method in
the Study of Religion in the Encyclopedia of Religion,” Religious
Studies 24:1 (1988), pp. 3–10. Other aspects of the Encyclopedia
of Religion are reviewed on pp. 14–64 of the same volume.
Wendy Doniger [O’Flaherty], Women, Androgynes, and Other
Mythical Beasts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980),
introduction, pp. 3–14.
Wendy Doniger, The Implied Spider: Politics and Theology in
Myth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), chap-
ter 5, pp. 109–135.
Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., Fundamental-
isms Observed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991),
contents and introduction (“The Fundamentalism Project:
A User’s Guide”), pp. v–xiii.
Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, The Glory and the
Power: The Fundamentalist Challenge to the Modern World (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1992), acknowledgements, introduction, and
chapter 1, pp. vii–viii and 1–35.
http://divinity.uchicago.edu
Week 9. Wilfred Cantwell Smith and the

Center for the Study of World Religions at
Harvard
William R. Darrow, “The Harvard Way in the Study

of Religion,” Harvard Theological Review 81:2, pp. 215–234,
especially the concluding section.
Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion

(New York: Mentor Books, 1964), entire (pp. 1–181 plus
those remarkable notes).
—————, “Comparative Religion: Whither—and
Why,” in Mircea Eliade and Joseph Kitagawa, eds., The
History of Religions: Essays in Methodology (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1959), pp. 31–58; reprinted in Willard
Oxtoby, ed., Religious Diversity: Essays by Wilfred Cantwell Smith
(New York: Harper & Row, 1976), pp. 138–157.
http://www.hds.harvard.edu/cswr
Week 10. Diana Eck and the Pluralism Project
Diana L. Eck and the Pluralism Project at Harvard

University, On Common Ground (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1997; rev. ed., 2002). Browse the CD in
its entirety and note especially the overarching essay in
Part II on “America’s many religions”
(http://www.pluralism.org).
Diana L. Eck, ed., World Religions in Boston, 4th ed.
(http://www.pluralism.org/wrb/index/php).
Diana L. Eck, “Dialogue and Method: Reconstructing
the Study of Religion,” in Kimberley Patton and Benjamin
Ray, eds., A Magic Still Dwells: Comparative Religion in a
Postmodern Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000),
pp. 131–149.
Week 11. The New York complex:

Morningside Heights and beyond
In an academic context—there are so many others in New

York!—I would draw special attention to the following
programs:
(a) Union Theological Seminary
Paul Tillich, “Christianity Judging Itself in the Light of
Its Encounter with the World Religions,” in Christianity and
the Encounter of the World Religions (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1963), chapter 4, pp. 77–97. This book

is based on Tillich’s Bampton Lectures, delivered at Columbia
University in 1961.
(b) Asian Humanities and Neo-Confucianism at Columbia
Asia in the Core Curriculum (New York: Heyman Center
for the Humanities, Columbia University, 2000), especially
pp. 9–31, which include comments by Wm. Theodore
deBary, Ainslie T. Embree, and John D. Rosenberg.
Lionel M. Jensen, Manufacturing Confucianism: Chinese
Traditions and Universal Civilization (Durham, NC: Duke Uni-
versity Press, 1997), introduction, “Confucius, Kongzi, and
the Modern Imagination,” pp. 1–28, and interlude, “The
Meaning and End of Confucianism—A Meditation on
Conceptual Dependence,” pp. 135–147.
(c) Postcolonial and Cultural Studies at Columbia
Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1979;
revised edition, 1994). Consider especially, perhaps, “Modern
Anglo-French Orientalism in Fullest Flower,” pp. 255–
284, and the afterword (pp. 329–352) written for the 1994
edition.
(d) “World Religions” in New York
The Interfaith Center of New York
(http://www.interfaithcenter.org).
Tibet House U.S. (http://www.tibethouse.org).
Muslim Communities in New York project, housed at the
Middle East Institute, Columbia University, and funded
principally by the Ford Foundation. The inaugural con-
ference took place on April 30, 2001.
Religion and Immigrant Incorporation in New York pro-
ject, International Center for Migration, Ethnicity and
Citizenship at the New School University under the direc-
tion of Jose Casenova and funded by the Pew Charitable
Trusts (http://www.newschool.edu/icmec).
The Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and

Spiritual Leaders, held at the United Nations and the
Waldorf-Astoria, New York, August 28–31, 2000
(http://www.millenniumpeacesummit.com).
Week 12. Looking back: “The Invention of

World Religions”
Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions (Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 2005).
Part IV. World religions in the classroom
Week 13. Print

Textbook evaluations. Each student will be responsible for
a brief presentation on one or two books and on the intel-
lectual and institutional biographies of their authors. A bal-
ance will be struck between books that have appeared quite
recently and older works that have been through multiple
editions and printings and have been historically influential.
Among the latter are:
John B. Noss, Man’s Religions (New York: Macmillan,
1955).
Huston Smith, The Religions of Man (New York: Harper,
1958).
Ninian Smart, The Religious Experience of Mankind (New
York: Scribner, 1969).
Please note: It can be very instructive to browse at Butler
Library, Union, and elsewhere to get a quick sense of what’s
out there now (or almost now) and what’s been there before.
I especially recommend the classifications BL80–BL80.2
and, in the Dewey system, 209. Also, the presence of some
form of the word “man” in each of the titles listed just
above is striking. All have since been retitled at some point
in their history of publication, and thereby hangs a tale
worth pursuing.
Week 14. Visual and digital resources
A wide range of materials are available for review. An

important early example that is still in use is The Long Search:
Ninian Smart, The Long Search (Boston: Little, Brown,
1977), contents and introduction, pp. 5–23.
Franklin G. Bouwsma and Virginia Gentle, eds., Student’s
Guide to the Long Search: A Study of Religions (Miami: Miami-
Dade Community College, 1976).
Videotapes comprising The Long Search can be viewed in
the media center of the Barnard Library: VIDEO BL80.2.
L65 1977.
As the syllabus makes plain at several points, I wanted to make sure

New York got on the program. In part this was because the course
was being taught at Columbia: no global knowledge is without its
local base, no general history without its immediate impetus. Further-
more, thinking historically, one might argue that the special identity
of Union Theological Seminary as the apotheosis of nonsectarian
liberal Protestantism and New York’s position in the world of pub-
lishing, international politics, and advertising earn it a place on any
syllabus of this kind. But instructors working in other locations might
well want to redo the geography.
Still, the main point would remain. Anyone who takes such a
course in the United States should be able to walk actively into the
history it presents and come to realize that the exoticism of “world
religions” is substantially a home-grown product. Undergraduates
should be able to look around at the conceptual furniture in a room
they already inhabit, and try to figure out how the chairs, tables,
and sofas got there. As you’ve seen, we took the constructs “Hinduism”
and “Buddhism” as our primary examples in the central “ ‘ism’-iza-
tion” section of the course, but lest even this work of near-to-home
construction seem too distant, we quickly reverted to a week with
Jesse Todd of Drew University as a guest. That enabled us to think
about the invention of the Judeo-Christian tradition, which happened
largely in New York and once again in performative circumstances:
on the occasion of mounting the 1939 World’s Fair. Pursuing this
theme, I wish we had had more time to focus on the enactment of

“world religions” at the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious
and Spiritual Leaders, held at the United Nations and the Waldorf-
Astoria in September, 2000. If this course were redone for New York
undergraduates, I’d give the Summit a week of its own. As a scene—
and what a scene it was!—it opens up onto a vista of international
conferences and events in which New York plays a continuing role.7
Not only that, it leads forward into a consideration of the newly
constructed Museum of World Religions in Taiwan, imagined by
Venerable Dharma Master Hsin Tao and designed by Ralph
Appelbaum in consultation with a team assembed at Harvard Divinity
School by Lawrence Sullivan. The Asian location of this brand-new
museum makes it almost a counter-museum in some ways, though
hardly in the same sense as the Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee.
In other ways, to the contrary, it represents a fascinating subimpe-
rial inflection of an imperial category.
This knot of contrasting perspectives opens the way to a larger
set of questions. How would our “world religions” room look if the
furniture had been differently arranged? Particularly if the course
were to be taught elsewhere than in New York, one might want to
give attention to some of the following possibilities:
• the Convention of Religions held in Calcutta in 1909, which
attempted to carry forward the work of the Chicago World
Parliament in significantly different circumstances;8 or
• the Ministry of Religious Affairs of the People’s Republic of China; or
• the Muslim concept ahl al-kitab (peoples of the book); or
• Italians abroad: Matteo Ricci, Roberto di Nobili, the Capuchin
Giuseppi Maria de Gargnano, perhaps even Marco Polo; or
• the Dabistan-i-Mazahib (“School of Religions” in Persian), a text
written by an Azar Kaivani who called himself Mubad Shah in
17th-century South Asia. He mixed pre-existing philosophical/theo-
logical categorizations with his own fieldwork (under dual Parsi
and Shi’i identities) and produced a twelve-part taxonomy of the
known religious world, with various subcategories.9
7
A major resource for such a course would be Michelle Sorensen’s paper for
the “World Religions” course: “ ‘World Religions’ and the Performance of Peace”
(September, 2001).
8
See anon., Convention of Religions in India.
9
The Dabistan is the subject of a stimulating essay by Aditya Behl: “Pages from
I could go on, but one may fairly ask: How is all of this going to
fit into an introductory sequence for undergraduates? In two possi-
ble ways, I hope. On the one hand one could design a lecture course
on the “invention of world religions” theme that would stand along-
side introductory courses that are historical or comparative in a “sub-
stantive” way. That course might be some sort of version of this
one. But what about undergraduates who take only a single course,
a question to which Jonathan Z. Smith has drawn urgent attention?10
That raises a second possibility: to write a concern about the history
of the history of religions into existing “substantive” introductions.
The question “Whose history is this, and how did it get made?”
would always be near the forefront of consciousness. Given time con-
straints, that might mean dipping very selectively into the bowl I’ve just
laid on the table. But given the equally important constraint imposed
by doing comparative work at all, this seems to me unavoidable—
even if it’s just to supply those in-class guerillas with another weapon.
The project of historicizing the history of religions is huge, but
progress is being made.11 I’m sure we’re going to see great things
coming out of a group recently formed at the American Academy
of Religion by Robert Orsi (of Harvard) and Leigh Schmidt (of
Princeton) called “The Cultural History of the Study of Religion.”
In describing their project, they emphasize “the grittiness that comes
from cultural historical studies: the on-the-ground collisions and col-
lusions of missionaries, traders, and [pointing the disciplinary finger]
anthropologists.”12
As for my own work, I have begun charting out a project I call
“the history of bhakti as history.” I am trying to understand the pro-
cess by which the idea of bhakti (variously translated as love, devotion,
the Book of Religions: Encountering Difference in Mughal India,” delivered at the

Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton University, April 6,
2001.
10
Smith, “Religion in the Liberal Arts, pp. 8–10.
11
Huge, but opening onto adjacent rooms nonetheless. In a thoughtful essay,
Catherine Stimpson argues that the common core of graduate education as a whole—
its gen. ed. Requirement, so to speak—should be a course on the history of higher
education itself. (See, “General Education,” pp. B7–10, specifically B8.) And in his
Wabash Lecture for 2001, Jonathan Z. Smith issued a call for every graduate stu-
dent in Religion to learn systematically the particular institutional history of the
study of religion in institutions of higher learning in American universities (“Religion
in the Liberal Arts,” pp. 12–14). I stand among the indicted as one who knows this
history imperfectly, anecdotally, and very largely as a reflex of personal experience.
12
Orsi and Schmidt, “Proposal for a New Group,” p. 4.
adoration, embodiment, relationship, participation, even religion—I

love the range) came to be hypostasized by Hindus as a force in
history, and ultimately tagged as a “movement” (andolan in Hindi).
As such, bhakti came to be seen as a force conducive to the much-
vaunted project of “national integration” in a newly independent
India ruled by the Congress Party, and it also courses through some
of the simultaneously incorporative and divisive rhetoric of the Hindu
nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. I mention it here because bhakti
is one of those obvious terms that emerges as relevant to the task
of telling the history of religions from a perspective significantly
different from that laid out at the Chicago Parliament, though the
term has Orientalist connections for sure. It’s shocking that the other-
wise extremely helpful volume Critical Terms for Religious Studies, edited
by Mark Taylor and published by the University of Chicago Press
in 1998, contains not a single term among its magical twenty-two
that emerges from any language other than English.13
Comparativizing Comparative Religion
Actually, one of the purposes of creating a volume like Critical Terms

is to show that the field of Religious Studies has emerged as a speci-
fically Western enterprise, even if the subject under study is broader.
But that suggests the next step. Just as “the history of religions” has
its own historicizing as a major frontier, so “comparative religion”
has yet more comparison as its. We still have before us the task of
shifting the comparative lens in such a way that no illusion of atem-
poral, acultural witnessing remains. To continue with the example
we already have before us, it would be fine to be able to teach com-
parative religion not just with bhakti as a major category—a new
entry for Taylor’s book—but also with the entire shift of perspective
that such a change would imply. In the case of bhakti, for example,
this would mean mainstreaming the study of music into the com-
parative study of religion—bhakti (devotional religion) and bhajan (devo-
tional singing) are first cousins—where all we have now is a vaguely
audible drone. Obviously “religion” and “music” are English-lan-
guage terms with specific, recent usages. The point would be to track
what happens when you transplant them beyond the turf where they
13
On this point I am indebted to a discussion with Diana Eck (Cambridge, April
2000).
were grown—or better yet, allow the transplantation to start from

some place other than English. This is what I mean by doing com-
parative religion comparatively.
A number of students now working on dissertations within
Columbia’s program on Religions of South Asia have come up with
stimulating ideas about other ways this task could be pursued in the
classroom. All of them were required, as part of their Ph.D. field
examinations, to work out a syllabus for a course they would propose
to teach. In doing so, each provided a new take on what it might
mean to do comparative religion in a comparative way.
Carla Bellamy, for instance, envisioned an introductory course on
Hinduism that consistently approached this familiar “ism” by read-
ing South Asian Hindu practices and forms of thought alongside
those developed by Jains, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, and Christians
of South Asian provenance. As students learned about “visions of
the Divine in an Indian context” (to use Bellamy’s words), they did
so simultaneously in all these contexts, and it was the same for pil-
grimage and procession, temples and festivals, and so forth. Against
this background, Bellamy introduced a week specifically devoted the
partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947, seek-
ing “to explore the repercussions of rigid constructions of religious
boundaries primarily through an examination of the Sikh community.”14
Andrea Pinkney, working in similar terrain, preferred to call her
course “Introduction to Indian Religion.” In setting out its rationale
she said:
Following Peter van der Veer, I have structured the body of this course
on the premise that, indeed, there is something ‘Indian’ about religion
in India. . . . I fear that courses on Indian religion which focus heavily
on primary texts overemphasize religious difference, and when textual
material is presented as a primary pedagogical ‘source,’ this presenta-
tion contributes to rather than challenges received ideas about sacred
‘isms’ apparently germane to India . . . Proceeding from the supposi-
tion that there is a Hindu ‘surround’, I will present materials and ideas
against this premise, and then expand and problematize categories of
religious behavior through application to an Indian religion spectrum.
As I prefer to work with the notion of ‘multiple group identities’ (more
readily manifest in actions rather than texts), my emphases are decidedly
on lived religion, and on investigating overlapping religious practices.15
14
Carla Bellamy, “Introduction to Hinduism,” Columbia University, May 2002.
15
Andrea Pinkney, “Introduction to Indian Religion,” Columbia University, May
2002.
Interestingly, Andrea’s dissertation project focuses on the concept,

history, and practice of prasada, a Sanskrit-derived Buddhist and Hindu
word that is often translated (mistranslated, she thinks) as “grace” in
its theological sense, and that refers to the exchange of food offerings
in a temple setting. Prasada is often regarded as one of the principal
ideas and acts that make it sensible to speak about Hinduism as an
“ism.” But conceptually, prasada is also significantly Buddhist, and in
South Asian religious practice, it connects Hindus with Muslims,
Sikhs, Christians, and Jains.
Here, then, is one set of ways of thinking about comparativizing
comparative religion—deconstructing and reconstructing one of the
“isms” that serve as building blocks in the field. One proceeds by
looking at shared and divergent practices, ideas, and narratives that
structure the religious lives of people living in geographical and cul-
tural proximity. But part of the challenge of the field—and its
justification as a discipline of study—is to paint on a larger canvas,
as well. Other Ph.D. candidates proposed courses appropriate to that
larger frame, like the colloquium Anne Murphy envisioned in 2000,
called “Of Saints and Holy People: Relics and Material Culture in
the Making of Religious Authority.”
In that regard let me turn to the theme of pilgimage, since it has
served as the subject of my own first approach to teaching comparative
religion. The year was 1978, and I had just joined the Department
of Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington.
My bread and butter was teaching Hindi, but because those classes
were relatively small, it was clearly going to help keep me at UW if
I could teach something that “normal” undergraduates might want
to take. So I devised a course called “Comparing Religions,” and
chose pilgrimage as the rubric that would make it possible. Why pil-
grimage? There were a number of good intellectual reasons: its fre-
quency as a pattern of religious behavior worldwide; its archaic sound
but growth as contemporary practice; and the fact that it is both
practice and precept, has both exterior and interior dimensions. But
there was an even better reason. They’d begun to teach such a
course at Harvard, and though I’d neither taken nor taught it, I
knew I wouldn’t have to start from scratch.
The Harvard syllabus was elegant.16 It began with a series of intro-
16
See Niebuhr, “Pilgrimage as a Thematic Introduction,” pp. 51–63.
ductory issues that were sure to arise if one took pilgrimage as, in
their terms, a “microcosm of religion.” At that point the syllabus moved
into the visual dimension by showing the film “To Find Our Lives,”
thus making Huichol pilgrimage the first broadly shared “experience”
of pilgrimage in the course. From there it was “Pilgrimage in the
‘Western’ Traditions” and “Pilgrimage in the ‘Eastern’ Traditions,” with
the quotation marks right there on the syllabus. The course ended
with Basho in Japan, and along the way, in its well-funded Harvard
manner, it had the advantage of enlisting three instructors, three
knowledgeable TAs, and a guest lecturer. My problem was how to
do anything like that in Seattle.17
First of all, I worried about students’ expectations. I wanted to intro-
duce five religious traditions, as had been done at Harvard, and sus-
pected students would want some sort of thumbnail descriptions—“Jews
believe x, y, and z; Muslims believe z, y, and x.” Rather than entirely
fending off that urge, I decided to accommodate it right up front,
letting such a unit supplant the fancy “introductory issues” segment
of the Harvard syllabus. I conscripted the Smith Brothers—Huston
and Wilfred (no, not Jonathan!)—to do the “beliefs” job at home,
while in class I concentrated on five experiential metaphors for each
of the traditions we would be considering. I looked for metaphors
that would relate to the dominant theme of pilgrimage in different,
mutually reinforcing ways, and ended up with darsan, the bo tree,
pesah, the Magnificat, and the hajj. Then I took up the Wittgensteinian
challenge—family resemblances—and actually asked the class to sketch
out a family portrait of the five traditions, justifying their choices as
to size, proximity, gender, perspective, and shared traits. Too hokey?
Frankly, I doubt I’d have the nerve to do it today.
Instead of turning to the Huichol film for an early, common visual
experience that would stand apart from the “world religions” para-
digm and thereby do some more generic work, I chose “The Wizard
of Oz.” I hoped that would get us to see something familiar in a
new way, and I hoped it would expand the lens on the question of
where one ought to look to see pilgrimage today—not just by sub-
ject but by medium. I asked at the outset how many people in the
class had seen “The Wizard of Oz” before, and was amazed to see
every single hand go up, all 100 of them. Lots of people had seen
17
See Hawley, “Pilgrimage,” pp. 65–79.
it more than once. So I did the teacher thing: I asked why. Once
we got to the actual screening, our theoretical pilgrim guide was
Victor Turner—who else?—so over our popcorn, we talked of such
things as liminality and horses of a different color.
I tried to customize the Harvard course in various ways, hoping
to make contact with the sorts of comparative midsets I thought
might already be in place among UW undergraduates. Having started
nearer to home than they did at Harvard, I began the thematic part
of the course farther away—with Hindus—and moved gradually
closer, dismantling the East/West rubric along the way. This enabled
me to situate “America as pilgrimage” at the end, and keep moving
west from Cambridge and the pilgrims toward the dream of California
and to local pilgrimages in the Pacific Northwest (lots of mountains).
I regret that I didn’t find time to keep going—into science fiction.
I’ve called this Cambridge-to-Seattle process transplanting, customiz-
ing, and comparativizing. The last is doubtless a little grand, but you
can see what I mean. The comparative frame I adopted did not depend
entirely on experiences I imagined these Seattle students would have
in common—presumably we were describing the world as many
other people had seen it—but I did want the students in this particular
group to feel that in some way the course began and ended with them.
Their own life situations had forced them to do plenty of comparative
work before they walked in the door, and those “positionalities” mat-
tered to the way they’d take on the job announced in the course
title: comparing religions.
Much to my surprise, I found myself teaching pilgrimage again many
years later—in spring, 2002, and this time back on the East Coast.
It happened because I had asked my Barnard colleague Max Moerman
to lecture on Japan in our introductory Asian Religions course the
year before, and he explored the mandala motif in scrolls depicting
pilgrims and produced for pilgrim consumption at Shinto and Buddhist
shrines. He also spoke about scrolls that represented Jambudvipa—
that is, India—as a landscape for mental journeying. That got us
talking, with the result that Max and I decided to mount a joint
upper-level undergraduate seminar called “Pilgrimage in Asian
Practice.” The narrower scope, higher level, and seminar format allowed
for many contrasts with the Seattle course; many of these moved in
the general direction of “comparativizing.”
First, we were able to deal much more intensively with various
indigenous categories—Japanese and Indic—and bring them into
conversation with one another. Second, we were relieved of the need

to make pilgrimage function as its own narrative instrument, chart-
ing a journey through religion’s uneven terrain. We didn’t have to
proceed from one religious culture to the next, but had the luxury
of weaving back and forth as we pleased—sometimes from week to
week, often in the same session. Third, we structured our work
around a series of themes that Max and I felt emerged—though
differently—from pilgrimage studies in India and Japan: interior and
exterior pilgrimage (the old saw), shared and divergent ideas of
Jambudvipa, issues of replication and transposition, contestations
caused by overlapping cartographies, and questions about the relation
between pilgrimage, trade, tourism, national nostalgia, and death. If
I had to pick a single book that students found most compelling, it
would probably be Marilyn Ivy’s Discourses of the Vanishing.18
Another kind of course takes up the “comparativizing” challenge
in a very different way—the local course. In my case it’s called
“Religious Worlds of New York,” which I have taught several times
over the past six or seven years—three times with Judith Weisenfeld
and twice with Courtney Bender. The word “comparative” does not
appear in the prose we developed to describe the seminar’s goals,
and to tell you the truth, it wasn’t very much on our minds as we
proceeded. But as I think about that course in the current context,
I do believe it served as a certain sort of laboratory for the comparative
study of religion. In New York and Chicago, local is metropolitan,
so Courtney and I say the following in introducing the syllabus:
The argument is sometimes made that religion in dense urban spaces
is characteristically very different from religion as it appears elsewhere.
New York provides numerous ways to explore that idea, especially
insofar as it encompasses a variety of ethnic and immigrant groups
and individuals; encourages the generation of new, complex, and hybrid
forms of cultural life that are less possible in smaller populations; and
is in places unusually “virtual” and transnational in its sense of itself.
Comparison comes at many levels in this course, and usually in ways
that cannot be predicted before the course gets under way. Consider,
18
Discourses of the Vanishing (1995). A yet more circumscribed approach to the
theme of pilgrimage—but still comparative—is a course recently given at Eugene
Lang College of the New School University under the direction of yet another
Columbia graduate student in Religion: Annabella Pitkin’s “Pilgrimage in Buddhist
Practice.”
for example, Rebecca Mermelstein’s project on messianic Jews in

Manhattan. How does comparison emerge among “fulfilled Jews”
who have embraced Jesus as messiah—a group amplified by several
spouses and a few others who feel a special connection to Jewishness?19
The major frame here is conversion, or so you would think, but
mostly as unwelcome ghost: these messianic Jews pointedly do not
think of themselves as converts to Christianity. Actually the issue of
conversion only arises when some Christian-born member of the sect
thinks about converting to Judaism—only then does it become prob-
lematic. Needless to say, Jewish Rebecca stood little chance of being
a neutral observer on this scene. She was perfectly conscious that
whatever she might say about her identity as a student, her inter-
locutors understood her to be a potential convert—or rather, member.
Why else would she have chosen this subject?20
Comparison emerged in many other ways, too. In an earlier ver-
sion of the course, for instance, Avani Patel pursued a topic to which
she had been brought by quite a different avenue of comparison:
food. Avani is Hindu and vegetarian, which meant that she was an
excellent suitemate for orthodox Jewish students. So she ended up
doing a project based primarily at a kosher pizza parlor, focusing
on differing observances of the laws of kashrut. The first words in
the title of her paper were “Comparative Jewish Religions,” but in
the text she highlights the fact that her access to this comparative
project was far more contingent and mutually invested than this
might sound. She reports that many of the people she interviewed
took her for Sephardi on the basis of looks, skin color and, of course,
19
Mermelstein, “Navigating Identity at Beth-El: An Investigation of the Authority
Structures and Influences in Messianic Judaism,” in “Religious Worlds of New York”
course, Barnard College and Columbia University, December, 2000. I am indebted
to Rebecca Mermelstein for additional insights that emerged in an e-mail exchange
on October 29, 2002.
20
In this context, what is the instructor’s or the researcher’s comparative respon-
sibility? Is it necessary, appropriate, or even ethical to align the anti-conversionist
sensibilities of this group with the sorts of controversies about conversion that have
recently emerged in India? Recently, for example, Jayalalitha, the Chief Minister
of the southern state of Tamil Nadu, issued an ordinance to the effect that “no
person shall convert or attempt to convert, either directly or otherwise, any person
from one religion to another by the use of force or by allurement or by any fraud-
ulent means . . .” on penalty of up to Rs. 50,000 and a jail term as long as three
years. (Tamil Nadu Ordinance no. 9 of 2002, Tamil Nadu Government Gazette, October
5, 2002.) That quickly became a human rights issue, which was featured on the
list-serv of the Religions of South Asia Section of the American Academy of Religion.
eating habits. So here, as perhaps everywhere, comparison involves

perception and negotiation at deep levels.21
Other projects also turned out to have comparison as their object.
Hannah Budnitz, for example, took an interest in what she called an
“ecclesiastical peculiar” at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, namely,
the constitution of a local parish within the cathedral. In ecclesias-
tical terms the peculiarity is that of a parish in a cathedral, but from
her point of view the real peculiarity was the underlying condition
that brought the parish into being. The people who were to become
its members found that the anonymity, ethnic and racial complexity,
and more-than-Christian ecumenicity of the 11:00 service at St. John’s
matched, naturalized, and ritualized their experience of urban iden-
tity in the city at large. Hidden in her subject, then, was the obbli-
gato of comparison to less metropolitan pasts, both on the part of
the Episcopal Church and on the part of these participants, a good
many of whom had not been Christian before joining the parish
constituted “within” St. John’s.22
Hannah is Jewish by background, so her project was permissible
within the guidelines of the course, which are at only one point explic-
itly comparative: we insist that every student choose a project that
lies at a significant distance from her or his own religious (or non-
religious) past. Sometimes we agonized over this. Another student in
the course was Bengali Hindu by background. Was it then permissible
for him to develop a project that focused on the financial underpinnings
of a Bangladeshi mosque, comparing it to what pertains in Hindu
temples that also cater to Bengali-speaking New Yorkers? We said
yes, ultimately, but in doing so we persuaded him to cast the project
somewhat more broadly. For one thing, we thought his own position
as a Bengali Hindu might make it more than ordinarily difficult for
him to gain access to the sort of information he sought, but we also
hoped that a broader view of his purpose would give him room to
think hard about his own jealously guarded presupposition, namely,
that money is what makes religion talk. We wanted the Hindu/Muslim
comparison to happen in an environment that could challenge any
preconceived linearities.
21
Avani Patel, “Comparative Jewish Religions: The Differing Observances of the
Laws of Kashruth,” in “Religious Worlds of New York” course, Barnard College
and Columbia University, December, 1996.
22
Hannah Budnitz, “An Ecclesiastical Peculiar,” in “Religious Worlds of New
York” course, Barnard College and Columbia University, December, 2000.
As I think back over these projects and the discussion that sur-
rounded them, I am impressed at how naturally yet how complexly
they entered the comparative domain. A recurrent theme, for example,
was the one on which Stephen Warner has worked so intensively:
the congregation as the “natural” form of religious life in the United
States.23 Why natural? Projects on individuals and groups who identified
themselves in some way as “New Age” often brought this to the
table, as did intergenerational and immigrant ones or studies of, say,
a bodega. And here’s another comparative angle, this time focused
on content rather than form: Surprisingly often, students wanted to
work on inter- or multi-religious “congregations”—or occasionally on
groups whose identities challenged certain common conceptions about
what constitutes religion in the first place, like Adam Shapiro’s prob-
ject on Ethical Culture in the Bronx.24
More than anything, perhaps, we learned over the course of four-
teen weeks that comparison is always positioned comparison. Sooner
or later it became clear not just how interesting but also how inter-
ested each project was, and in an amazing variety of ways. Often class
discussions about holes into which particular projects had descended
and how they might be rescued involved one student suggesting to
another how his or her own particular preconceptions and preoccupa-
tions might be getting in the way.
The Practical Politics of Religion
That brings me to the third area I’d hoped to explore—the practi-

cal politics of comparative religion. With George W. Bush in the
Oval Office, Dick Cheney in some undisclosed basement, Condoleezza
Rice at the helm of State, and a PR budget in the billions, American
citizens find themselves bulldozed by a political formation whose
urges can fairly be described as rabidly unilateralist. We know best,
and we have the power to know best. We don’t want to know what
others think of us—why they might hate us, for instance. We would
rather portray that hatred as envy, ignorance, or simply aberrant:
23
Warner, “The Place of the Congregation,” pp. 54–99.
24
Adam Shapiro, “’Where All Meet to Seek the Highest . . .’: A Study of the
Riverdale-Yonkers Society for Ethical Culture,” in “Religious Worlds of New York”
course, Barnard College and Columbia University, December, 2000.
evil. And we have the religious wherewithal to do that. We—at least

the “we” who constitute the President’s shadow cabinet—are born-
again Christians who know what the Bible says about good and evil.
We’re God’s worriors.
There is no doubt that the desire to form a framework for com-
parison is inevitably interested—even self-interested, one might say. This
has been true from the Chicago Parliament (and long, long before) to
the present. But interest can be tempered, educated; and once that is
done, one’s own interested position need not be such a bad thing. It
elicits a desire to look, to compare. Moreover, it invites the possibility
of seeing how others might make comparisons starting from different
places. And ultimately it asks: What makes for a fair comparison?
These are not just academic questions. The job of living as agents
and objects of comparison is very near to our political surface. Thank
goodness George Bush can recognize that not every Arab or Muslim
is a terrorist—that’s very important—but the fact that the language
of the most virulent opposition to the United States is Islamic makes
the job of comparative religion crucial to our present moment. If
someone says that there’s an intrinsic connection between the capacity
for terror and the particular capacities of Islam, then it is time to
make comparisons. Without forgetting the special circumstances that
have developed in the 20th-century Islamic world,25 we have to draw
attention to other jihads—Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, and certainly
Christian—and to the forms of religious terrorism that have emerged
in those traditions too. No religion curriculum in the country should
be without a comparative course on religious violence at this moment,
and lots of teaching and talking should be going on after hours and
across town.
Whatever we do as actors on the stage of religion, we have no
choice but to do it in a comparative way. We know too much about
our complicated, convergent, global history to do otherwise. We have
seen enough “patterns in comparative religion”—to use Eliade’s
phrase—to know that we can’t escape them. It’s a failure of nerve
not to explore those patterns and highlight them, no matter how over-
whelming it may feel to operate on such a global scale. But the world
won’t wait. The policies of the American government are global
25
It is enlightening to read what Wilfred Smith wrote on that subject almost
fifty years ago in Islam in Modern History.
policies, and a lot of them involve religion. Somehow you and I

have got to be out there thinking about what they mean.
There is a group of comparative religionists in New York that I
particularly admire: the young people who fuel the day-to-day oper-
ations of the Interfaith Center of New York. Beginning on September
11, 2001 the women and men in this little band worked their fingers
to the bone responding to a zillion calls, especially from people trying
to make contact with American Muslims. The Interfaith Center has
regularly sponsored forums on Hindus, Buddhists, or Afro-Caribbean
groups living in New York, and it is slowly, carefully trying to help
Muslims and Jews figure each other out and chart various ways in
which they can meet and talk. This is comparative work of the hard-
est kind, and the academic background in comparative religion that
several of the Interfaith Center cadre bring to their job helps them
negotiate this ground-level labor of practical comparison.26 It’s a won-
der to behold.
The University of Chicago Divinity School organizes its curricular
program under three broad headings—historical, constructive, and
cultural studies—and that has recently been carried over to the under-
graduate level. Here I’ve talked mostly about the historical and cul-
tural parts—historicizing history of religions, comparativizing
comparative religion. But what about the third? I suspect it’s not
what most scholars of religion would mean by “constructive,” but
for me, the frontier they’re working on at the Interfaith Center of
New York is constructivist in the extreme. You may suspect that
their work isn’t the most helpful or the most direct—too talky, too
feel-goody, too religious, insufficiently political. I have some of those
same worries, too. But as far as the academic, historical, compara-
tive study of religion is concerned, I have no doubts. I think rub-
bing shoulders with this kind of constructive work just outside our
doors is essential. It’s time we invited it into the classroom more
than we do. And it’s time to move through those fragile glass doors
and see where the urgent work of comparative religion leads us.
26
The Web site of the Interfaith Center of New York is http:/www.interfaith-
center.org. Matt Weiner, one of its principal leaders, has described aspects of its
activities in “Urban Interfaith: Applied Interfaith as a Pragmatic Moral Orientation”
(unpublished paper, 2002).
CHAPTER EIGHT
SOCRATES AND JESUS:

COMPARING FOUNDER-FIGURES IN THE CLASSROOM
Part 1: The Problem Assumptions
One of the most often pursued forms of comparison is the comparison

of one individual to another. The decision to compare two, sometimes
not obviously related individuals always raises the question, why these
two in particular? The comparative choice is often made because the
two figures of interest do not stand alone, but in one sense or another
represent a distinctive group or society, usually to one of which the
comparing agent belongs. This is frequently the case when religion
provides the backdrop against which the comparative choices are to
be portrayed. The theoretical underpinning of this kind of comparison
is the assumption that groups come into being because of the genius
of a single individual—groups follow and preserve the teachings of
extraordinary leaders. This assumption is so common that our students
bring it with them to our classrooms, and presuppose that famous
religious figures are embodiments of the religions that bear their
legacies. In this sense believing students bring an investment in this
equation rooted in the equally common presupposition that followers
choose to associate with a particular religious innovator because this
individual has perceived a need for change in the status quo. From
the perspective of the sociology of small group formation, the “invest-
edness” of the followers is grounded in their belief that the percep-
tive or enlightened individual becomes an agent for necessary change,
perhaps by sharing some new revelation with others who in response
acclaim not only the rightness of the perception of need, but with
their acclamation also submit themselves to the leadership of the
visionary.1 This is to say that, for the believers, i.e., many of our
1
For the general nature of this assumption, see Zander, The Purposes of Groups
and Organizations.
144 james constantine hanges
students, by committing themselves to the pursuit of this desired

change they have become identified with the revealer. For them this
spiritual giant is the religion, and each believer is assimilated to both
elements in this equation. Because of this assumption, our students
would at least not reject the proposition that one might justifiably
carry out a comparison of such virtuosi as a comparison of religions.
It is the usefulness of this kind of comparison that we wish to ques-
tion in what follows.
Our students’ level of comfort with this structural form of com-
parison should not surprise us, since such comparisons are common
to our discipline and to the Christian tradition. In the histories of
religions, this type of comparative enterprise has traditionally focused
on figures who have come to be included in the category, “founder
of religion.”2 Using this categorical structure Jesus might be com-
pared to Mohammed or to the Buddha. A recent popular book
series, entitled “The Parallel Sayings,” demonstrates the possibilities
with included titles such as Jesus and Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, Jesus
and Buddha, and Jesus and Lao Tzu.3 The authors’ and series editor’s
focus on parallel sayings reveals their primary concern for com-
monality and continuity of religious and moral beliefs and practice
among the paradigmatic founders of the great world religions.
The assumption that individual founders can be compared, and
that in so doing each of these figures stands for the religious com-
munity that reveres him, has manifested itself prominently in the his-
tory of Christianity. One of the most repeated comparisons of this
2
The classic statement belongs to Max Weber, see The Sociology of Religion, pp.
46–59. Weber’s focus on the individual innovator produces a range of types (e.g., the
mystagogue, the teacher, etc.), but none more important to the study of religion than
the prophet, the one who announces the break with the status quo, paradigmatically
with the powerful, “It is written—but, I say to you,” formula familiar to us from the
so-called “antitheses” in Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” (Matt 5–7). Weber describes
two kinds of prophets, the exemplar who embodies a higher way of living to be
imitated by others, and the ethical prophet, who demands dutiful conformance to
some kind of external normative order. Weber saw behind these two types, two
contrasting systems of legitimation; the exemplary prophet is the vessel of the divine,
personally connected to the gods, while the ethical prophet is on a mission from
God, a tool not a vessel, whose authority stands outside the proclaimer. The first
offers participation, the second demands obedience. As Weber sees it no distinction
is workable between the religious reformer and the “founder of religion.”
3
The series is published by Ulysses Press, Berkeley, California. For a far more
serious comparison, see Karl Jaspers’ four volumes, The Great Philosophers, in the first
volume of which he deals with the “paradigmatic figures” of Socrates, the Buddha,
Confucius, and Jesus.
socrates and jesus 145
type is made between Jesus and Socrates, a juxtaposition that has

seemed obvious to Christians at least as early as Justin Martyr (mid
second-century). For example, Justin’s references to Socrates testify
to the early form of the enduring Christian assumption that the one
man who had actually fulfilled the Delphic maxim, “Know Thyself,”
stands for the dominance of Greek thought, and therefore must be
the standard against which Jesus, and with him, his followers would
be measured by the larger society.4 Justin’s inclusive comparative
strategy transformed Socrates into a Christian, enlightened by the
divine Logos, though he had lived and suffered martyrdom long
before he could know the Logos incarnate.5 While Justin more than
likely did not invent this strategy, he has been followed by more
than a few Christian writers and apologists.6
Clement of Alexandria and later Eusebius the ecclesiastical historian
make similar assumptions. Clement claims that Socrates tried to lead
4
I note here Werner Jaeger’s comment, “[t]he parallel of Socrates and Christ
runs through the entire work [ Justin’s Apologia],” Early Christianity and Greek Paideia,
p. 28, n. 5. Also see Droge, “Justin Martyr and the Restoration of Philosophy.”
5
Cf. Strawser, “How Did Socrates Become a Christian?” All citations of Greek
Church Fathers are taken from the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, Socrates foreshadows
Christ most powerfully for Justin as an ideal martyr. Justin argued that Socrates
used true wisdom and critical questioning (lÒgƒ élhye› ka‹ §jetastik«w) to recog-
nize the demonic in polytheism and to lead humans away (épãgein t«n daimÒnvn
toÁw ényr≈pouw) from these errors for which he became the paradigmatic martyr
(tª kak¤& ényr≈pvn §nÆrghsan …w êyeon ka‹ éseb∞ épokte›nai) in the quest for
truth—a precursor of the fate of Christ (Apologia 5.3). Justin makes Socrates and
Jesus functional equivalents—one for the Greeks, the other for the Barbarians (i.e.,
the Jews)—for the revelation of the truth about the divine (Apologia 5.4). In fact,
according to Justin, because he lived “with Reason = Logos,” Socrates was a
Christian before the coming of Christ (ofl metå lÒgou bi≈santew Xristiano¤ efisi,
Apologia 46.3). Socrates is to be admired for his truthfulness and integrity (Apologia
secunda 3.6), one who suffered an unjust fate at the hands of evil demons (Apologia
secunda 7.3). Socrates’ quest for truth inevitably brought him to Christ, the Logos,
whom he knew in part, and for this he was killed for introducing a new deity.
Socrates prepared the way for what would be revealed in full by Christ (Apologia
secunda 10.5–8); on his martyrdom cf. Gregory Nazianzus (329–389), Epistula 32.11.
6
E.g., the powerful shadow of Socrates hangs over bishop Athanasius of Alexandria
(296–373) when he found it strange that even Plato and Socrates would go to wor-
ship at an Artemis sanctuary (Contra gentes 10.33–37; cf. Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica
13.14); the Alexandrian theologian Didymus Caecus (313–398) also appears to attribute
to Socrates the best moral nature among the pagans (see the fragmentary Commentarii
in Ecclesiasten 37.12). That this was the stereotype is clear even in the midst of the
sarcastic ridicule of Greeks as defenders of pederasty and adultery in the Jewish
Christian, Pseudo-Clementine, Homilia 5.18, which repeats Apollo’s claim that Socrates
is “éndr«n èpãntvn . . . sof≈tatow,” who nevertheless hid the young Alkibiades
under his robe; among the Greeks the adulterous Zeus is the greatest of the gods,
and the pederast, Socrates, the greatest of philosophical men (5.19).
his fellows away from the errors of idolatry and moral weakness
(Stromata 2.20–22; 5.14); he was the source for all later Greek state-
ments of the unity and incomparability of God (Protrepicus 6.71).7
Eusebius has much to say about Socrates in exactly the work one
would expect to find it, his Praeparatio evangelica. There we count over
one hundred occurrences of the name. Eusebius assumes, like others
before him had done, that Socrates was ı pãntvn ÑEllÆnvn sof≈tatow
(the wisest of the Greeks), leading people away from idolatry and
toward a virtuous life—a truly great man whose views on the nature
of God commend the Christian view (15.61). Eusebius makes the
Greeks responsible to the gospel because Socrates had prepared them
for it by convicting them of the error of polytheism (1.8); he was a
model ascetic, totally unmoved by material gain, and unalterably
committed to the pursuit of virtue, goodness, and beauty (8.14). The
problem with Socrates for Eusebius was that he had been appro-
priated by heretics as support for their doctrines (10.2). And like
Clement and Justin before him, Eusebius also commends Socrates’
integrity in death (13.4).8 The Christians’ habit of comparing their
best to Socrates was apparently such a commonplace that Lucian of
Samosata picked up on it when he described the hood-winked
Christian admirers of Peregrinus calling this fraud a “new Socrates”
(kainÚw Svkrãthw, De morte Peregrini 12.16). As we might have guessed,
given this ancient tradition, the practice of measuring all things by
this Athenian gadfly seems to have become no less common in the
modern period. Simplistic modernizing comparisons of Jesus and
Socrates are unfortunately far too common, and often serve trans-
parently apologetic purposes, as for example in the case of Peter
Kreeft’s heuristic dramatic placement of Socrates in the Harvard
Divinity School. Kreeft’s strategy of symbolizing in Socrates the pri-
oritizing of reason in the search for truth follows a long tradition in
7
Clement can even cite Socrates alongside Paul on a point about the Mosaic
Law (Stromata 4.3); such “proof texting” can even be used to support Clement’s
views on specific, Christian dogmatic statements, e.g., Stromata 5.2,11.
8
E.g., Clement, Stromata 5.14, citing as examples of those who “heard Moses,”
Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato; Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica 13.13. Of course, in
all this the Christian writers are taking their cue from Jewish apologists, and accord-
ingly tend to account for the similarities between Socrates and Plato and their own
master in terms of the Greeks’ borrowing from the biblical sources; for the Jewish
practice, see Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem, esp. 189–90.
Christian apologetics, as we have pointed out, of obligatory but no less

grudging assent to the important influence of the figure of Socrates.9
Given the fact that this particular comparison is both deeply-rooted
in Christian tradition and conforms to a model of comparison famil-
iar to our students, I would like to explore, without attempting a
detailed historical-exegetical study, the possibility of using this com-
parison of individuals, first, to destabilize specific assumptions com-
monly held by my students: for example, the assumption mentioned
earlier that a religion and its supposed founder are essentially syn-
onymous, as well as the assumption that those who write about reli-
gious founders are simply archivists rather than creative authors.
Second, the comparative exercise proposed here should provide our
students the opportunity to confront the fact that founders are rarely
accessible or encountered directly. In most cases, the founder is
merely the subject of interpretations made by later devotees; the reli-
gious figure we actually encounter is a construct with no necessary
connection to the historical figure behind the legacy. In the end, we
can only compare the constructs, not the individuals behind them.
Of course, before we proceed we should anticipate certain ques-
tions that might be raised about the comparability of Socrates and
Jesus. On the one hand, we are simply taking over a comparison that
arose naturally within the shared, general cultural environment of the
two principals and their followers. And certainly, it is obvious that
the Christians initiated the comparison, and in so doing prove that
they had a vested interest in making it. Granted, one might raise the
question of the sense in which we might justifiably say that Socrates
is a religious figure comparable to Jesus.10 And what about the
9
See Socrates Meets Jesus. Edwin Hatch once described this comparative tendency
as rooted in the presumption on the part of Christian apologists of a “kinship of
ideas” between Christianity and Greek philosophy (The Influence of Greek Ideas on
Christianity, p. 126). We recall here the famous Jesus and Socrates Compared, first pub-
lished by Joseph Priestly in 1803, and the cause for so much excitement for Thomas
Jefferson. Also notable is the comparative relativization of a range of great religious
founders, including Jesus, by Lippmann, A Preface to Morals. In both of these cases
the figure of Jesus is compared with Socrates with both men being conformed to
the highest values of the comparing author; i.e., for both Priestly and Lippmann
refer to non-supernatural, moral and ethical religion.
10
It is not being argued here that Socrates is a founder of a new religion. Even
given the nature of the charges made against him at his trial, we can say little more
than that he, through his own behavior, challenged and invited his contemporaries
to consider an alternative piety; see Plato, Apologia Socratis 24b8–c1; cf. Diogenes
question of religion itself? When we speak of Jesus or Zoroaster, it

may seem quite obvious that both are “religious” figures, and in
some way connected with the origins of a religious innovation. Beyond
the precedent in the tradition for this type of comparison, with respect
to Socrates, there are obvious points of similarity to Jesus. There is
really no question regarding the religious nature of Socrates’ inter-
ests: the Christians we have surveyed all mention his execution for
religious innovation, and the evidence of his own trial in 399 BCE
makes the religious nature of his career obvious.11 And, of course,
there is always the default mode devoted to the comparison of the
content of the teachings of the two men, about which it may be
reasonably argued too much has been written. In that respect we
shall refer to both of these figures as masters around whom a circle
of students gathers.12 But most importantly for my proposal is the
fact that Socrates, like Jesus, is preserved for us only by interpreters,
although in Socrates’ case there is no question that these observers
actually knew him personally. Especially this final element in the
legacy of each man suggests a potentially pedagogically fruitful com-
parative twist on an otherwise common methodological approach to
the historical figure himself, namely, the distillation of the teacher
from the legacy preserved by the students, especially in terms of the
Laertius 2.40; Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.1.1–2.5; Plutarch, De genio Socratis 580B. The
charges consist of three elements, Socrates’ failure to pay respectful recognition to
the gods of the state (oÓw m¢n ≤ pÒliw nom¤zei yeoÁw oÈ nom¤zvn); his introduction of
other and new divinities (ßtera d¢ kainå daimÒnia efishgoÊmenow); and his [conse-
quent] corruption of the youth of Athens (édike› d¢ ka‹ toÁw n•ouw diafye¤rvn). For
a discussion of the charges, see Brickhouse and Smith, Socrates on Trial, pp. 30–37.
11
See McPharren, The Religion of Socrates.
12
Of course, in his defense before the jury, Socrates actually denies that he ever
really served as a “teacher” to anyone, and this essentially on the grounds that he
never demanded payment for his philosophizing (Plato, Apologia Socratis 19d8–e1;
20c1–3; 23b9–c1; 31b5–c3; 33a5–b8); the denial proves the common perception
despite Socrates’ (or is it Plato’s?) objection. Of course, there is also ambiguity in
the references to Jesus. In all the gospels he is called teacher or rabbi (rabbi 12
times in Mark and John), but in the overwhelming majority of instances not by his
disciples; e.g., in Matthew he is called rabbi only by Judas the betrayer, the final
time in the very act of betraying him (26:25 and 26:49 [par. Mark 14:45] respec-
tively). Jesus forbids the disciples calling themselves teachers (Matt 23:7); and of the
13 occurrences of that title, at least 10 are by others referring to Jesus. In Matt
10:24–25 [par. in Luke 6:40]; 23:8; 26:18 [par. Mark 14:14; Luke 22:11] Jesus
appears to refer to himself as the teacher. The use of didãskalow is parallel in
usage, only twice in Mark [once a self-reference], Luke [twice a self-reference], and
John [twice a self-reference] is it used by a disciple.
identification of aporiai and discontinuities preserved in the tradition.

Whereas the significance of these aporiai and discontinuities has usu-
ally been limited to the quest to acquire a more accurate historical
picture of either Socrates or Jesus through the traditional and still
important process of “textual archaeology” (trying to discern and then
reconstruct the earliest traditions about each man),13 I would like to
show that these same anomalies can be used in the service of my
projected pedagogical outcomes.
In what follows, to provide a test case for my proposal, I would
like to recommend that students be asked to read two texts, Plato’s
Symposium and the Gospel of Matthew. I will suggest a reading of
the Symposium that will allow students to wrestle with the problem
posed for the popular memory of Socrates by his association with
his notorious student, Alkibiades (ÉAlkibiãdhw), and the implications
of the discernible presence of a tension between the resulting ambiguous
legacy of Socrates and Plato’s portrayal of his master. As our students
take up the Gospel of Matthew, they will be asked to consider the
ambiguity preserved in the text regarding the relations between Jesus
and his self-described mission and the inclusion of non-Jews in the
community of salvation, and the tension this creates with the fact
that for this writer the mission to non-Jews is understood as the
fulfillment of the plan of God. Read in the manner I propose, I
believe our students can be made to see that in both of these trou-
blesome cases devoted disciples were confronted with unavoidable
and disturbing implications for the legacy of their respective masters
that motivated each writer to find a satisfactory resolution of the
ambiguity. That resolution was not history, but an imaginative recon-
struction of the founder. In other words, I am suggesting that a tar-
geted comparison can highlight serious ambiguities in the traditions
surrounding Socrates and Jesus that will confront our students with
the realization that these accounts are reflective interpretations that,
in the very process of trying to make sense out of the ambiguous
13
A characterization commonly used by scholars involved in the current search
for the historical Jesus, e.g., Crossan, The Historical Jesus, especially pp. xxvii–xxxiv,
427–66; Crossan and Reed, Excavating Jesus; Kloppenborg, Excavating Q ; Kloppenborg,
The Formation of Q. This kind of literary excavation is not common to questions of
the “historical” Socrates; cf. the tone of the contributions in Vander Waerdt (ed.),
The Socratic Movement. McPherran raises the issue, but believes that Plato’s early dia-
logues present an essentially accurate picture of Socrates religious views; also cf.
Vlastos’s quest of the historical Socrates in Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher.
legacy of the founder, nevertheless betray the traces of the great dis-
tance that exists between these founders and the communities that
lay claim to them. In the process, it will become clear that our com-
parative exercise will necessarily divest our students of the privilege
of thinking that we have sufficiently distinct and detailed pictures of
each of the historical figures who stand behind these traditions to
justify describing them as ciphers for communities. Students will dis-
cover the troublesome reality that in most cases with respect to the
discussion of the founder of a specific religious movement the sur-
viving records are frustratingly incomplete, and usually not autobio-
graphical. The modern scholar is left with the problem of sifting
through the accounts of various, and not disinterested interpreters,
analyzing their characteristics in the hope that some order can be
made out of them, on the basis of which to reconstruct a usefully
accurate historical picture of the individual of interest. With that we
begin with Socrates.
Part 2: Plato and the “Failure” of Socrates
It is necessary to set the stage for our proposed reading of the text
at hand with at least a bare outline of its context in the history of
scholarship, where in fact most discussions of the ambiguities in
Plato’s recollections of Socrates begin with his Apologia Socratis. In
contrast, we shall begin our discussion with a look at the choice Plato
presents the reader in the Symposium between the model of Socrates
and that of his presumed beloved, Alkibiades.14 We must necessarily
presume in the present context a common knowledge on our reader’s
part of the dialogue’s basic outlines and themes; these would of
course have to be presented to one’s students as a prerequisite to
the use of our interpretation of the text. We should point out in this
context that while the Symposium is generally seen as a later dialogue
which contributes little to the historical problem of Socrates’ trial, I
would treat this temporal distance as an important adjunct to our
students’ comprehension of the authorial creativity and freedom Plato
enjoyed.
14
The common debate is over the accuracy of Plato’s account of Socrates’ trial
in comparison with Xenophon’s and in light of the historical reconstruction of the
situation in Athens before and during the trial, see, e.g., Brickhouse and Nicholas,
Plato’s Socrates, pp. 1–10.
The ambiguity of Socrates is vividly revealed to us in the Symposium

through the contrast between his outward, physical ugliness and his
inner beauty. Martha Nussbaum’s understanding forms one of the
defining constituents of the scholarly context in which my reading
is grounded. According to her reading of the dialogue, Plato has
used the character and speech of Alkibiades to present one of the
two “mutually exclusive varieties of vision,” designing a “comic tragedy
of choice and practical wisdom. We see two kinds of value, two
kinds of knowledge; and we see that we must choose.”15 Against the
backdrop of the recent crises in Athenian politics and foreign relations,
a choice between personal ¶rvw (eros) and practical wisdom has become
mandatory. The last flickers of hope for a saving union of philoso-
phy and the emotional vigor of ¶rvw have died with the failure of
Alkibiades.16 What Plato now offers the reader is the cold reality
that such a union cannot occur because there is no reconciliation
between the two divergent cognitive pathways. Therefore, every indi-
vidual must count the cost of their choice: to follow Socrates one
must be willing to sacrifice the attachment to particular and irre-
placeable objects of love (personal ¶rvw), while to follow Alkibiades
one must sacrifice the hope of stability in either one’s personal life,
or in the life of the polis.17
Plato does not deny the tremendous value which most of us place
upon the particulars in our lives; something we easily perceive in
the great sympathy he allows the reader to feel for Alkibiades’ con-
dition. Moreover, he is unwilling to compromise in order to protect
Socrates from the kind of criticism we find, for example, in Gregory
Vlastos’ critique. In essence, Vlastos suggests that the decision (210b4–6)
to move on from the appreciation of the beauty in the individual
body to an appreciation of that beauty which is shared in common
by all beautiful bodies to one degree or another is essentially a deci-
sion to obliterate the individual.18 The particular is lost to the abstrac-
tion because the individual is more than the abstracted element of
beauty. Each particular person is a complex of beauty and ugliness,
15
See her essay, “The Speech of Alcibiades: a Reading of the Symposium.”
16
Fragility of Goodness, pp. 169–70, 199.
17
Fragility of Goodness, pp. 197–98.
18
Cf. Eliade’s notion that the escape from the “terror of history” into myth is
the assimilation of the individual to the archetype, i.e., transcendence requires the
obliteration of the individual (The Myth of the Eternal Return, pp. 36–47).
just as Socrates clearly was; Socrates is like a satyr in outward appear-

ance (216d4–5), but that is not the end of the matter.19 Yet, it is
just this kind of sacrifice which causes the reader to pause, expressed
dramatically by Aristophanes’ objection at the conclusion of Socrates’
encomium (212c4). All applaud Socrates’ description of the ascent
to Beauty, except Aristophanes. And though Plato attributes the
comic’s dissent to his desire to respond to Socrates’ allusion (205d10–e1)
to his own speech earlier (192b5–c2), Plato justifies our intuition that
there is more than pettiness behind Aristophanes’ interrupted protest;
Aristophanes’ objection to Socrates’ effacement of individuality is
stifled by the rousing entrance of the individual body par excellence,
Alkibiades—baldly drunk and bedecked as Dionysos (212c4–5).20
There is much in Nussbaum’s analysis with which I must agree.
For example, she is certainly correct to say that the speech of
Alkibiades must be read over against the career of the historical
Alkibiades. I believe that she is also correct when she argues, firstly,
that we must not assume that the speech of Diotima is the voice of
Plato, a methodological point well worth making with our students.
Nussbaum is correct as well to take the speech of Alkibiades as the
key to understanding the whole dialogue.21 Sharing these assump-
tions, however, does not mean that I would simply appropriate her
reading entirely. Despite the power of conflict and the stark imper-
ative of decision which Nussbaum sees in the dialogue, the conflicts
she describes do not put the philosophy or behavior of Socrates at
risk. And it is at this point that our proposed reading begins to serve
our desired pedagogical outcome.
To be more specific, in Nussbaum’s description, as hard as the
choice presented by Socrates may be, he remains for her a flawless
jewel. Alkibiades has failed because of his own vanity.22 Nussbaum’s
reading offers no hint that Plato might be using the dialogue as a
vehicle for critical reflection on the career of his teacher. Rather,
Plato confronts the reader with the Socratic alternative, an alterna-
tive which comes about only in the process of continued commit-
ment to the philosophical quest. In Nussbaum’s own words, “You
think, says Plato, that you can have this love and goodness too, this
19
Vlastos, Platonic Studies, p. 31.
20
Mitchell, The Hymn to Eros: A Reading of Plato’s Symposium, “the god [Dionysos]
himself appears,” p. 175.
21
Nussbaum, Fragility of Goodness, pp. 166–67.
22
Nussbaum, Fragility of Goodness, p. 195.
knowledge of and by flesh and good-knowledge too. Well says Plato,

you can’t. You have to blind yourself to something, give up some
beauty.”23 But what of this strategy of placing the blame for his fail-
ure on Alkibiades himself? Is this Plato’s move or Nussbaum’s, and
if so in either case why is there a felt need to explicate Alkibiades’
culpability in his own corruption? Perhaps we should rethink the
significance of the strategy of attributing to the disciples a profound
failure to comprehend their master; an apologetic strategy shared by
those who later write about Jesus.24
23
24
Mark presents an interesting problem, do they or do the disciples not under-
stand Jesus? In 4:10 Jesus responds in private to a question asked by those around
him together with the Twelve (ofl per‹ aÈtÚn sÁn to›w d≈deka) about the parable of
the sower he had just given without explanation to a large crowd (4:1–9). Jesus
explains to those in this smaller audience that the mystery ( tÚ mustÆrion ,
v. 11) of the kingdom has been given to them, while to those outside (¶jv) everything
is given in parables so that they will not understand (v. 12). Yet, Jesus must then
ask that very audience, possessors of the mystery, whether they have actually failed
to understand the parable, since if they do not understand this parable they can-
not hope to understand all the parables. How shall we resolve this paradox? Are
we to assume that what Jesus neglected to say, but what must be inferred, is that
the mystery of the kingdom is actually the key that unlocks the holder’s under-
standing of the otherwise illusory parables that, now, were not given only to the
outsiders (as Jesus explicitly said earlier) but to all? With no explicit change in audi-
ence we then find in 4:33–34 that Jesus did in reality speak in parables not just to
those outside, but to all, and that in private he explained his parables to his own
disciples (cf. 7:17–19, para. Matt 15:15–17a; also related to the problem of under-
standing are, Mark 8:14–21; Matt 16:5–12; Luke 12:1). Peter is explicitly credited
with divine revelation in identifying Jesus’ true nature (8:29–30, knowledge that
Jesus commands thereafter to be keep silent, cf. 9:9–10; Matt 17:9), and then is
immediately shown not to have drawn the proper conclusion from that knowledge
(8:31–33). Jesus repeatedly tells his disciples plainly about his immediate future, but
they continually fail to understand him and are even afraid to ask about it (9:32).
Mark’s use of silence commands by Jesus raises a problem, which Wrede’s famous
“messianic secret” hypothesis was designed to explain, i.e., the silence commands,
e.g., following Peter’s confession of Jesus’ Christhood, 8:29–30 (also see e.g., 1:25,
34; 3:12; 5:43), are part of the writer’s strategy to account for the tension between
his recognition that Jesus made no messianic claims for himself and the fact that
such claims were clearly being made for him by the “Markan” church. As a strat-
egy, however, having Jesus command the silence of humans and demons regard-
ing his true identity does not actually attribute misunderstanding to the disciples.
Instead, they do in fact know the truth; they were simply charged not to reveal
what they knew until after the resurrection (9:9). Of course, if we accept Wrede’s
hypothesis of the strategy, then we must assume that the very existence of the strat-
egy presupposes that, in fact, Jesus was fundamentally misunderstood by his earli-
est followers (e.g., Luke 24:13–35; cf. the problem of the abandonment of Jesus at
his arrest by disciples who should have known what to expect, Mark 14:50 = Matt
26:56, cf. Mark 8:31–32; 9:30–32; 10:32b-34; Matt 14:33; 16:16). See Wrede, Das
Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien, critiqued strenuously by Räisänen, especially in the
revision of his German original, The ‘Messianic Secret’ in Mark.
Alongside this interpretation, I would like to propose an alterna-

tive understanding that, while sharing certain starting points with
Nussbaum, nevertheless describes Plato’s intention in this dialogue
in precisely opposite terms, and provides the opportunity for our stu-
dent readers to begin to notice the tension that haunts Plato. Much
of the following analysis rests on the interpretive possibilities raised
by those critics who believe that Plato is able to critically reflect on
the career of Socrates.25 To go a step further, I would suggest that
because of the realities of Socrates’ actual behavior, Plato, the loyal
student cannot escape this kind of reflection. From this starting point
our discussion will lead to the promised reading that sees the rela-
tionship between Socrates and Alkibiades as the dramatic arena in
which Plato creatively works out the problem of the philosophical
pursuit, and the failure of Socrates as its guide. From this perspec-
tive, that Alkibiades “crashes the party” is not simply to throw the
question unanswered back to the reader for an existential decision,
as some would have it. Alkibiades’ entrance does not draw the reader
away from the discussion of ¶rvw . . . he is, larger than life, the very
problem of ¶rvw that Plato faces.26 The solution to the problem is
not stated, only the struggle to attain it is dramatized in the dialogue.
In fundamental contrast to Nussbaum’s interpretation, I believe that
Plato is dramatizing the need for a mediating position between the
two extremes represented by Alkibiades and Socrates, and that this
mediating position is, in fact, demanded by the lingering shadow of
the historical circumstances. The implications of history as remembered
will play a similar role for us in our reading of Matthew to follow.
Returning to the question of the persistence of memory, we notice
that Plato assumes that the “hot topic” in Athens is still the rela-
tionship between Socrates and his contemporaries;27 from the very
first question, the principals in the dialogue are stated, namely, the
‘get-together’ at Agathon’s, and Socrates and Alkibiades (172a–b1).”28
25
E.g. Stanley Rosen, Plato’s Symposium; Gagarin, “Socrates’ hybris and Alcibiades’
Failures.”
26
Cf. Sheffield, “Alcibiades’ Speech: A Satyric Drama.”
27
We cannot here deal with the details of the debate continuing over the impor-
tance to Socrates’ trial of his previous associations with characters like Alkibiades;
on this issue see Brickhouse and Smith, Socrates, pp. 18–24. Also, even though the
Symposium is a later work, we cannot dismiss the portrayal of the relationship between
Alkibiades and Socrates in this work as wholly literary fiction.
28
Cf. Nussbaum, Fragility of Goodness, p. 168. Of course, we must keep in mind
that it is the dramatic scene set sometime before Socrates’ trial and death; we are
In view of then-recent history, the Symposium is a response to a con-

tinuing controversy over the career and legacy of Socrates.29 There
is a dissonance between the image of the man as he appears to the
masses (or to the uninitiated) and the perception of him held by
those who believe they have known him well. Herein lies, perhaps,
the ultimate Socratic irony; the philosopher who was understood by
the “initiated” to have been a positive element in Athenian society,
whose all-consuming desire was the pursuit of the good, was per-
ceived by that society to be of such low value that he could easily
be condemned. And why not? What were his evident social prod-
ucts other than Alkibiades, Charmides, and some peculiar, shoeless,
and unwashed devotees (173b1–2).30 That Plato opens the door to
these problems by such allusions would seem to indicate that he is
well aware that this dichotomous perception is a fundamental difficulty
rooted in the behavior and attitude of Socrates himself.
With what specific problem is Plato concerned? What does Plato
seem to want the reader to think? When Alkibiades’ entourage bursts
on the scene in 212c6, the attempt by Aristophanes to question some-
thing in Socrates’ lÒgow (logos) is thwarted. But does this rowdy inter-
ruption really put the end to Aristophanes’ attempt to question
Socrates? That there is a relationship between Alkibiades’ speech
and that of Aristophanes is certainly not a new idea among com-
mentators. For example, Nussbaum has suggested that the speech of
Alkibiades be read as a compliment to Aristophanes’ speech designed
to present and answer the objections which the comedian would
have expressed in response to Socrates’ speech; I believe this is fun-
damentally the correct reading of Plato’s intention.31
One of the primary ideas in Aristophanes speech, one which is
shared by Socrates’ speech also, is that ¶rvw is a symptom of depriva-
tion. For Aristophanes this deprivation is the loss of wholeness. Part
of the original individual is lost, and ¶rvw is the desire the deprived
feels to be re-united with it’s missing half. But also encapsulated in
told this particular symposium took place “quite a long time ago” (pãnu . . . êra
pãlai, 173a7). Even so, is it to be rejected outright that in Plato’s mind the prob-
lem raised by Socrates’ relationship with Alkibiades still burns intensely well after
Socrates’ death?
29
30
Of course, we use the phrase “social products” here rather loosely, as if speak-
ing for Socrates’ critics who saw the disastrous activities of Socrates’ students and
acquaintances as the direct result of the latter’s connection to the former.
31
Aristophanes’ understanding of human estrangement is a certain unity

of body and soul. The soul is the seat of the desire for reunification
but this goal is not, and cannot be, realized apart from the physical
body. When the bodies of the separated individuals are united each
soul’s desire is fulfilled (197c7–e9). Wholeness includes both soul and
body, both the inner and the outer human; this is the primordial
nature of our species. This re-unification is expressed, as it will be
later in the famous speech of Diotima, in terms of generation.32 And
generation, whether physical or spiritual, requires intercourse between
two generative objects. Socrates, in contrast, appears to transcend
the body of the individual to arrive at the abstraction of the beau-
tiful that is common in all beautiful individual bodies (209e5–210b5).
Alkibiades appears, therefore, to embody Aristophanes putative
objections.33 He cannot separate the individual into two distinct enti-
ties, viz., cuxÆ ( psyche) or s«ma (soma). To be sure, he can use the
efik≈n (eikòn) of the Silenus to show that Socrates is not what he
appears to be. The inner man belies the outer shell. Even so, when
Alkibiades speaks of Socrates it is always in terms of the connect-
edness of the soul and the body.34 For example, Alkibiades, by way
of comparison (the use of efikÒnew, metaphors or similar images,
215a4–a5), intends to reveal the truth about Socrates (215a4–a6).
He likens Socrates to Marsyas, the flute-playing Satyr (215a6–215b4);
both are gifted flutists, but Socrates is the more marvelous (215b8)
because, says Alkibiades, Socrates’ flute-playing in simple words (cilo‹
lÒgoi), without musical instrument, produces the same wondrous
effect upon the hearers (215c6–d1). In fact, he goes own to tell the
32
Aristophanes use of fÊsiw ( phusis) includes both, 192e9–10, cf. 191c and 210a7;
210d5; 212a.
33
Nussbaum rightly says that Alkibiades represents a love which is “an integrated
response to the person as a unique whole” (Fragility of Goodness, p. 191).
34
Of course, the occasion for the recounting of the symposium is the desire to
hear of the lÒgoi t«n §rvtik«n (“the speeches about love” offered by the attendees,
172b6; 173e6; 177d1–2; most of the occurrences of lÒgow in the dialogue refer to
the speeches made by the symposiasts), and Alkibiades is certainly interested in
Socrates’ lÒgoi (lÒgoi kalo¤ are what lovers exchange and generate according to
Diotima, 210a6–a8, 210b8–c3; 210d3–d6), but this does not change the focus in
the former’s references to the latter. The beautiful, however, is not found in some
specific argument, rationale, or speech (tiw lÒgow) or some bit of knowledge (tiw
§pistÆmh, 211a7; the lÒgoi of Socrates and Diotima can also be “arguments” (201e6)
or “reasons” for believing something (202a5). Plato gives us lÒgoi that are mythic
in character, like Aristophanes’ story (205d10–e1). Through it all, Socrates says
Alkibiades is always victorious in lÒgoi (213e3–e4).
symposiasts that he is more aroused by Socrates’ piping than the

Korybantes, his heart jumps and tears flow—Alkibiades suffers phys-
ical responses, his body expresses the reaction of his soul (215el–2).35
But perhaps more importantly, when Alkibiades describes the char-
acter of Socrates he chooses to do so not with the language of the
inner, spiritual functions but with physicalities. How do we know the
inner Socrates? On the one hand, Alkibiades’ comparison of Socrates
to the Silenus, suggests that the outer, physical shell offers no hint of
the divine contained within.36 Yet, on the other hand, the marvels of
Socrates’ power are described as physical effects experienced by
Alkibiades and witnessed by others. For example, Socrates easily
resists the attractions of physical beauty and any other temptation
to which the many are subject (216d6–e3). He especially resists the
physical beauty of Alkibiades (219c–d2), the supremely beautiful body.
Moreover, he is invulnerable on every side, even more so than the
mighty Ajax (219e2). He is unaffected by the labors of war, surpassing
all his peers. He eats and drinks or does neither with indifference.
He remains unaffected by the cold of winter. He can resist the need
to sleep. He does not flinch in the face of physical threat from ene-
mies closing in around him but plods along at the same even pace
(219e7–221cl). From Alkibiades’ point of view, it appears to be the
case that apart from Socrates’ physical qualities, the beauty of Socrates’
soul would never have come to be known by anyone.
Has Alkibiades got it wrong to answer wholly in terms of the
outer Socrates? There is an important paradox here; in terms of
Diotima’s scenario of ascent to the realization of Beauty, Socrates’
physical appearance could not have contributed to the beginning of
Alkibiades’ journey. He could not have begun from an appreciation
of Socrates as a beautiful individual body, and then moved on from
there toward an appreciation of Socrates’ non-corporeal beauty. How
then could Alkibiades have actually come to know of Socrates’ inner
beauty unless Alkibiades had himself made the ascent beyond the appre-
ciation of mere physical beauty? We must remember, in view of the
ease with which we can speak of the ideas expressed by the char-
acters in this dialogue as their own, that behind the whole dramatic
35
Even the inner pain that Alkibiades feels can only be expressed in terms of
physical images. He is snake-bitten but of a kind the pain of which is felt only in
the heart and soul (217e6–218a5).
36
Socrates is like the Sileni, who within their ugly shell contain divinity (215a6–b3).
presentation stands Plato.37 However, the character of Alkibiades does

more than present one pole of two between which the audience must
choose, as Nussbaum describes it. Rather, I believe that this char-
acter allows Plato to explore critically the problem of Socratic ¶rvw.
Alkibiades functions simultaneously as the problem and the means
by which to address the problem; he is the one who claims to know
the true, beautiful Socrates, and yet his legacy would suggest that
he actually did not know.38
In regard to the problem raised by Alkibiades as the object of
Socrates’ love, Stanley Rosen has written, “[t]he unsatisfactory char-
acter of the love affair between Socrates and Alcibiades is a neces-
sary consequence of the peculiarity of Socrates’ eros, which can only
desire divine things or beings.” For Rosen this peculiarity is a defect
in Socrates’ character which Plato not only recognizes but also crit-
icizes.39 Diotima’s speech has lifted the audience past the mortal lim-
its of the particular and the individual to the heavenly realm (211d8–e4).
Socrates has voiced clearly his agreement with the prophetess, and
as well his intention to persuade others (212b1–4). But it is at this
point precisely that the problem of Socrates ¶rvw arises for Plato, at
the point when the focus turns from the vertical to the horizontal
axis, to the world of whole human beings. As described by Alkibiades,
Socrates is deceptive and cruel; he has enchanted Alkibiades, lead-
ing the young man along to falsely assume that he was actually
in love with Alkibiades’ physical beauty, only finally to reveal that
he had no real interest in physical beauty at all (216d2–216e5;
217a5–219e5).
Michael Gagarin has suggested that interpreters begin to take seri-
ously the charges of hybris leveled against Socrates in the Symposium.40
This particular hybris, “consistent with Socrates’ eros, is the primary
factor in his failure as a teacher.”41 This aspect of Socrates’ char-
37
Nussbaum rightly criticizes Vlastos for seeing Plato only behind the speech of
Diotima. She argues, and I agree, that Plato also stands behind Alkibiades’ speech
(Nussbaum, Fragility of Goodness, p. 167).
38
As Socrates claimed earlier to know ¶rvw (199a1; a7–b5) while no one else
did, so Alkibiades now claims to know Socrates as no one else does; he alone can
reveal Socrates (214e6; 215a6; 216c7–d1; 216e5–7); he shall be the mystagogue, as
Diotima once was for Socrates.
39
Rosen, Symposium, p. 279.
40
Notice that Alkibiades frames the moment in his speech as the moment of
decision for a jury (219c5–c6).
41
Gagarin, “Socrates’ hybris,” p. 23.
acter arises from the ironical fact that he is the supreme student; in
other words, consistent with the scenario laid out by Diotima, Socrates
has made his ascent and has left behind mundane concerns.42 This
is clearly the force of the elaborate descriptions of Socrates’ behav-
ior which Alkibiades offers. Rosen goes a step further, arguing that,
based on the analogy with Diotima’s speech, Socrates takes on the
role of Beauty itself once Alkibiades has arrived on the scene, “Socrates
is loved, but he does not love or desire in return.”43 The lover of
course, is now Alkibiades, Eros incarnate.44
Socrates’ hybris can be seen as the interpretation of his ascent by
those who are unaware of the experience themselves, or by those,
like Alkibiades, who perceive his ascent from the perspective of their
own earlier stage in the process. In other words, Alkibiades may be
describing Socrates’ ascent from the perspective of the §r≈menow, the
“one being loved” but only in passing.45 This is also an interpreta-
tion to which Plato ascribes validity. Whether we think of the sol-
diers on campaign with Socrates (220c1), or his present host, Agathon
(175e8), all respond to him with the same accusation of hybris.46 His
hybris establishes a gulf between Socrates and other human beings,
one which Socrates himself apparently felt no genuine compulsion
to bridge. Again to quote Rosen, “His (Socrates’) hybristic indifference
is justified in the sense that he is in fact superior to all other men.
At the same time, it is unjustified or defective, because it impairs
his effectiveness on behalf of philosophy among the non-philoso-
phers.”47
In his primary accusation of hybris, Alkibiades describes a superior
Socrates who looked down in scorn on the approaching lover; he
was a mocker of the one who would ascend, the one who desired
to beget in the beautiful that he discovered in Socrates (219c3–5).48
Yet, Alkibiades must bear a great part of the responsible for his own
42
Gagarin, “Socrates’ hybris,” p. 28, cf. Nussbaum, Fragility of Goodness, p. 183.
43
Rosen, Symposium, p. 286; cf. Gagarin, “Socrates hybris,” p. 28.
44
45
Scott, “Socrates and Alcibiades in the Symposium,” suggests that we should
assume that Socrates was Alkibiades’ lover, §rastÆw, at the stage in his ascent where
he was a lover of souls, only briefly focused exclusively on the individual soul of
Alkibiades (especially pp. 33–34).
46
Gagarin, “Socrates’ hybris,” p. 31; this air of superiority is described by Alkibiades
as Socrates’ usual manner, 218a6–7; 216e4–5.
47
Rosen, Symposium, p. 294; see also Gagarin, “Socrates’ hybris,” pp. 29–30.
48
Cf. the use of katafrone›n in 210b5–6; 216d8; 220b7–22c1.
problems, even though we might argue that he proceeded in har-

mony with proper motives in spite of his obvious vanity.49 He is por-
trayed by Plato as being well-aware of the weaknesses of his own
nature, as well as the demands which the pursuit of wisdom place
upon him (216a1–5). Alkibiades’ honest assessment of his own failures
is one of the attractive elements of Plato’s portrayal. Yet, Alkibiades
still remains a failure in his attempt to follow Socrates. Plato leaves
us then with a complex of paradoxes: not the least of which is irony
that the character in his Symposium who most represents sexual vigor
fails when faced with the ultimate erotic opportunity.
We easily recall that Diotima had said that individuals mature to
a state of pregnancy wherein they must find a proper medium in
which to engender (206c), and so it is with Alkibiades. Here we must
assume that at least in part he wanted to “bring forth” lÒgouw, like
those that Diotima described, since it is Socrates’ lÒgoi that so deeply
affected him (see 215b4–217a; 222a1–6). Based on his speech we
must also assume that he wanted to bring forth personal improve-
ment as well (218d1–2). That he failed would have been painfully
obvious to all as Plato writes the Symposium.50 Certainly, Xenophon
seems to believe that the fault lies entirely with Alkibiades.51 But the
question remains whether Plato intends us to assign all of the blame
to Alkibiades alone? Is it in fact as simple as that he failed to pursue
with adequate persistence, or that his susceptibility to the adoration
of the masses proved to be his downfall? I believe that the Symposium
presents a much more complicated picture. The apologetic explana-
tion for Alkibiades’ speech, i.e., the strategy of having Alkibiades “take
the blame” for his own failure, is traditional and ultimately not totally
satisfying,52 even augmented by the explanation that his speech func-
tions in a collaborative way with Socrates’ speech, either to demon-
strate in practice what Socrates had learned from Diotima, or to show
49
50
Cf. Sheffield, “Alcibiades’ Speech: A Satyric Drama,” who, in pointing out all
the elements of Socrates’ speech parodied in Alcibiades’ “satryrical” encomium to
Eros-embodying Socrates, describes Alkbiades’ frustrated attempt to seduce Socrates
as a paradoxical instantiation of Socrates’ myth of Penia’s seduction of the sleep-
ing Poros to conceive Eros (p. 201).
51
Memorabilia 1.2.14f. In fact, according to Xenophon if Alkibiades had approached
Socrates rightly motivated, he would have remained with him and avoided politics
altogether.
52
Of course, the older view is that Alkibiades’s speech served as Plato’s apology
for Socrates; Alkibiades relieves Socrates of responsibility by claiming all of the
blame for himself, e.g., in Bury, The Symposium of Plato, see Bury’s Introduction.
the ascent from the side of those who loved Socrates.53 The problem
is that had he wished only to defend Socrates, Plato could have
avoided re-raising Aristophanes’ issue of human wholeness, as well
as the portrayal of Socrates hybris, and especially the fact that Alkibiades
claims exclusively to know the inner Socrates.54
This brings us to the promised reading of Plato’s intention in this
dialogue. I would suggest that what Plato wrestled with was a conflict
of credibility, and that this conflict of credibility can serve as a com-
parative category in the comparison of portrayals of religious mas-
ters or founders by their later devotees.55 In the process of struggling
with Socrates’ legacy, Plato has portrayed the character of Socrates
in both its brilliance and its impenetrability. To portray this impen-
etrability Plato deals openly with the perception of Socrates’ hybris,
and links this directly to the frustration and failures of Alkibiades.
Plato also presents his audience with a serious picture of ¶rvw as it
is actually experienced by human beings, especially in the portrayal
of one specific individual. The idea that Socrates has failed Alkibiades
is not uncommon among modern interpreters, as Gagarin’s work
demonstrates; we might think of the failure of Socrates as his failure
to imitate Diotima, a guide, or master, who was willing to reach
back to those at the bottom of the staircase, and who, in fact, never
lost sight of Socrates the individual.56 According to Gagarin, Diotima
53
Dover, Symposium/Plato, and Scott, “Socrates and Alcibiades,” respectively.
54
Contra Bury, Symposium, p. xx. Also, e.g. Xenophon defends Socrates by dis-
tancing him from Alkibiades. Plato does not see the situation so simply. He does
not avoid the truth; Alkibiades is correct, he does know Socrates as none of those
present do (216c7).
55
This is not to deny that the tension between traditions and the way this tension
is handled by later authors or redactors may provide an opportunity to say something
about the historical figure who constitutes the focus of the conflicting traditions.
56
Even though she has reservations about Socrates’ capacity for initiation, she
nevertheless says that she will hold back nothing of the final steps. She accommo-
dates Socrates in the words, “Try to follow to the degree you are able” (210a1–4).
Of course, Diotima is associated with prophecy (Diotima could mean “honored by
Zeus” or “Zeus-honoring”). Women initiating others into mysteries or new cults is
certainly well-known in this period (e.g., Glaukothea in Demosthenes, De Corona
126–130; 259–260; De falsa Legatione 281), cf. McPherran, Religion, pp. 295–96. The
issue of whether the association with prophecy affects our characterization of the
issue we have here raised is beyond the scope of this chapter; it is sufficient to say
that her reference to enlightenment as revelatory vision (210e2–e6) is not unlike
Plato’s own description in the allegory of the cave in the Respublica; the enlightened
one must be forcefully compelled by an external agent, dragged up the ascent to
the light, where the last step in the philosopher’s quest appears to be revelatory
(Resp. 515c6–515d1; 515d4–516a3; 516b4–b7); on the “extra-rational” in Socrates
see McPherran, Religion, pp. 9, 177–90; 194–201; 208–29.
does, in fact, portray the correct model of the philosopher/teacher

because she “clearly seems intent on satisfying, not frustrating, her
pupil’s desire.”57
It seems in view of these factors that Plato is doing more than
confronting his audience with two mutually exclusive alternatives. He
is critically reflecting on Socrates’ legacy by honestly confronting the
complex historical reality of his master’s career. Beyond this, how-
ever, we have suggested that Plato is portraying his own struggle for
a middle ground. He is allowing his audience in on his own per-
sonal dilemma. Alkibiades is not an isolated case. A consistent pat-
tern of disastrous associations has accumulated to Socrates’ legacy,
and the reader is explicitly reminded of some of them (222a8–b4).58
Plato knows that simply separating these “bad apples” from Socrates’
harvest will not do. Instead, Plato leaves the audience with an unre-
solved problem. Alkibiades fails to move Socrates. Yet, Socrates tells
the attempting seducer that if the very good and beauty Alkbiades
desires is truly in him, then the young §rastÆw should know that
the reciprocity he seeks from Socrates cannot be realized (218d7–219a4).
In other words, Alkibiades should have known the outcome of his
advance beforehand.
Socrates’ focus is only vertical. Alkibiades reminds us of the hor-
izontal dimension. I read Plato as striving for an equation that
includes both axes in a way that will produce unequivocal good for
society. And herein lies the best evidence for Plato’s own struggle.
It is he, not Socrates, who writes the Respublica and the Leges. It is he,
not Socrates, who writes anything at all. He is the one who strives
to produce wise rulers to govern a just polis —not Socrates. If we take
seriously the words Plato puts into the mouth of Alkibiades, Socrates
was no less oblivious to the political concerns of Athens than he was
to the emotional needs of one of the city’s desperate youth, Alkibiades,59
57
While pedagogical terminology is used in the speech of Diotima as the ascent
to the beatific vision is described (there are steps to be ascended one by one,
211c2–3; there is the need for a guide, 210a7). Yet for Socrates the journey is, in
practice, a solitary climb with each individual climber climbing, growing ever more
isolated, up from the mundane. As Vlastos so aptly describes it, “The high climatic
moment of fulfillment—the peak achievement for which all lesser loves are to be
‘used as steps’—is the one farthest removed from an affection for concrete human
beings,” (Studies, p. 32).
58
59
Cf. Rosen, who suggests that Socrates’ failure is his coldness to the love of
others. This coldness prevents or thwarts any attempt “to beget in the beautiful.”
or to any of the other aspects of human society.60 The failure of a

particular institution could not move him any more than the failure
of a particular individual. But these concerns do move Plato,61 as
his own career demonstrates. And to the degree he is motivated by
the quest for a bridge between the heavenly and the human planes,
he has succeeded in surpassing his teacher. This motivation and not
Socrates, the master/teacher, produced a Plato instead of another
social disaster. In the end, the objection of Aristophanes is heard
through Alkibiades; a severe dualism with only a vertical focus cre-
ates partial human beings, not whole ones. Socrates has lost the
means of contact; perhaps Plato is wondering aloud in the Symposium
if his teacher has sacrificed too much.
One final element in the mediating equation needs further empha-
sis. As we mentioned earlier, Alkibiades must not be seen as free
from blame; this would be to violate the hypothesis offered here. In
one sense, Plato’s portrayal of Alkibiades’ intimate knowledge of the
inner Socrates (216d6) seems to force Plato into an implicit denial
of one of Socrates’ basic principles, viz., no one does evil know-
ingly.62 As we have already pointed out, Plato makes no attempt to
He suggests that perhaps Socrates is guilty of “castrating” Alkibiades at an even

deeper level than the physical (Symposium, 294, 286, cf. also 302). Also note Gagarin’s
comment, “His [Alkibiades’] reasons for rejecting a life of philosophy are not made
clear until the seduction episode, which follows immediately (217a2–219d2) and
which reveals the true nature of his relation with Socrates, namely that he was frus-
trated in his past attempt to acquire beauty, wisdom, and virtue from Socrates”
(“Socrates’ hybris,” p. 34).
60
Even Plato’s Crito (see esp. 50a6–b5; 51e1–52a5; 52c9–52d3; 52d8–54d7) in
which Socrates’ claims to uphold the laws of the polis as a fundamental concern
must be considered in light of the ascent described in Diotima’s speech; the beauty
not of specific laws or customs but the branches of knowledge that subsume even
these instances (210c3–d1).
61
Plato amply displays his own concern for the guidance of the unenlightened
in the Respublica. The Symposium makes it difficult to attribute any of this concern
to the historical Socrates. For example, Respublica 498a expresses the need for timely
and cautious guidance for the sake of the uninitiated. More clearly, perhaps, this
is shown in the obligation of those who have made it out of the cave to those still
in its depths, as Gagarin points out (“Socrates’ hybris,” p. 37).
62
Socrates himself implicitly introduces this axiom when he states that he would
never have entered into the agreement to offer an encomium of Eros had he known
the truth of what was required. His agreement was made in ignorance; his mistake
would not have been made knowingly (199a3–6). Diotima also seems to presup-
pose this idea when she says that individuals are willing to cut off their own hands
and feet whenever they consider these members to be evil. Human beings, says the
prophetess, welcome only what they consider the good, while they treat what they
consider to be evil as alien (éllÒtrion, allotrion). Here the presupposed difficulty is
ignorance of what may be, in reality, the good in each case (205e1–206a2).
devalue Alkibiades’ knowledge of Socrates (222a1f ). Neither does he

avoid the fact that Alkibiades (who knows Socrates as no one else
does), by an act of his will, nevertheless, fled the good that he knew
(216a4–b5). Despite this, there is a subtle distinction in the speech
of Diotima which may indicate an additional mediating element in
Plato’s wrestling with this problem. In the final words of her speech,
having opened to Socrates the mystery of the vision of beauty itself
(211d4), the prophetess asks Socrates if he would consider the life
of one who had seen the vision of the beautiful to be a paltry life
(211e4–212a1). When she goes further we discover that the person
who becomes dear to god and immortal is not the person who has
only seen the vision, i.e., the one who only knows the good, but
rather it is the person who, having seen the vision, brings forth
(t¤ktein, tiktein, “to give birth to”) true virtue and nurtures it to matu-
rity (212a1–7). When we look again at what Alkibiades claims in his
own case we can see that this personal failure is subsequent to his
vision of Socrates’ beauty. Alkibiades knows, i.e., he has truly seen, but
he has not remained fixed on the vision (§faptom°now, ephaptomenos,
212a4). As a result no true virtue can be begotten to be nurtured.
If we can assume that Plato speaks through the voice of more
than one character, is it not possible to see that Plato both acknowl-
edges the failure of Socrates as a teacher and guide, while, por-
traying Alkibiades’ culpability in terms of his pride? Socrates, as the
self-absorbed philosopher, is guilty of hybris, of failing to reach back
in sincere effort to those who are just beginning the climb out of the
cave. Alkibiades is guilty because his own pride could not stand the
strain of a continued focus on Socrates. The depth of his pride is
easily measured by the severity with which Socrates’ rejection repels
him. The qualification offered by Diotima, in describing the person
who becomes dear to god, moderates the well-known Socratic axiom
in a subtle way which prevents the reader from ignoring Alkibiades’
own failing once he had caught a glimpse of Socrates’ beauty. For
Plato, if a bridge is to be built across the gulf between the upward
philosophic pursuit and the world of real human beings, it must be
built from both sides at once. Alkibiades cannot withdrawal from the
pursuit, even when it becomes difficult. Yet Socrates, from the other
side, must, like Diotima, return again and again to the pursuer. He
must truly guide and not abandon Alkibiades in a sea of indifference
which can only be interpreted as the most devastating hybris. For
neither man is seeing a vision of the beautiful sufficient in itself; and
this seems, ultimately, to be Plato’s dilemma.
Reading the Symposium in this way we are able to highlight for

our students Plato’s creative reconstruction of his master, Socrates,
and leave them face to face with the ambiguity of the historical per-
son that stands behind the tradition. They can easily see the distance
between the historical Socrates and the traditions about him shared
by his students like Plato, who despite knowing Socrates personally
nevertheless leaves us, as the tensions in the Symposium indicate, his
invested interpretation of his teacher, and not a disinterested chron-
icle. We know turn to the Jesus traditions.
Part 3: The Problem of Jesus and the

Incorporation of the Gentiles
Having looked at Plato’s handling of a single, nevertheless crucial,

problem left to him by his master, we now move on to take a brief
look at what I suggest may provide a parallel problem in the legacy
of Jesus. We do so again with an eye to demonstrating to our stu-
dents that we are dealing with interpretations of religious figures and
not directly with the historical individuals themselves. We should
keep in mind, however, one particularly important proposition, viz.,
just as we saw in Plato’s handling of the problematic ambiguities of
Socrates’ career, it is Matthew’s handling of similar ambiguities sur-
rounding the person of Jesus that can help our students grasp the
complexities of our comparative task.
Also, as in the case of our first example, we must establish some-
thing of the scholarly context for our discussion. While already rec-
ognized as axiomatic in much historical Jesus research, the application
of what is commonly called the criterion of difference,63 should be
distinguished from, but not necessarily contrasted with, the process
we shall describe below. Our suggested comparative enterprise does
not turn on the question of how similar or dissimilar religious figures
may be to the cultural environment or with the devotionally-based
institutional legacy that attaches to them over time, e.g., how
63
Conzelmann, Jesus, p. 16; the translation and expansion of the well-known
article in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Of course, this principle is prob-
lematic because it describes its objects only negatively; since Jesus is most assuredly
what everything else is not, be it Jewish or Christian; for a recent critical reflection
on the application of this principle, see Allison, Jesus of Nazareth, pp. 1–10. What
we shall focus on is in some ways related to the criterion of embarrassment, also
discussed in Allison, but we shall not pursue this connection here.
“un-Jewish” or “un-Christian” Jesus may have been. Rather, we are

interested in demonstrating to our students the greater utility of com-
paring the strategies employed by devotees to deal with tensions or
ambiguities discernible in the traditions concerning their masters and
what the handling of these ambiguities might tell us about the
significance of these interpreted figures to the devoted communities
that created the interpretive accounts.
Of course, in our attempt to look comparatively at the problems
of legacies, there is an important difference between Plato’s wrestling
with the legacy of Socrates and the writer of Matthew’s struggle with
ambiguities surrounding Jesus, namely, Matthew offers, beyond tradi-
tional attributions, little to suggest that it was composed by persons
who actually knew Jesus. This caveat does not change, however, the
fact that these texts, like Plato’s Symposium, were written by personally-
invested devotees well after the death of their master, for whom the
legacy of that master nevertheless continues to pose problems. Our
treatment of Plato’s Symposium suggests the possibility that we might
look at tensions in a gospel in a similar way, and not merely as indi-
cators of the juxtaposition in the process of redaction of formerly
independent, successive traditions. Again, we cannot undertake a full-
scale examination of such matters in this context. Our goal is simply
to suggest a strategy through which to expose our students to the
possibilities and perils of comparing Jesus and Socrates in a some-
what different framework than most have employed.64
Our students often take for granted that Jesus was a universalist
and that his message was consciously directed to all people and that
his commandments were simple, universal moral principles. That is
to say, our students assume that since Jesus founded Christianity he
must have been the first Christian.65 The New Testament certainly
provides grounds for such an interpretation. For example, the gospel
64
We should here acknowledge the recent reconfiguration of the comparison of
Jesus and Socrates in terms of five innovative comparative categories by Gooch,
Reflections of Jesus and Socrates.
65
E.g., Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, p. 159, citing the
sayings source, Q , Luke 13:29 = Matt 8:11–12, among others. What this saying
about people coming from the four (two in Matthew) directions to sit at the table
with the Jewish patriarchs means to the respective gospel writers is the question.
Of course, Matthew’s version has been taken to mean that the Gentiles will dis-
place Jews, the sons of the Kingdom, in the new age.
of Matthew closes with the risen Jesus’ famous “Great Commission”

to his twelve disciples to “disciple” all tå ¶ynh (ethnè, nations, i.e.,
locations to which Jews have been dispersed or Gentiles?), baptizing
them and teaching them to keep everything that he had commanded
to the twelve (28:16–20). However, despite this apparently world-
directed charge at the gospel’s close, our students should be made
aware that there are several associated ambiguities here.66 To whom
is Jesus sending his disciples, to non-Jews or to fellow Jews living
among the various nations of the Diaspora? To what command-
ments is Jesus referring, a set of commandments that originate with
him intended for his universal Church, or to his instructions regard-
ing the proper way to understand the Torah? These ambiguities are
related to other indications in Matthew that, in contrast to the tradi-
tional reading of the gospel, lead many scholars to the conclusion that
Matthew reflects a Jewish Jesus-community with serious reservations
about the inclusion of non-Jews in the salvation scenario inaugurated
by their master. Did Jesus also not say that his mission was restricted to
the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” in response to a request for
healing by a Gentile woman (Matt 15:24), and did he not forbid his
disciples to go to Gentiles, restricting them as well only to the same
“lost sheep of the house of Israel” (10:5–6)?67
Some would at least see that “Matthew,” whoever the writer might
be, was wrestling with the problem of Jewish exclusivity and Jesus’
relation to it, and in the end found room for the Gentiles in the
gospel’s portrayal of Jesus.68 E. P. Sanders goes further by describ-
ing Matthew, of all the gospel writers, as the most enthusiastic about
the mission to include the Gentiles. More interesting for our purposes
is his comment that “[a]ll the authors of the gospels favoured the
mission to Gentiles, and they would have included all the pro-Gentile
66
On this debate, see, e.g., Byrne, “The Messiah in Whose Name ‘the Gentiles
will Hope’ (Matt 12:21),” with Sim, “Matthew and the Gentiles: a Response to
Brendan Byrne.”
67
E.g., Segal, “Matthew’s Jewish Voice,” especially pp. 6–11; Dunn, The Partings
of the Ways, p. 118. One could also argue that Gentiles are probably included in
Matthew’s community (or that possibility is clearly at hand), otherwise the tensions
within the gospel are difficult to explain (see Hummel, Die Auseinadersetzung Zwischen
Kirche und Judentum Im Matthäusevangelium, p. 32). Against the Jewish social context
of Matthew see Hare, “How Jewish is the Gospel of Matthew?”
68
Davies, “The Jewish Sources of Matthew’s Messianism,” pp. 502–503; and
Davies, Jewish and Pauline Studies, p. 318.
material that they could.”69 This claim returns us to the issue of

comparative possibilities between Plato’s Socrates and Matthew’s
Jesus. Sanders is essentially suggesting that the gospel writers, and
Matthew in particular, reveal a tension between what they would
like to say about Jesus and what they can say about him. The impli-
cation is that Jesus has left his followers a problem, a dissonance
between the course of events they and their communities have wit-
nessed and their ideal image of their master. In the case of Plato,
the events are disastrous as exemplified in Alkibiades’ career. In the
case of the gospel writers, in terms of Sanders’ comment, the course
of events is positive from their later perspective. In both cases, there
is an incongruity between these events and the disciples’ preferred
image of their master that motivates the writer toward resolution.
With respect to Socrates, I have suggested that Plato’s strategy is to
embrace the reality of Socrates’ failure as a guide to others, while
not freeing Alkibiades from culpability in his own failure to persevere,
admitting his master’s failure through elements in both the speeches
of Alkibiades and of Diotima that stand in tension with Socrates’
own speech. Beyond the dialogue, Plato implicitly admits the failure
of Socrates in the very course of his own career as a teacher, a role
Socrates explicitly denied for himself.70
As perhaps a mirror reflection of what we implied when we ques-
tioned the assumption that Plato’s intention was to defend Socrates
by blaming Alkibiades for his own disastrous outcome (above, 32),
we should question the writer of Matthew, as the representative of
the canonical evangelists’ responses to the acknowledged dissonance
between their communities’ obvious reality of gentile inclusion and
the enduring legacy of Jesus’ indifference to Gentiles, about the por-
trayal of Jesus’ disciples and the question of responsibility for this
discontinuity. Matthew, like Plato (above, 167), must also deal with
a “conflict of credibility.” In contrast to Plato’s solution to his own
master’s ambiguity, on Sander’s reading of Matthew, the writer must
actually close the gap between the followers of Jesus, communities
that have endorsed and promote inclusion of Gentiles as the divine
will, and a master who appears not to have been concerned for
Gentiles at all. To quote Sanders again, “[w]hat is striking is that
69
Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, p. 192.
70
On this see Scott, Plato’s Socrates as Educator, pp. 15–23.
the evangelists had so few passages that pointed towards success in

winning Gentiles to faith in Christ. They could cite only a few sto-
ries about Jesus’ contact with Gentiles, and even these did not depict
him as being especially warm towards them.”71 Sanders highlights
the problem nicely; for each of the gospel writers Gentile inclusion
is a reality, and each values the Gentile mission, even if qualified
by certain conditions as it was perhaps for Matthew’s author. Yet,
preserved beneath a layer of Lukan apologetic lurks the legacy of
Paul’s struggle to gain the Jerusalem church’s endorsement of his
mission to non-Jews, a legacy that confirms the reality that a mis-
sion to Gentiles was not, for the Jerusalem leaders who knew Jesus
best, the obvious inference from their master’s teaching.
Matthew’s author must creatively answer a troubling question; how
could such a fundamental part of the evangelist’s own community’s
experience be so foreign to and even denied by Jesus the founder?
Is it possible that the writer of Matthew, like Plato, found it necessary
to acknowledge this dissonance between the master and the community
that followed him, to treat seriously the glaring inconsistency that
what Jesus himself prohibited and for which he showed no concern,
the mission to Gentiles, the writer’s church now properly carries out
as God’s will, just as Plato exceeded his master in concern for the
education of others (above, pp. 168–169)? By posing the question for
Matthew we pose it for our students; they too must recognize the
distance between the historical Jesus and the community of devotees
that follow him. Our reading further emphasizes this discontinuity
by raising the question, why did Matthew’s writer preserve the dis-
sonance and allow it to stand in the text, when the option of explicitly
explaining it away was the obvious alternative? Of course, the res-
urrection serves as the turning point for Matthew’s author; underlying
the gospel is a two-stage structure that moves from a pre-resurrection
Jesus portrayed as an obedient servant of Moses and interpreter of
the law72 to a post-resurrection, exalted Lord whose interests and
authority now extend to the limits of heaven and earth (Matt 28:18–20).
This structure may itself reflect the writer’s intention to bridge the
distance between the master and his followers. This possibility remains
in need of further investigation. In Plato’s case, the Symposium not
71
Sanders, Figure of Jesus, p. 192; also pp. 217–18.
72
Segal, “Matthew’s Jewish Voice,” especially pp. 6–7, 22–25.
only forces us to confront the reality of Alkibiades self-destruction and

the question of Socrates’ culpability in it, but we must also confront
the problem that the same master produced both Alkibiades and Plato.
To pursue this issue in terms of the Jesus traditions, and to heighten
the impact of the internal tensions within Matthew, I hope I may
be indulged for turning to a proposal from my own master.
In a series of studies preliminary to his monumental work on the
“Sermon on the Mount,” Hans Dieter Betz raised a possibility for
re-thinking the traditions in the gospels that identify certain ambi-
guities within them with which the students of Jesus were left to
wrestle.73 Betz’s fundamental thesis is that the whole of Matt 5–7
constitutes a self-contained unit of teaching tradition produced by
persons who considered Jesus to be their teacher, and who preserved
their master’s teaching in the form of a recognizable, philosophical
genre known as the epitome.74 This epitome was incorporated by
the sayings source Q before its inclusion in Matthew.75 Within the
epitome Betz finds evidence that the writer(s) is aware of and hostile
to the Gentile mission, and specifically the mission of Paul.76 There
is little doubt that the key passage, Matt 5:17–20, is polemical, repre-
senting in the figure of Jesus a conflict contemporary with the epitome’s
community of origin. But it must also be admitted that this provoca-
tive hypothesis has not received wide endorsement. That acknowl-
edged, however, I submit that the hypothesis raises some interesting
questions about the relationship between founders and legacies.77
73
See Betz, Essays on the Sermon on the Mount.
74
This epitome presents a particular picture of Jesus as the authoritative inter-
preter of the Torah, a Jewish religious teacher and critic, spokesman for a distressed
community in competition with the Pharisees within the broader Jewish community.
75
“The Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:3–7:27): Its Literary Genre and Function”;
“The Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:3–12): Observations on
Their Literary Form and Theological Significance”; “The Hermeneutical Principles
of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:17–20)”; cf. Kloppenborg, Formation of Q ,
pp. 171, 317–22; the “sapiential instructions” of which the “Sermon on the Mount”
is an example “represent the formative literary component” of Q (p. 322).
76
See another of Betz’s preliminary articles, “Matthew 5:17–20 and the
Hermeneutical Principles of the Sermon on the Mount”; Jesus’ challenge to the
false understanding that he has come to destroy the law can be correlated most
naturally with the “law-free” gospel of the Gentile mission, cf. the Lukan correla-
tive in Acts 21:20b–21; also Betz, The Sermon on the Mount, pp. 184–89.
77
E.g., Kloppenborg makes only a passing reference to Betz’s argument that the
Sermon on the Mount is a pre-Matthean arrangement (Formation of Q , p. 171, n. 2).
It is clear that he pays little serious attention to the details of Betz’s ideas except
where Betz’s work shows the relationship between sayings material and wisdom tra-
For our purposes, the intriguing aspect of the possibility that

Matthew has appropriated a developed form of Q already contain-
ing the “Sermon on the Mount” is the way the Jesus of Q , and the
Jesus of the incorporated sermon, relate to what must be the actual
theology of the author of Matthew. It is clear that there are instances
of incompatibility between the Jesus of the “Sermon on the Mount”
and the Jesus of Q. For example, the miracle story of the Centurian’s
slave (Matt 8:5–13/Luke 7:1–10) is clearly a story of the Jewish rejec-
tion of Jesus and an apology for the Gentile mission.78 According to
Kloppenborg the “sapiential speeches in Q” represent a block of
material “untouched or only marginally influenced by these motifs,”
here referring to among others “the rather positive and optimistic view
of Gentiles” in other layers of Q.79 However, the problem, as Betz’s
points out, is that we are left with a confused theology in Matthew.
The writer of Matthew’s own perspective, like the later strata of Q ,
appears to presuppose a church which has long since incorporated
Gentiles; the writer’s is a community for which the continuing Gentile
mission is taken as a direct implication of the teaching of Jesus. Betz
takes this as obvious from Jesus’ final instructions in the “Great
Commission” cited above (28:18–20).
If this is correct, as Helmut Koester has assumed, and if Betz is
correct about Matt 5:17–20, the implication is unavoidable that Q ,
in the form we have it in Matthew, presupposes the existence of the
Gentile mission.80 This presents an identifiable source for tension
between the tradition inherited by Matthew and the reality of the
community’s experience; the Jesus known to the tradition opposes
the theology and practice of the present community. This source is
more concerned about maintaining continuity with Judaism, or to
quote Koester, its author is faced with the problem of “the rela-
tionship of the followers of Jesus to the law-abiding community of
ditions (p. 189, n. 78). In contrast, note the heavy use of Betz’s contributions on
the Sermon on the Mount by Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, pp. 167–71, 327.
For more recent criticism of this hypothesis in Betz’s magisterial 1995 commentary
on the Sermon on the Mount, see Allison’s review in the Journal of Biblical Literature.
78
Kloppenborg, Formation of Q , pp. 117–21. To solve the problem of these various
pictures of Jesus, some scholars have simply eliminated Matt 5:17–20 from Q , along
with similar statements such as Matt 10:5–6 and 23:3, claiming that this material
is a product of Matthean redaction (Kloppenborg, Formation of Q , pp. 78–79).
79
Kloppenborg, Formation of Q , p. 171.
80
An implication which Koester fully appreciates, Ancient Christian Gospels, pp.
167–70.
Israel.”81 The beguiling question yet to be explored is whether, con-

sidering the gospel in terms of our comparison with the Symposium,
some of Matthew’s ambiguity can be explained as the product of
critical reflection on Jesus similar to that suggested for Plato. In other
words, can we use students’ critical reflections on their ambiguous
masters, i.e., their interpretations of these figures, as a comparative
category in the histories of religions? I suggest that when the com-
plexities of Matthew’s composition are taken into consideration, by
taking the tack we have here, we compel our students to confront
the reality that in some cases we are dealing with multi-layered inter-
pretations, or interpretations of earlier interpretations, of a single reli-
gious innovator. If so, what might this mean for the use of comparisons
of such parallels as Socrates and Jesus for the study of figures we
categorize as religious founders?
Again, we offer no attempt in this venue to resolve the question
of the better interpretation of Jesus in Matthew; that debate is likely
to continue unabated for the foreseeable future. Our purpose has
been to suggest the likelihood that we might discover profitable ways
to expose our students to the possibilities and perils of comparison
of religious innovators as synonyms for the religious communities
that lay claim to them—to show students that Jesus is not neces-
sarily Christian, nor a reasonable “stand-in” for Christianity, just as
Socrates is not Plato, or the latter the former. This process cannot
be precisely the same as the discernment of the historical Jesus on
the basis of the persistence of “embarrassing” passages preserved by
the gospel writers, simply because we are dealing with an ideal image
of Jesus in the mind of the writer. In this respect, our proposal
demands that students confront the reality that even the surviving
accounts of religious figures that we possess rarely take us into direct
contact with these individuals, but provide interpretations or creative
reflections of them. Students must recognize that in the same way
we separate the “historical” Socrates from the Socrates imagined by
Plato, we must separate the “historical” Jesus from the Jesus imag-
ined by the gospel writers. Finally, our reading of the two example
texts enables us to show our students that in reality it is these same
interpretations and reflections that are susceptible to comparative
study, not so easily the figures they interpret. To repeat an earlier
81
Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, p. 167.
point, while the ambiguities found in the traditions about Jesus or

some other religious innovator may well reflect redactional stages in
the development of the tradition, they cannot be accounted for only
in those terms. That certain colors were already on the palette makes
the painter no less an artist. In that sense, students must come to
realize that Plato and the writer of Matthew, as each relates to his
master, are comparable because they have both been left the task
of interpreting a problematic legacy. I believe the ways in which
each deals with that legacy provide potentially fruitful ground for
pedagogical appropriation of comparison for the purpose of educat-
ing students to serious methodological problems.
CHAPTER NINE
CHRISTIANITY’S EMERGENCE FROM JUDAISM:

THE PLUS AND MINUS OF JOSEPH KLAUSNER’S
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
Joseph Klausner was a distinguished scholar who devoted much of

his career to tracing the emergence of Christianity out of Judaism.
His two books, Jesus of Nazareth (1925) and From Jesus to Paul (1946)
are superb examples of comparing religions, showing both the pos-
sibilities and perils in this endeavor. Klausner begins by quoting with
approval Julius Wellhausen’s remark, “Jesus was not a Christian, he
was a Jew.”1 The question now posed is how did this particular Jew
inspire or otherwise cause the birth of Christianity, a religion that
became different from Judaism? If we remember that the seed of the
new is present in the old the answer is forthcoming.
Under Klausner’s analysis Jesus followed in the footsteps of Israel’s
prophets by preaching a gospel of repentance to hasten the arrival
of the Kingdom of God. But he did so in unusual ways that allowed
others after him, not the least of whom was a fellow-Jew named Saul
of Tarsus (otherwise known as Paul) who would interpret his words in
ways that made the emergence of Christianity from Judaism inevitable.
Klausner shows how this process of emergence dramatizes the difference
between a national religion, defined by ethnic homogeneity, and a
religion which crosses national and ethnic boundaries.
Klausner argues that from the time of his baptism under John,
Jesus believed himself to be chosen by God to be the messianic agent
of the Kingdom. Believing so, he preached the “Coming Kingdom”
with authority and a sense of urgency, attracting crowds, gaining
disciples. But his journey to Jerusalem at the time of the Passover
resulted in a humiliating death. This was not supposed to happen
1
Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, p. 95.
to Israel’s Messiah, agent of God’s redemption. Jesus was not the

first Jew, nor the last to so proclaim himself Messiah; but a Messiah
who died a criminal’s death on a cross was plainly unacceptable to
every Jewish expectation about the person and conduct of God’s
chosen agent of redemption.
If Jesus died a shameful death in the eyes of first century Jews,
then his preaching of the Coming Kingdom proved equally irregular
and unacceptable. He preached the imminent day of redemption in
the traditionally prophetic way of calling for repentance of sins and
demanding moral reform of life. But he did so with an exaggerated
sense of his own authority, seeming to identify himself and his pro-
nouncements with God. The repeated use of the phrase, “Truly, I
say unto you . . .” (Matt 5:18; this form appears in Matthew at least
twenty-five times) suggests that when Jesus spoke he spoke for himself,
he spoke for God. In Klausner’s judgment this explains why it was
not Jews but mainly Gentile pagans that could be persuaded to
believe Jesus and God were one.2
According to Klausner’s analysis what resulted from Jesus’ call for
repentance was an “extremist ethics” favoring the spiritual over the
material, an ethics divorced from the realities of this world. Jesus’
parables and sayings suggest a moral idealism more suitable to the
heavenly world than to the concrete world of history and ethnos, nation
and state. For this reason what begins in Jesus’ preaching as a tradi-
tional Jewish demand for obedience under the law (“I came not to
destroy law but to fulfill it,” cf. Matthew 5:17, Luke 16:17) ends in
a vision of the world for which the nation of Israel and the ordinary
Jew of the first century would have trouble finding a place. Jesus
seems not unaware of the radical character of his preaching. He
contrasts his message as “new wine” that cannot be put in old wine
skins. There is a distinct emphasis on the new in his preaching of
the Kingdom in parables (Matthew 13:44–52).
Not surprisingly Jesus’ preaching offended the Pharisees, who turned
against him not for any particular act (declaring man lord of the
Sabbath; allowing washing and anointing during a period of fast)
but for his consistent and outspoken disparagement of the ceremonial-
ritual requirement in contrast to the ultimate value the moral law.3
2
3
christianity’s emergence from judaism 177
For the Pharisees were champions of Israel’s national integrity, seen

as a unity of both ritualistic and moral daily observances.
Jesus’ indifference to politics, as in the “Render taxes unto Caesar . . .”
reply, was rightly construed by the Pharisees as an exaggerated
Judaism making little sense to a people concerned for their cultural
and political independence from Rome (Matt. 22:15–22). Jesus’ spir-
itualism and idealism is reinforced by the statement, “Judge not that
you be not judged” (Matthew 7:1; Luke 6:37), a pronouncement
which would be seen to be ultimately dangerous to Israel. Klausner
comments on the “Judge not” passage: “Where there is no call for
the enactment of laws for justice, for national culture; where belief
in God and the practice of an extreme and one-sided ethic is enough—
there we have the negation of national life and of the national state.”4
Yet, in Klausner’s opinion, albeit extremist in ethical outlook, the
roots of Jesus’ moral pronouncements can be found in the Talmud
and Midrash. Only unique were Jesus’ preoccupation with the moral
demands of the law of God and his seeming indifference to its rit-
ual aspects. In contrast to his contemporary Rabbi Hillel, who was
a pacifier and a man of practical national affairs, Jesus comes to us
through the Gospels as an apolitical trouble-making idealist, a con-
tentious man, saying harsh things of Pharisees and Sadducees, oppos-
ing by force commercial traffic at the temple, and suffering martyrdom
for his opinions.5
Klausner’s conclusion is that without being aware of it and without
wishing it, Jesus in his messianic self-understanding, ethical idealism,
in his character, conduct, and death—planted seeds of new religion.
But it would take the forceful personality and radical ideas of Paul
to germinate those seeds. Nevertheless, it is important to say at this
point that neither Paul nor Jesus (in Klausner’s interpretation) thought
of themselves as anything other than Jews, wholly committed to the
Torah of God. But it is also important to say that the novelty and
mystery of the new is that its birth cannot be wholly anticipated in
the old; it is a truth which Klausner, for all his erudition, had trouble
grasping, as we shall see further on.
What explains the birth of Christianity from Judaism was the rev-
olutionary genius of Paul, specifically the historical-geographic con-
4
5
text of his preaching of the Gospel of Messiah Jesus.6 Had Paul been
a native-born Judean, one of Jesus’ earliest disciple like Peter or James
the Lord’s brother, then he (Paul) might never have advanced his
own ideas about the ultimate significance of Jesus’ life and death.
Had Paul been one of the original disciples, then perhaps the Jesus
fellowship would have amounted to little more than an obscure Jewish
messianic sect, one of the several sects that did not outlive the destruc-
tion of 66–73 CE.
But Paul was not one of the original disciples from Judea. As Saul
he was originally a persecutor of the Jesus’ fellowship and was inspired
to join the fellowship after his conversion experience, which “expe-
rience” provides ample evidence of his truly original and indepen-
dent caste of mind. Moreover Paul/Saul was not a Judean, a Jewish
subject of Roman-governed Palestine; he was a Jewish-born Roman
citizen from the cultured city of Tarsus in Asia Minor, where he (as
Klausner stresses) could not help but come under the influence of
Greco-Roman philosophical and religious ideas.
Paul’s main audience for his preaching of the message of Messiah
Jesus was predominately the Gentile pagans of the towns and cities
he visited in his three missionary journeys occurring between 43 and
64 CE. Klausner takes the view that precisely because he was preach-
ing increasingly to Gentile pagans Paul shaped his message of Messiah
Jesus to stress the moral over the ritualistic aspects of law and also
to emphasize the divinity of Jesus. A Judean Jewish hearer of Paul’s
message would have demurred at Paul’s depreciation of the ritual
requirement of circumcision; he would also have found Paul’s notion
of Messiah Jesus as a dying-and-rising god atoning for human sins
strange and unacceptable. But, according to Klausner, it would have
been the opposite for Gentile pagans longing for contact with a god
redeeming them from sin through the sacrificial death of his own
son. Moreover, Paul’s message of redemption in Messiah Jesus would
also have been made more appealing to Gentiles by his easing of
the ritual requirement of circumcision.7
That Christianity emerged and developed as a religion separate
from Judaism has to do with the way in which Christianity shaped
itself distinctly as a religion: by stressing the moral over the ritual
6
Klausner, From Jesus to Paul.
7
Klausner, From Jesus to Paul, pp. 6, 30–31, 40, 48–49.
christianity’s emergence from judaism 179
aspects of God’s law; by viewing Jesus’ death not as humiliating

defeat but as atoning sacrifice; by believing in Jesus’ resurrection as
a proof of Jesus’ divine sonship; and by accepting Paul’s notion of
participating in victory over sin through mystical-spiritual union with
Jesus’ life and death. Klausner makes it clear that it is particularly
in Paul’s mysticism that we recognize a Christianity which shaped
itself not as the continuation of Jewish national religion, but as an
entirely different religion, a religion reaching out to all sinners, irre-
spective of nation and place and time.8
By contrast the Judaism of Jesus’ time had no greater purpose
than to preserve the Jewish national identity against the threat of a
welter of Hellenistic-Roman religions threatening that identity. Judaism
was seen by every Jew as the bulwark for safeguarding the ancient
Jewish nation-state. Judaism could not but feel threatened by a de-
nationalized religion that Jesus first seeded and later Paul germinated.9
II
Joseph Klausner traced and explained the emergence of Christianity

from Judaism with masterly techniques: knowledge of primary lan-
guages, examination of source-documents, texts, secondary references,
command of the history of the period, and a confident conception
of Jewish social and religious tradition at different periods. Under-
standably, Susan B. Hoenig in her own forward to Klausner’s book,
Jesus of Nazareth, says “A careful reading of this volume will be of
inestimable value to the student and show him the true meaning
and method of scholarly research.”10 To reinforce Hoenig’s statement
we have the praise of the Christian scholar and Harvard University
Professor of Theological ethics James Luther Adams: “For the Christian
scholar the book poses radical questions regarding the extremism,
the lopsidedness, the impracticality of Jesus’ ethics. The Christian
will not easily dispose of these questions, if he can do so at all.”11
So Klausner’s act of “comparative religion” opens up a number
of possibilities for how we should understand the historical emer-
gence of Christianity from Judaism, and therefore their inter-connection
8
Klausner, From Jesus to Paul, pp. 486–95.
9
10
Susan B. Hoenig, Preface to Klausner’s Jesus of Nazareth, p. lx.
11
Hoenig, Preface to Klausner’s Jesus of Nazareth, p. ii.
as religions. But we should caution that possibilities are usually fraught

with perils. So it should not surprise us when Hoenig speaks of
Klausner’s “deep nationalism and chauvinism and also his defense
of Judaism.” Hoenig’s accurate observation raises the question as to
whether or not Klausner’s comparative study or any act of “compa-
rative religion” can be carried out without exposing the biases of
the comparativist.
Certainly Klausner did not hide his biases. He approached the
figure of Jesus as a historian of the Jewish and Christian background
of the first century. But what results from his research is strikingly
defensive: trumpeting the realism of Judaism and deploring the oth-
erworldliness of Christianity; disparaging the spiritualism of Jesus’
ethic; writing-off Paul’s mystical vision of Jesus Christ to Hellenistic-
pagan influences. In argument and tone Klausner’s books on Jesus
and Paul give the impression that their author does not regard the
birth of Christianity from Judaism as a legitimate birth. Rather,
under Klausner’s analysis, what seems to emerge from Jesus’ min-
istry, life, and death was not a new authentic religion, but an aborted
form of an old religion.
What is sorely lacking in this analysis is precisely what is needed
in any constructive, fair-minded act of “comparative religion,” an
appreciation of the novelty and mystery and authenticity of the new.
For religion (in my view) is a spiritual energy, which respects no
bounds, limits, definitions, (liken religion to fire) an energy or wind
which “blows where it lists.”
Since Judaism generated Christianity, the energy for the new was
always present in the old. What brought the new into being was the
wholly unpredictable presence of personalities, ideas, and circum-
stances. Knowing this we must teach ourselves to practice the method-
ological art of epoche (as Joachim Wach called it), that suspension of
judgment and bracketing of experience that makes it possible to
examine Judaism and Christianity as historically connected but essen-
tially different bodies of religious experience. If there is one thing
that mars Klausner’s otherwise brilliant analysis of the connections
between Judaism and Christianity, it is the absence in his analysis
of epoche.
CHAPTER TEN
INTERPRETING GLOSSOLALIA AND

THE COMPARISON OF COMPARISONS
Introduction
Perhaps no member of the academy has in recent years provoked

more critical reflection on the comparative enterprise than Jonathan
Z. Smith.1 In comments specifically devoted to pedagogy, Smith
reminds us that students need to be exposed to comparisons; “noth-
ing must stand alone, . . . comparison opens up space for criticism.
Each item in an introductory course should have a conversation part-
ner, so that each may have, or be made to have, an argument with
another in order that students may negotiate difference, evaluate,
compare, and make judgments.”2 Smith refers here, of course, to the
common exercise of comparing different objects labeled religious to
each other with respect to a specified third element. In the follow-
ing essay I intend to extend Smith’s model in two ways. With respect
to pedagogy, I suggest that exposing students to the enterprise of
comparing comparisons might serve as an important step in their
introduction to comparison in the study of religions. To reach this
goal, I shall describe contemporary conservative Christian scholar-
ship on glossolalia as a specific example of comparison, and describe
it against the backdrop of Smith’s well-known critique of compari-
son in the service of the quest of Christian origins, Drudgery Divine.3
I am convinced that we can use such examples comparatively to
meet Smith’s pedagogical goal, not just in terms of comparing religious
objects, but as a means of critiquing the act of comparison itself.
With respect to theory, my goal will be to use this contemporary
1
For a recent critical analysis of Smith’s views on comparison see, e.g., Urban,
“Making a Place to Take a Stand, pp. 339–78.
2
Smith’s emphasis in “Introducing Durkheim,” in Teaching Durkheim, p. 6.
3
I shall also refer regularly to the following: “In Comparison a Magic Dwells,”
“What a Difference a Difference Makes.”
example to extend Smith’s comparative structure in a specific direc-

tion. Considered in terms of group-formation and self-definitional
processes, its comparative structure reveals this type of comparison’s
function as a reciprocally apologetic and polemical group-defining
strategy, dependent upon the similarity and continuity of the objects
compared (here specific related groups) to achieve its intended effect.
In terms of the intersection of theory and pedagogy in this exercise,
I shall propose that the structural relationship between the comparanda
and the referenda found in our present example defines what I shall
call an apologetic comparison. Such a comparison is characterized
by the inclusion of four comparative elements rather than three, as
in Smith’s model.4 We shall see that this type of comparison functions
within the process of group self-definition, and is dependent on the
proximity of the group making the comparison to the group(s) from
which it intends to distinguish itself. This proximity, in turn, grounds
a presumption of shared values from which the referenda (always sup-
plied by the comparing agent) draw the degree of plausibility needed
to make the comparison effective. As theory touches pedagogy, com-
paring comparisons allows students to recognize the structure of an
apologetic comparison and its function among groups struggling
through the process of determining group boundaries. Ideally, students
will not only “negotiate difference, evaluate, compare, and make
judgments” with respect to religious objects, but also reflect critically
on the politics of comparison itself. They will see first hand that the
structure of a comparison, and the terms in which it is cast, often
reflect the prejudice or hostility of the one making the comparison.
Such an act of comparison functions as an exercise of power over
others. In the end, through comparative comparison we may learn
as much, if not more, about the relationship between the objects
compared as we learn about the objects themselves.
4
I choose this descriptor recognizing that this type of comparison serves both
offensive and defensive purposes; it levels both accusations and denials through the
juxtapositions employed. To my knowledge there is no accepted technical termi-
nology for the structural elements in a comparison. For the sake of convenience I
shall tentatively suggest the following shorthand: a comparandum is the object being
compared to a referendum (that “with respect to which” the comparison is carried
out). The structural extension I shall propose for the apologetic comparison requires
two comparanda and two referenda. The two elements in each pair of comparanda and
referenda are valued oppositely, one positively and one negatively. In the case of the
comparanda, the comparing agent (or group) is always the positive member of the pair.
interpreting glossolalia and comparison of comparisons 183
Comparison as an Instrument of Power
We begin with our promised backdrop. Smith sets the stage for his
critique by taking the reader into the private correspondence between
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, two men who after decades of
animosity managed in their final years to reconnect over a range of
subjects. Especially prominent among these topics was their shared
concern for the corruption of the true religion of Jesus by Trinitarian
Christianity. Jefferson and Adams were both admirers of Joseph
Priestley’s critical analysis of the Platonisms that had been allowed to
infest the pure and simple faith of Jesus by his later philosophically-
minded and power-hungry devotees.5
Smith’s narrative tells us how Jefferson argued that the real teach-
ings of Jesus were too plain to require a priesthood to interpret them.
So, those desirous of acquiring priestly power created an artificial
system, fabricated from the stuff of Greek mysteries and the incom-
prehensible doctrines of Plato and his disciples.6 As Smith shows, the
strategy used by Priestley and his admirers for dealing with this cor-
ruption was a specific kind of comparison. This comparative struc-
ture was inherited from the Reformers,7 and was an extension of
their apologetic and polemical comparison of Reforming Christianity
and Roman Catholicism, carried out with respect to a third element
presumably held in high esteem by both communities, i.e., “origi-
nal” or New Testament Christianity.8 The referenda and the values
5
According to Jefferson, Jesus himself was intent only on reforming Judaism in
harmony with “reason, justice, and philanthropy,” Smith, 1990, p. 4. The Platonic
intrusions toward which Jefferson directed his contempt included the incarnation,
the immaculate conception, Jesus’ divine nature, the role of the Christ-Logos in
creation, Jesus’ miracles, his resurrection and ascension, his subsequent presence in
the eucharistic host, the Trinity, the doctrines of original sin, of vicarious atone-
ment, of regeneration, of elections, and of hierarchical orders. All these were the
later inventions of a developing Christian priesthood that stood in stark contrast to
the simple faith of Jesus. But the most “pernicious” of all these imposed Platonisms
was the doctrine of the Trinity; see Smith, 1990, pp. 4–7 for more on Jefferson’s
distinction between Jesus’ religion and Trinitarian orthodoxy.
6
Smith, Drudgery Divine, pp. 8–9. For Priestley’s intellectual lineage, see: Schofield,
The Enlightenment of Joseph Priestley.
7
Smith, Drudgery Divine, p. 13.
8
The tertium comparationis, or third factor, links or serves as the common ground
between the two elements in the comparison, a referendum presumed to be of value
to both those who initiated the comparison (Deists like Priestley, Jefferson, and
Adams) and those against whom the comparison is targeted (orthodox Trinitarians,
both Catholics and Protestants).
attributed to them were reflections of the comparing agents’ sense

of what should constitute a foundational tradition shared by both
comparanda. The Deists’ adaptation of the comparison was constructed
to denigrate traditional orthodoxy in both its Catholic and Protestant
forms as fundamental disloyalty to Jesus, the heart of the tradition
they both claim most to cherish.
Of course, all three elements in the comparison were constructed,
or re-imagined, by those who were making the comparison. The
comparing agents thus established the terms in which not only the
hostile comparison would be cast, but also necessarily, as we shall
see, the terms in which the proximate other was compelled to respond.
In particular, the Reformers’ descriptions of Roman Catholicism were
constructed in such a way that they provided categories well-adapted
both to the description of ancient paganism, as well as, by extension,
to an inclusive comparison between the former and the latter. In the
case of the Deists, the negatively valued referendum continued to include
pagan cult, but went further to include certain schools of Greco-
Roman philosophy.9 Extending Smith’s model, I would suggest that
the apologetic function of this type of comparison necessarily required
the introduction of a second referendum, to which was attributed a
negative value that could plausibly be assumed for both the comparing
community and the community compared. Having constructed their
instruments of measure in this way, the Reformers were able to carry
out a two-part comparison; both the Protestants and the Roman
Catholics could now be compared to positively-valued, original
Christianity and also to negatively-valued Greco-Roman paganism.
As employed by the Reformers this comparison so constructed was
guaranteed to reciprocally demonstrate the dissimilarity of the Roman
Church to the New Testament church and conversely the former’s
similarity to ritualistic paganism. On the other hand, the Reformers who
made the comparison could show their form of Christianity to be
thoroughly consistent with the charisma of Jesus’ church and totally
alien to all things pagan. It is important to note that while the com-
9
Obviously, despite a difficult struggle, Roman Catholicism was able to find a
level of compatibility with a great part of Greek philosophy, e.g., see on the difficulty
of incorporating the full Aristotelian corpus into the curriculum at Paris between
1120 and 1277, Thorndike, University Records and Life in the Middle Ages, esp. pp.
26–28; Luscombe, The School of Abelard, esp. pp. 105–10 on the condemnation of
Abelard; Van Steenberghen, Aristotle in the West; Kretzmann, “The Culmination of
the Old Logic of Peter Abelard,” pp. 488–511.
paring agent (in this case Reformed Christianity) is also being com-
pared, this part of the comparative equation is often carried out
implicitly.
Despite their proximity and continuity, it goes without saying that
the comparing agent presumes that the two primary elements, or
comparanda, are fundamentally different and that this difference is a
matter of value. This value judgment is determined by comparison
with the referenda.10 For a developing sectarian group, this means that
it must show itself to exhibit a higher degree of continuity with what
it describes as the true, the authoritative, or the original impulse
than the parent group, whose relationship with that heritage has
been corrupted. In summary, the keys to the successful application
of this type of comparative enterprise are: first, the plausible assump-
tion (the plausibility of which is grounded in proximity) that both
the comparing agent and the compared “other” share the values
attributed to the referenda; second, the appropriate correlation of the
respective descriptions of each of the comparanda by the comparing
agent. This four-part, complimentary structure is not only evident
in Smith’s example, but also in the example I will discuss below.
On the basis of what follows, I shall suggest that the introduction
(explicitly or implied) of the fourth element, a second comparandum,
deserves further inquiry to determine whether it may be character-
istic, perhaps even definitive, of comparisons intentionally constructed
to serve an apologetic function in group formation. Given the ultimate
two-part goal of the comparison, the Reformers’ reconstruction of
idealized, pristine Christianity bore an uncanny resemblance to then
coalescing Protestantism on behalf of which they had taken up the
self-definitional comparative task.11 Reformed Christianity was like
10
To be sure, that these valuations are, in fact, shared by both of the two com-
munities represented by the primary elements in the comparison is, of course, the
presupposition of the comparativist, but if the intended outcomes (both apologetic
and polemic) are to be achieved there must be a minimum level of credibility to
the suggestion that these values are common. In other words, it must be at a basic
level true that Roman Catholics, just as their Protestant counterparts, would reject
being likened to pagans, and believe the age of the apostles to be paradigmatic.
11
As Smith himself points out, the very act of comparing Roman Catholicism
positively, or inclusively, to the negatively-valued Greco-Roman cults implied a cor-
responding discontinuity, or exclusive comparison, with the ideally-valued image of
pure nascent Christianity—the Christianity that the Reformers claimed to recon-
struct from the pages of the New Testament alone. For the use of the categories
“inclusive” and “exclusive” to describe types of comparisons, see the essay by Blasi
in the present volume. Both types are used positively and negatively. The proximate
New Testament Christianity and, correspondingly, like New Testament

Christianity was unlike all things pagan.12 Moreover, as Smith shows,
the ultimate goal of the comparisons used by the Reformers and
their scholarly descendents was to portray Christianity as unique and
independent—but for the legacy of the Hebrew Bible, which was
rather, as the apostle tried to prove, Christian prophecy and not
Jewish scripture.13
The fundamental constant throughout the process remains the fact
that each element in the comparison is an imaginative construction,
perhaps fantasy, of the comparing agent. The familiar, in this case
the religious community of the comparing Reformers or later Priestley’s,
Jefferson’s, and Adams’ Deism, served as the model for the projected
ideal for the purpose of the comparison. However, this self-projec-
tion guaranteed that the positively-valued referendum can never be
more accurately described than the apologist’s description of the com-
munity he represented. What is deemed not to fit the idealized ver-
sion of Christianity was attributed to paganism.14 With this, Smith
brings us back to what is for him a familiar theme, the politics of
comparison. To suggest that the “proximate other” has borrowed
ideas or practices from a negatively-constructed/negatively-valued
other (his single referendum in the comparison), enables the compar-
ing agent to devalue the closely-related and therefore disturbing other
by equating it with what is presumed to be negatively-valued by
both of them.15 In Smith’s example the Reformers presumed, as did
other from which the comparing community wishes to distinguish itself is included
in a negatively-valued category, and excluded from a positively-valued category,
while the comparing community is conversely excluded from a negatively-valued
category and included in a positively-valued category.
12
To flip the coin, insofar as it was similar to New Testament Christianity,
Protestantism was equidistant from paganism and therefore the Roman church.
13
Of course, this presumption is for Jefferson and his colleagues rooted in the
work of the Reformers. See on Luther, Oswald Bayer, “Luther as an Interpreter
of Holy Scripture,” trans. Mark Mattes in Donald K. McKim, ed., The Cambridge
Companion to Martin Luther (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press,
2003), pp. 73–85; Friedrich Beisser, “Luthers Schriftverstandnis,” in Peter Manns,
ed., Martin Luther: Reformator und Vater im Glauben, Veroffentlichungen des Institut für
europaischen Geschichte, Mainz 18 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1985), pp.
25–37. On Calvin’s appreciation of the Old Testament, see, David L. Puckett, John
Calvin’s Exegesis of the Old Testament, Columbia Series in Reformed Theology (Louisville,
Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995).
14
Smith, Drudgery Divine, p. 17.
15
See Smith, “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” pp. 5, 45–48, echoing
an idea and terminology expressed earlier by Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict,
p. 70.
the deistic “Christ-devotees” Priestley, Jefferson, and Adams, that all

Christians, even pseudo-Christians like the Roman Catholics, detested
paganism. Without this assumption the comparison fails its purpose.
But Jefferson and the Deists can go even further. The compara-
tive structure had evolved since the Reformation, and with the reli-
gion of Nature and Reason in hand, the idealized original Christianity
became the pure natural religion of Jesus in opposition to all super-
naturalism. With his accusation of borrowing by the dastardly Christian
Platonists (read early Roman Catholic priests) who inserted esoteric
absurdities into their construction of Christian orthodoxy (Trinitarian
Christianity), Jefferson was able to devalue not only Roman Catholicism
but all supernatural religion, including traditional Protestantism, by
equating Christian orthodoxy with paganism, the truly “other” in
contrast to his and Jesus’ simple faith and natural religion.16 This
type of comparison is not then an innocent pursuit, but the task of
heavily invested parties with apologetic, polemical, and propagan-
distic aims.17 Moreover, Smith argues, the model of comparative
apologetic strategy used by the Reformers has been applied essen-
tially unchanged to the present by biblical scholars generally,18 and
16
Smith, Drudgery Divine, pp. 17, 19–23. Jefferson’s disdain for Plato, according
to Sanford, Thomas Jefferson and His Library, p. 125, cannot be interpreted as a rejec-
tion of Greek philosophy or the Classics. In fact, the opposite is true; Jefferson had
original language copies of writers such as Aeschines, Appian, Aristotle, Augustine,
Boethius, Cato, Cicero, Clement of Alexandria, Dio Cassius, Diogenes Laertius,
Epictetus, Eusebius, Felix Minucius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Herodotus, Hierocles,
Ignatius, Julius Caesar, Justin Martyr, Marcus Aurelius, Maximus of Tyre, Origen,
Philo, Philostratus, Plato, Plutarch, Seneca, Tacitus, Tertullian, Theophrastus,
Thucydides, and, Xenophon (Thomas Jefferson, pp. 119, 134). Jefferson’s library cat-
alogue lists 300 titles of Greek and Latin authors, Peden, “Some Notes Concerning
Thomas Jefferson’s Libraries,” 270–71; also Chinard, The Literary Bible of Thomas
Jefferson, pp. 5–18. Enlightenment thinkers generally held the classical tradition in
high regard, and Jefferson was no exception, Gay, The Enlightenment, pp. 31–32.
Jefferson recommended reading classical authors in the original languages for stu-
dents of the University of Virginia, Jefferson, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 16:124. As
for Adams, his appreciation for the classical historians and philosophers is obvious
from his study of the “science of government.” As a Harvard graduate, he too read
these writers in Greek and Latin, see Thompson, John Adams, pp. 41–43; 136–47;
229–34; Ostrander, Republic of Letters, pp. 10–20.
17
Smith, Drudgery Divine, pp. 36–37. See, e.g., Sharpe, Comparative Religion, pp.
256–66, who distinguishes three types of goals behind academic comparison in reli-
gion: Christian apologetic, philosophical (a perennial philosophy showing the unity
of all religions), and anthropological-ethnological (to show the differences and sim-
ilarities of disparate cultures). Yet the distinctions are not solid because an apolo-
getic concern can appear in the guise of the other two types.
18
As we said, the referenda are always the creation of the apologist. It is rarely
the case that the targeted group would agree without qualification to the value
especially by conservatives, to continue to preserve the uniqueness

of Christianity against proposed explanatory parallels drawn from
both Greco-Roman religions and Judaism.19
In broader terms, according to Smith’s view, the larger program
of the Reformers was simply to negate their own distasteful present
(the state of the Roman Catholic church and what they saw as its
corrupt and corrupting dominance over society) by means of a quest
for origins that would show how this corruption had brought soci-
ety and contemporary religion to its present debilitated state.20
Essentially, what he describes is comparison used in the service of
apologetic history, i.e., the usurpation of the past as preserved in the
dominant history in order to confront and overcome the present, a
strategy familiar in Late Antiquity and especially well exemplified by
Jewish apologetic historians.21
assigned to each of the referenda used in the comparison, e.g., Roman Catholics have
never agreed with the Protestant or Deist presumption that institutional structure,
authority, and order negate charisma. Nevertheless, as we have suggested, while the
referenda are imposed on the comparison by the apologist, the values ascribed to
them must have some plausibility to be effective. This is confirmed by Roman
Catholic responses to Protestant and Deist inclusive comparisons of such aspects of
Roman Catholicism as its ecclesiastical structure, its reverence for the saints, its
sacramental rites, or its priesthood to pagan cult precedents, e.g., the reaction to
Sohm’s Kirchenrecht, which elevated Reformation Protestantism by equating it with
the initially pure spiritual impulse of the earliest church, in contrast to Roman
Catholicism, whose organization and worship life Sohm inclusively compared with
either Greco-Roman paganism or Judaism. The fourfold comparative structure is
found here: on the other side of the equation, Sohm compared Protestantism exclu-
sively to the despised forms of paganism and Judaism, and compared Roman
Catholicism exclusively to the true spirit of earliest Christianity. On the controversy,
see James Tunstead Burtchaell, From Synagogue to Church: Public Services and Offices in
the Earliest Christian Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp.
87–135.
19
Smith, Drudgery Divine, p. 34. Smith gives examples of twentieth-century cri-
tiques by Protestant authors of Roman Catholicism that are cast as historical com-
parisons and do just what he had described previously, Drudgery Divine, pp. 44–45.
20
Smith, Drudgery Divine, pp. 13–14.
21
See Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem, pp. 29–63. Having outlined the illicit
nature of the Christian apologists’ transfer from the ontological model (the claim
for the ontological uniqueness of Jesus and Christianity) to the historical claim for
the unique status of Christianity in contrast to all other religions, Smith goes on
to argue that the same structural arrangement is used to define primitive or Pauline
Christianity as unique against all other manifestations of Christianity. This is what
he calls the “Protestant historiographic myth: a ‘uniquely’ pristine ‘original’ Christianity
which suffered later corruptions,” Drudgery Divine, p. 43.
Conservative Christians and the

Challenge of the “Tongue-speaking Other”
Against the background of Smith’s treatment of comparison in

Christian scholarship, I want to set my promised example of com-
parison, the context for which is the ongoing battle between equally
conservative Christian commentators over the validity of glossolalia
in contemporary Christianity. The focus on primarily conservative
forms of Christianity is based on at least two fundamental assumptions:
1) all conservative Christians, without respect to their views on glos-
solalia, believe that the biblical text is the “Word of God,” and that
it therefore should serve a normative function both in the corporate
structure and worship of the church and in the individual lives of
its members; 2) all conservative Christians believe that New Testament
glossolalia was a miraculous and therefore unique spiritual endow-
ment given directly by God to the early Christian community.22
These two observations circumscribe a number of different denom-
inations and quasi-denominational associations, which constitute to
one another proximate others. This shall become evident in due
course both by what is admittedly shared and what is vehemently
resisted by the groups represented in the selected examples to fol-
low.23 With respect to group formation and self-definition, we shall
see in what follows that the expansion of Pentecostalism beyond the
boundaries of traditional Pentecostal denominations has become a
tremendous challenge to the self-definition of many of the non-
Pentecostal denominations into which Pentecostal experience has
made inroads, especially to the most conservative of these.
A review of recent publications shows that Pentecostal writers can
structure comparisons that, on the one hand, describe modern glos-
solalia as identical to the manifestations of human and heavenly
“tongues” described in the Pauline letters and the Acts of the Apostles,
22
Smith, “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” p. 46: To speak of absolute
uniqueness is to deny the possibility of speaking of something at all, which is exactly
what conservative Christians want to deny, i.e., the possibility of comparison with
what is not biblical. As Smith points out, this view is found in Otto’s project of
defining the essence of religion.
23
For the purposes of the classroom, I have included in the following survey a
number of exemplary sources available on-line; students can easily access a range
of examples of pro- and anti-“tongues” websites that clearly apply the comparative
structure described here.
while on the other hand, claiming both ancient and modern tongues-
speaking to be totally incomparable to any non-Christian phenomena
touted as analgous by social scientists, and “explained” by social sci-
ence theories of one sort or another.24 On the first point, a simple
visit to the official website of any Pentecostal denomination provides
confirmation. For example, the Assemblies of God website provides
a summary of this equation:
All believers are entitled to and should ardently expect and earnestly
seek the promise of the Father, the baptism in the Holy Ghost and
fire, according to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ. This was
the normal experience of all in the early Christian Church. With it
comes the enduement of power for life and service, the bestowment of
the gifts and their uses in the work of the ministry . . . The baptism
of believers in the Holy Ghost is witnessed by the initial physical sign
of speaking with other tongues as the Spirit of God gives them utterance.25
These selections make clear, through the citation of multiple New
Testament passages without the need for explanatory commentary,
the Assemblies of God position that the New Testament is not only
the normative source of authority, but that what it describes in the
days of the first Christians is yet available to the contemporary
believer.26 That the modern believer is to “expect and earnestly seek”
this phenomenon implies that neglecting to do so is to refuse to fol-
low the paradigmatic New Testament example or God’s will as
expressed therein. Again, to quote from the same website:
A comparison of the Book of Acts with what is happening in the mod-
ern outpouring of the Spirit reveals striking similarities in pattern and
purpose. The impact of the early church, newly equipped by the power
of the Holy Spirit, changed the world of that day. Similar changes are
being made in human lives today through Spirit-filled servants of God.
Christ is preached. Sinners are saved. The sick are healed. The kingdom
24
Kelsey, Speaking with Tongues; Horton, The Glossolalia Phenomenon; MacDonald,
Glossolalia; Barnett and McGregor, Speaking in Tongues.
25
See ag.org/top/beliefs/truths.crm#7 and #8.
26
In the section entitled “Questions about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit,” the
Church assures the visitor to the site that “[t]here is no indication in Scripture that
tongues would cease at the end of the first century. Tongues are to be a part of
the life of the church in every generation until Christ returns to set up His perfect
kingdom. Paul’s perception was that spiritual gifts would be operational until that
day (1 Corinthians 1:7, 8),” see the page address, ag.org/top/beliefs/baptism_hs/
baptmhs_12_tonguescease.cfm.
of God is greatly increased. We can say, with Peter, “This is what

was spoken by the prophet Joel,” though we have not yet seen the full
extent of the spiritual awakening for which we are praying.27
The idea that comparison is absolutely necessary is explicit here. The
Church grounds the legitimacy of the present experience of its mem-
bers in the identity it constructs, on the basis of the New Testament
accounts, between the contemporary experience and the archetype, a
comparison designed to establish equivalence or inclusion in a category.
As we might expect, non-Pentecostal conservative Christians share
many of the same presuppositions: namely, the notion that the New
Testament is the normative authority in its literal sense; that New
Testament phenomena are supernatural and therefore unique; that
consequently, New Testament phenomena cannot be understood or
explained by comparison with any cross-cultural, non-Christian phe-
nomena. Yet, despite their theological proximity, non-Pentecostal
Christian writers routinely compare modern Christian glossolalia
inclusively to contemporary non-Christian, cross-cultural phenomena
in order to discredit contemporary glossolalia and the Pentecostal/
Charismatic communities that practice it. Although both communi-
ties employ the same inclusive form of comparison, the non-Pentecostals’
application must be distinguished by its intent to devalue the com-
parandum (Pentecostal Christians) by including it in the same cate-
gory as the referendum negatively-valued by both communities. The
converse, “exclusive” comparison is always implicit, i.e., that modern
Pentecostal glossolalia is not inclusively comparable to the referendum
positively-valued by both Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal conserva-
tives. This comparative structure enables the comparing agents through
inclusion and exclusion to distinguish their community from their
proximate other—to simultaneously show what the other is (= the
negative referendum) and is not (= the positive referendum) in compar-
ison with their own group. Moreover, because these critics, like their
Pentecostal kin, believe in the fundamental inerrancy of the Bible,
they cannot be content with the equation of contemporary tongues-
speaking with non-Christian ecstatic behaviors. They must at the same
time declare the absolute uniqueness of the biblical miracle of tongues
with as much fervor as do the Pentecostals whom they criticize.
27
See: ag.org/top/beliefs/baptism_hs/baptmhs_14_biblicaltoday.cfm.
The intimate and hostile relations between Pentecostals and non-

Pentecostal Fundamentalists are aptly described by Russell Spittler:
Pentecostals and fundamentalists . . . are arch enemies when it comes
to such matters as speaking in tongues and the legitimacy of expecting
physical healing in today’s world. But their approaches to the Bible,
precritical and uncomplicated, are virtually identical. If the word funda-
mentalism gets defined only by biblical style, Pentecostals can be labeled
fundamentalists without question. What divides the two movements,
however, outweighs their similarities—at least in the eyes of each other.28
Both non-Pentecostal conservative Christians and Pentecostals reject
much of the contemporary scholarship on glossolalia. This is simply
because this growing consensus assumes that New Testament glos-
solalia is related to religious ecstasy in general and to behaviors not
only cross-culturally familiar to Late Antiquity, but also, in much
the same way, to contemporary communities.29 In other words, critical
scholars assume that we have analogies for Christian behavior, both
ancient and modern, a clear threat to Christian uniqueness on this
point. The common scholarly descriptions of the phenomena man-
ifested in the Corinthian correspondence of the apostle Paul focus
on the unintelligibility of glossolalia—it must be interpreted for both
the speaker and the auditors—and refer to it as a form of religious
ecstasy, a category easily applied cross-culturally.30 For example, we
note Conzelmann’s suggestion:
If we would explain it [glossolalia], then we must set out from com-
parable material in the history of religion, above all from the Greek
motif of the inspiring [ pneuma], which is expressed especially in Mantic
sources, and is bound up more particularly with Delphi. The deity
speaks out of the inspired man’s mouth; he himself does not know
what he is saying.31
28
Spittler, “Are Pentecostals and Charismatics Fundamentalists,” p. 106.
29
Cartledge, “The Nature and Function of New Testament Glossolalia,” 141,
e.g., Behm, “gl«ssa, •terÒglvssow,” 1:719–27, especially pp. 722–25.
30
E.g., Behm, “gl«ssa, •terÒglvssow,” 1:22–725. For Pattison, tongues is a part
of a broader syndrome of trance states; the way in which it is interpreted is culturally
determined. It is not caused by the supernatural, but it is often spiritually meaningful,
“Behavioral Science Research,” pp. 75–85; also see Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, pp.
232–39; Forbes, “Early Christian Inspired Speech,” pp. 257–70. A different route
is taken by Barrett, who simply refuses to explain the phenomenon, the First Epistle
to the Corinthians, pp. 286, 299–300, 316, 326–28.
31
Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, 234; Beardsworth, A Sense of Presence, p. 103. Of
course, not all critical scholars are so confident of the Greco-Roman parallels, see:
Wedderburn, Baptism and Resurrection.
As Conzelmann’s view shows, historical-critical scholars of Early

Christianity are informed by the social sciences. Similarly, the general
anthropological view holds that glossolalia is a language-like patterning
of syllables, not language, and that it is related to the more general
phenomena of religious ecstasy and altered states of consciousness.32
Again, touching on pedagogy, students can be introduced to such
critical analyses as a part of the process of comparing comparisons.
Of course, all such critical, cross-cultural explanations are utterly
rejected by conservative Christian scholars, both Pentecostal and non-
Pentecostal, because they deny the uniqueness and thereby the super-
natural origins of New Testament glossolalia.33 Such an explanation
would demand, in their view, the assumption that Paul must have
been swept up by cultural conventions into attributing divine power
to behaviors common to a variety of other religions, in particular
Greek oracular cults.34 For example, Reverend Mark Harding, Dean
of the Anglican Australian College of Theology, writing in the Grace
Theological Journal, cites the arguments for a connection between pagan
practice and the Corinthian experience, but denies that what the
Greek priestesses were doing at Delphi, for example, was analogous
to what was happening among Paul’s converts in Corinth.35 Some
conservative scholars have chosen to protect New Testament glossolalia
from comparison with any other phenomenon by denying that what
the Early Christian texts preserve is actually what it at first sight
appears to be. Frederick F. Bruce, for instance, has argued with
32
May, “A Survey of Glossolalia,” pp. 75–96; Pattison, “Behavioral Science
Research,” pp. 75–85; Goodman, Speaking in Tongues, still the seminal investigation;
Williams, “Glossolalia in the New Testament,” pp. 25–45. According to Mills, no
examples of an unlearned utterance of a known language, xenoglossia, have been
documented, Mills, “Glossolalia as a Sociopsychological Experience,” p. 428; cf. also
pp. 431–32.
33
E.g., the transparently apologetic examination by Forbes, Prophecy and Inspired
Speech, which throughout disallows any comparison between the New Testament
phenomena and non-Christian or even Jewish parallels on often the most tenden-
tious of criteria.
34
There are those who defend the “non-ecstatic” nature of tongues-speaking, esp.
as this is manifested in contemporary charismatic worship, see Massyngberde Ford,
“Towards a Theology of Speaking in Tongues,” pp. 3–29.
35
Volume 10 (1989): 203–23, especially pp. 219–20, citing Forbes, “Christian
Inspired Speech,” cited above, n. 10. That Grace Theological Journal is commonly rec-
ognized as a conservative journal is clear from the fact that the widely-advertised
Theological Journal Library (CD Rom) includes Grace Theological Journal among its col-
lection of the “best conservative, scholarly, evangelical journals,” (as described in
advertising copy at www.discountchristian.com).
reference to the miracle of tongues on the day of Pentecost in Acts

2:1–13 that what Luke recorded was the manifestation of the ability
vouchsafed to Jesus’ disciples by divine inspiration to transcend the
limits of their crude Galilean dialect. This creative argument elimi-
nates the ecstatic altogether while preserving the miraculous char-
acter of the event. It effectively insulates the Christian miracle from
comparison with non-Christian parallels.36 Less obviously, however,
and perhaps unintentionally, Bruce’s argument also serves another
function; it excludes the appropriation of this New Testament pas-
sage as a paradigm for Pentecostalism.
Despite agreement between Pentecostals and non-Pentecostal Con-
servatives and Fundamentalists on the miraculous nature of the New
Testament phenomena, the level of criticism targeted at Pentecostal
and Charismatic Christianity by conservative and fundamentalist
denominations has been truly intense, and has largely appeared as
a reaction to the inroads made into these established communions
by glossolalia and other characteristically Pentecostal phenomena.
Early formal condemnation of Pentecostalism by self-described
Fundamentalists came in the 1928 resolution by the World’s Christian
Fundamentals Association,37 which described “Modern Pentecostalism”
as a “menace in many churches and a real injury to the sane tes-
timony of Fundamentalist Christians.”38 In 1975 the Southern Baptist
Convention voted down a proposed resolution that sought to expel
congregations that accepted the charismatic movement. Nevertheless,
local associations were not prevented from doing so, and did so, e.g.,
a 1975 resolution of the Dallas Baptist Association excluded repre-
sentatives from two churches that “have openly practiced the pre-
sent-day phenomena of glossolalia and public faith-healing services
in which people are declared healed.”39
36
Acts of the Apostles, p. 83. Other attempts to alleviate problems have included
symbolic interpretation of the Lukan account, e.g., Beare, “Speaking with Tongues,”
pp. 229–46.
37
See Lienesch, Redeeming America.
38
“Report of the Tenth Annual Convention of the World’s Christian Fundamentals
Association” (1928): 9, cited by Spittler, “Are Pentecostals . . . Fundamentalists,”
p. 109; see Trollinger, God’s Empire. For more recent examples of this critique, see:
Bradfield, Neo-Pentecostalism, especially pp. 16–19; for the fundamentalist response in
general, Cox, Fire From Heaven, pp. 73–78, 151; Percy, “The City on a Beach”, pp.
205–28, esp. 206. Note the similarities and differences in the history of reception
of Pentecostal experiences among American and Southern Baptists, Schenkel, “New
Wine and Baptist Wineskins, pp. 152–67.
39
See McDonnell, ed., Presence, Power, Praise, 2:114–16.
For non-Pentecostal critics of Pentecostalism, the comparison usu-

ally begins with an admission that the Bible does describe a real
Pentecostal miracle. For example, a recently established, “Evangelical”
web-based, publishing ministry (www.bible.org) published a text-book
example of this kind of critique. The author, Dr. Lehman Strauss,
a career Baptist minister and former faculty member of the Philadelphia
Bible Institute, begins by admitting to the reality that, “[a]ll Bible-
believing Christians who study the Word of God are in agreement
that the gift of tongues is present in the inspired Scriptures.”40 Here
we have the positive referendum in the comparison, the idealization of
the New Testament as normative paradigm. Strauss assumes it for
all self-proclaimed “Bible-believing” Christians, among whom he must
also count Pentecostals if his comparative purpose is to succeed. Both
groups must be shown to share the same values for the respective
referenda. In this case, he would not have difficulty in documenting
a similar claim regarding the absolute inerrancy and normative author-
ity of the scriptures by Pentecostals. On this issue we can again
return to the Assemblies of God website, where we find the follow-
ing statement: “[t]he Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments,
are verbally inspired of God and are the revelation of God to man,
the infallible, authoritative rule of faith and conduct.” Strauss cer-
tainly agrees with this statement.41 The force of this appeal to a
shared value is the implication that the comparandum (Pentecostal
Christianity) is in violation of its own stated values by adopting a
behavior in the present that the New Testament restricted to the
first generation of the church.
However, the contrast begins with Strauss’ description of the phe-
nomenon of glossolalia itself. The gift of tongues found in the Acts
of the Apostles and in Paul’s first letter to Corinth was a miracu-
lous gift of actual (i.e., known or knowable) human languages; it was
not unintelligible babbling, even if the speakers could not understand
what they were uttering.42 This comment accomplishes two things:
40
“Speaking in Tongues,” available at www.bible.org/docs/theology/pneuma/
tongues.htm.
41
See ag.org/top/beliefs/truths.cfm#1, and the link labeled, “The Bible—The
Word of God.” The Assemblies of God offer a specific resource from this web page,
Bridges, ed. The Bible: The Word of God, containing essays by six contributors, all
leaders in the Assemblies of God, which clarifies the denomination’s deep com-
mitment to biblical inerrancy.
42
“The supernatural phenomenon which took place at Pentecost was the exer-
cise of a gift whereby many people from many countries, gathered at Jerusalem,
heard God’s message in their own language. This was indeed a miracle of God.”
first, it refutes any type of critical explanation in terms of compar-

ison with non-Christian, cross-cultural parallels; second, it sets up
the functional criterion to be used to distinguish the New Testament
example from the contemporary Pentecostal phenomenon. That func-
tion was, according to Strauss, the communication of the gospel; that
function was neither the edification of the believer, which he describes
as selfish, nor the edification of the church, since without interpretation
no one understood it. More importantly, however, Strauss argues that
the role of glossolalia was transitional; tongues were only to function
until the completion of the written New Testament. At the end of
the age of the apostles, with the final revelation of God in written
form, the function of the confirming sign of miraculous tongues to
communicate the gospel ended, never to be restored. Strauss writes:
The gift was used only in the transitional period between Law and
Grace. The sign gifts continued through the period of the Apostles
while the New Testament was in the process of being written . . . It
was not merely a communicating sign but a confirmatory sign as well. When
the Apostles used the gift of tongues it was because they did not have
what you and I have today, the completed Word of God, God’s full
and final revelation to man. In the days of the Apostles, the New
Testament being yet unwritten, the Holy Spirit supported their mes-
sage by accompanying it with signs. But after those holy and inspired
men completed writing the New Testament, such confirmations were
no longer necessary (author’s emphases).
Again, the contrast then between the New Testament paradigm and
contemporary Pentecostalism consists, most importantly, in the fail-
ure of the modern Pentecostal to conform to the biblical model as
defined by Strauss.43 That biblical model is his own and his specific
Baptist community’s construction, as his tendentious exegesis shows.44
43
This criticism remains essentially the same even where the author is otherwise
much more sympathetic to the goal of spiritual renewal represented by Pentecostalism,
e.g., Lederle, “Be Filled with the Spirit of Love,” pp. 33–48, for whom renewal
can occur, but the phenomena associated with Pentecostalism cannot be equated
with the events in Acts, “the historic, unrepeatable experience of the outpouring of
the Holy Spirit” (p. 40).
44
Notice his interpretation of 1 Cor 13:10, “But when that which is perfect is
come, then that which is in part shall be done away” (KJV). He explains that
“[t]he word perfect is in the neuter gender, and therefore refers to the perfect (finished
or completed) Word of God. If the word perfect referred to Christ it would be in
the masculine gender (author’s emphases).” Strauss has, of course, conveniently failed
to acknowledge the obvious fact, based on Paul’s usual practice, that the under-
It follows from this that the modern Pentecostal conception of the

function of the gift as personally edifying is ultimately selfish. However,
the most important discontinuity is that the contemporary phenom-
enon is not language in any discernible sense. It is here that Strauss
assumes implicitly one of the negative referendum in the comparison,
namely human experience. With respect to the valuation of indi-
vidual experience, the view that Pentecostals are distinguished from
their fundamentalist counterparts by their focus on experience has
become almost stereotypical. We note Russell P. Spittler’s admit-
tedly, dangerously-close-to-simplistic characterization:
In contrast to fundamentalists and neo-orthodox Christians, Pentecostalism
profoundly distrusted the intellectual enterprise . . . Fundamentalists and
neo-orthodox Christians mount arguments, though the former does it
in terms of creeds, the latter in terms of paradox. Pentecostals give
testimonies. The one goes for theological precision, the other for expe-
riential joy. There is a profound difference between the cognitive fun-
damentalist and the experiential Pentecostal.45
Human experience is then unreliable in Strauss’ view.46 All human
experience, even if it seems to contribute to one’s spiritual life, must
conform to the biblical paradigm or be judged invalid and aban-
doned.47 Again, we allow Strauss to explain:
I know of no textual license that will warrant changing the meaning
of the word. All the usages of tongues in Paul’s treatment of the sub-
ject refer to foreign languages . . . Someone will argue: “I have had the
experience of speaking in tongues; I find this experience in the New
stood appositive in this case would have to be the masculine word lÒgow (logos), the
“word” in Paul’s phrase “word of God” (see: 1 Cor 14:36, also Rom 9:6; 2 Cor
2:17; 4:2; Phil 1:14; 1 Thess 2:13).
45
Spittler, “Are Pentecostals and Charismatics Fundamentalists?,” p. 108.
46
For another example of this type of critical rhetoric from a fundamentalist, see
MacArthur’s critique, Charismatic Chaos, the title of the first chapter of which asks,
“Is Experience a Valid Test of Truth?” His answer is predictably negative; expe-
rience must be subjected for evaluation to the scriptures (MacArthur, of course,
conveniently dispenses with any serious engagement with the fact that the voice of
the scriptures can never really be more than the voice of the interpreting subject’s
hermeneutical tradition, and in that sense the resulting interpretation can only have
a relative degree of validity, if any at all).
47
Even those who have had positive encounters with the Charismatic movement,
may still express reservations concerning the degree to which Pentecostal assump-
tions about the significance of personal experience relate to the normative author-
ity of the scripture, e.g., Culpepper, Evaluating the Charismatic Movement.
Testament; therefore my experience is true.” Any trained Christian

philosopher will tell you that such an argument is not valid because
it makes experience the basis of truth, . . . True Christian philosophy
moves from truth to experience, therefore any valid Christian experience
must be determined by the right interpretation of Holy Scripture.
Experience, which is related to our emotions, can be deceptive, but a
correct interpretation of God’s Word can never deceive.
Here we see that Strauss first implicitly discredits contemporary Pente-
costal glossolalia on linguistic grounds by alluding to the common
Pentecostal claim that the gift of tongues can be angelic language
of a sort incomparable to human language. From Strauss’ perspec-
tive it is therefore incapable of functioning as the New Testament
gift functioned, i.e., to communicate the gospel to others.48 His sec-
ond critical point, the devaluation of experience, challenges Pentecostals
to conform to that which both they and Strauss value, the model
of scripture (the positive referendum).49
Yet, Strauss may also allude to more than this. Both critical asser-
tions in this quotation can also be read in terms of the modern social-
science critique of religious ecstasy and glossolalia. In this case, Strauss
may well be aware of and assume, though he does not say so expressly,
modern cross-cultural comparisons of contemporary Pentecostal behav-
iors. His rhetoric certainly gives us cause to suspect as much. We
shall see in due course that others who share Strauss’ critique make
explicit reference to social-scientific analyses of glossolalia for the pur-
pose of an inclusive comparison with Pentecostalism. This recalls
Smith’s model; to suggest that the proximate other has borrowed
ideas or practices from a negatively-constructed and negatively-val-
ued other, allows the comparativist (in this case Strauss) to devalue
the proximate other by equating the other with what is assumed by
the comparativist to be negatively-valued by both related groups. Similar
critiques of Pentecostalism and its related form, Neo-Pentecostalsim
48
Davies, “Pentecost and Glossolalia,” pp. 228–321. That glossolalia in the New
Testament was the miraculous gift of actual human languages is a view that occurs
very early in the history of the critique of Pentecostalism, e.g., Carver, The Acts of
the Apostles, p. 16. For Carver, Pentecost was a “one-time” event.
49
We should note a compromise position that is often found among critics who
recognize the incompatibility between the glossolalia described in Acts 2 and that
found in 1 Corinthians which describes the Pentecost event as a “one-time” mira-
cle, but the Corinthian glossolalia as selfishly-motivated and problematic ecstatic
utterances to which modern Pentecostal and Charismatic glossolalia may well be
likened, see Ashcraft, “Speaking in Tongues, pp. 60–84.
(Charismatic Christianity), are available in hundreds of other popu-

lar, web-based examples. I shall here only provide a representation
of those that, like Strauss, share, by their own admission or as implied
in the nature of their comparative argument, a belief in the nor-
mative authority of the biblical text.
Pastor Lev Humphries of the Faith Independent Baptist Church
of Niceville, Florida has published his teaching on glossolalia on the
Internet at www.holybiblesays.org. His points echo the same critical
comparisons found in Strauss; Pentecostals subordinate the clear state-
ments of scripture to their personal experience. This makes their
claim to biblical fundamentalism hollow. Humphries’ congregation
is fundamental, independent, and teaches only from the King James
Bible. For Humphries the tongues-speaking in the New Testament
was a miracle, but in his view Pentecostal/Charismatic experience
cannot be biblical because it is identical to non-Christian examples
of tongues-speaking all over the world. Humphries rhetorically asks,
“[w]ould God give the same experience to both the saved and the
unsaved?” The comparative structure should by now be familiar to
us; Humphries has devalued his proximate other by first exclusively
(= negatively) comparing Pentecostals with the New Testament par-
adigm, and secondly by positively (= inclusively) comparing their
practice to a mutually detested “other,” i.e., non-Christian ecstatic
phenomena.
Steve Harmon, Th.D., 1995, Christian Bible College of Rocky Mt.,
North Carolina, pastor of the Maineville Baptist Church of Maineville,
Ohio, describes his church on its website (www.biblebelievers.com)
as “fundamental” and “independent.” He too has published his views
on glossolalia on the internet and echoes the same type of compar-
ative critiques we have been describing. Although he is careful not
to name his proximate other explicitly, his published teaching leaves
no doubt that it is directed against the influence of Pentecostal/
Charismatic Christians. Persons who seek the gift of tongues, accord-
ing to Harmon, are selfish because the practice edifies the individ-
ual and not the community; the New Testament paradigm is read
to demand unselfish, corporate edification. As we have seen Harmon,
like Strauss and Humphries, strikes at the motives of contemporary
glossolalists. He too negatively compares tongues-speakers to the pos-
itively-valued referendum; New Testament tongues were human lan-
guages that could be interpreted and therefore not the non-linguistic
gibberish of present-day Pentecostals/Charismatics.
He goes on to offer additional New Testament examples to illus-

trate the degree to which contemporary tongues-speakers fail to con-
form to the biblical model, e.g., women Pentecostals speak in tongues
in public worship, but 1 Cor 14:34–35, he writes, admonishes the
church, “[l]et your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not
permitted unto them to speak” (KJV). Harmon also uses the argu-
ment that the New Testament itself describes the temporary, prac-
tical function of tongues. Echoing Strauss’ interpretation, the scripture,
for Harmon, promised that tongues as a spiritual gift would cease
with the completion of the New Testament canon. Having laid out
an impressive list of “commandments” regulating the use of tongues,
in contrast to the others we have mentioned, Harmon does allow,
at least theoretically, that if a congregation observes all these previ-
ously spelled out commandments relative to glossolalia, tongues may
be practiced. But he has already, in the list of commandments, ruled
out major characteristics of Pentecostal practice, effectively leaving
no room for the phenomena in the contemporary church.
To cite an example not affiliated with some form of Baptist theo-
logical perspective, an organization called the “Apologetics Press,”
located at www.apolgeticspress.org, has published on-line articles
repudiating contemporary glossolalia. To take just one, Dave Miller,
a Church of Christ minister,50 echoes Strauss’ admonition that “[i]t
is absolutely imperative that we examine Scripture—not our feelings,
not what someone else says happened to them, and not our own
experience. The only sure and certain approach is to ask: What does
the Bible teach?” Obviously, Miller agrees with Strauss that con-
temporary Christian glossolalists fail this test. They elevate their per-
sonal experiences above the written text of the Bible. Moreover, he
goes on to say, present-day tongues advocates misunderstand the
rationale of the New Testament miracles. Again, like Strauss, the
supernatural events recorded in the Gospels, in Acts, and in Paul’s
letters were vouchsafed by God “to authenticate the oral/spoken
word as God’s Word . . . once God revealed the entirety of the infor-
mation that He wished to make available to mankind (later con-
tained in what we call the New Testament), the need for miraculous
confirmation of the oral Word came to an end . . . [the] . . . miracu-
lous, would cease and be done away [sic] when the ‘perfect’ had
50
Miller holds a Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University in Speech Communication,
but lists no credentials or academic training in biblical studies.
come.” Interestingly, Miller uses the same grammatically erroneous

argument his Baptist sympathizer used that Paul’s reference to the
coming of the “the perfect” (tÒ t°leion, 1 Cor 13:10) was a refer-
ence to the completed New Testament.51 Miller also introduces the
stereotypical haughtiness commonly claimed by critics as character-
istic of tongues-speaking Christians, i.e., Pentecostals act superior to
other Christians because they possess a gift others should desire. This
recapitulates the motif mentioned earlier of the inappropriate moti-
vation for seeking and exhibiting the phenomenon of glossolalia;
according to the critics, the haughtiness of the Pentecostal violates
the model of humility and self-abasement promoted in the New
Testament.52
Most importantly for Miller, as for Strauss, the Pentecostal/Charis-
matic practice fails to conform to the actual miracle recorded in the
New Testament; it does not conform to the positively-valued paradigm
supposedly shared by both groups. According to Miller
tongue-speaking [in the New Testament] entailed no more than the
ability to speak a foreign human language (which the speaker had not
studied) to people from a variety of geographical locales . . . The unbiased
Bible student must conclude that what is described in detail in Acts 2
is the same phenomenon alluded to in 1 Corinthians 14. All tongue-
speaking in the Bible consisted of known human languages (ideally
known to the very audience being addressed) that were unknown (i.e.,
unstudied, unlearned) by the one who was speaking the language.
With this move, as we have seen, the negative/exclusive comparison
between contemporary phenomena and the sacred model devalues
the “other” by denying the other’s claim to the mutually revered
paradigm. Pentecostals/Charismatics do not measure up to this
model because they are not speaking known human languages but
51
See above n. 44. Of course, Paul is using the neuter form of the adjective
here as a substantive. As we said above, it cannot then stand in apposition to ı
lÒgow toË YeoË, “the word of God.” Paul does use a neuter noun (grãmma) in his
references to the scriptures (at least the Pentateuch, Roman 7:6, possibly also 2:27,29;
2 Cor 3:6–7). However, Paul’s most important references to the scriptures use the
noun grafÆ, a feminine noun (Rom 4:3; 9:17; 10:11; 11:2; Gal 3:8,22; 4:30), some-
times in the plural (Rom 1:2;15:4;16:26; 1 Cor 15:3–4), which would demand the
form ≤ tele¤a [= grafÆ] in 1 Cor 13:10, not the neuter that the apostle used.
Therefore, the theory that Paul is referring to the coming of the fixed New Testament
canon founders on grammatical grounds, and reveals the author’s determinative
bias in the construction and application of the comparison.
52
So Strauss, regarding the selfish motivations of Pentecostals, above p. 204.
inarticulate gibberish in the midst of common religious ecstasy.

“[T]here is simply no such thing as an ‘ecstatic utterance’ in the
New Testament,” writes Miller. With this stark and absolute con-
clusion Miller has, of course, shielded the miraculous phenomena of
the New Testament from comparison, denying that it is compara-
ble to religious ecstasy as a general category, and in particular com-
parable to non-Christian contemporary glossolalia. Note his unequivocal
summation, “[t]he claim by many today to be able to speak in
tongues [what modern Pentecostals do] is simply out of harmony
with New Testament teaching . . . [it] is precisely the same phe-
nomenon that pagan religions have practiced through the centuries.”
Lest we think that this type of apologetic comparison is limited
to independent or popular sources, the same patterns can be found
in a range of scholarly theological journals. For example, Klemet
Preus,53 writing in the Concordia Theological Quarterly, echoes Strauss’
sentiments; Pentecostals do not conform to the scriptural canon,
because “[e]xperience has told them what God’s Word has not.”54
Preus explicitly introduces the negative referendum we should expect,
i.e., cross-cultural, social-scientific comparisons with non-Christian
phenomena. Both Preus and his Pentecostal/Charismatic targets eval-
uate such parallels negatively, but the comparing agent always uses
this shared valuation to discredit the targeted comparandum, the prox-
imate other. Preus praises critical scientific investigators for taking
aim at Pentecostal phenomena and casting “significant doubts on the
supernatural nature of present-day tongues.”55 The strategy is clear,
the proximate other, present-day Pentecostals and Charismatics, are
not doing what they claim to be doing, speaking miraculously languages
53
In 1975, Preus, then President of Concordia Theological Seminary, Lutheran
Church-Missouri Synod, USA, led a movement to end the dissension being caused
in Missouri Synod congregations by placement of clergy who had become involved
in the Charismatic movment. Preus issued a policy statement that essentially banned
from ordination any seminarian who admitted to accepting charismatic claims about
the baptism of the Holy Spirit and glossolalia, for the text see: McDonnell, ed.,
Presence, Power, Praise, 2:16–22.
54
“Tongues,” pp. 277–293, quotation, 277. Klemet Preus is presently Pastor of
the Glory of Christ Lutheran Church, Plymouth, MN, whose website declares its
endorsement of biblical inerrancy, www.gloryofchristlutheran.org, “[t]he Bible is the
inspired Word of God. The Bible is free from all error and contradiction in all
that it says.” Concordia Theological Quarterly is a publication of the faculty of Concordia
Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The Seminary is affiliated with the
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
55
Tongues, p. 277.
they did not learn, including non-human, angelic languages. Rather,

they are doing nothing dissimilar from what scientists have documented
and explained in other communities. In other words, Preus launches
a two-pronged attack that conforms to our structural diagram;
Pentecostals, despite their protests to the contrary, are not like the
paradigmatic New Testament community, but like non-Christian
others. As expected, Preus makes a point of the fact that Pentecostals
claim to believe in the inerrant Scripture, just as he does; this assump-
tion constitutes the basis for the comparison’s necessary degree of
plausibility.56 The other must be shown to admit the absolute value
of that with which the other is ultimately contrasted. Just as Strauss
had argued, the real problem for Preus is that Pentecostals and
Charismatics have substituted an illegitimate source of authority (i.e.,
experience) for the authority of the Bible, something he believes is
sufficiently clear from the fact that they actually reject, in favor of
appeals to experience, the corrective exegetical arguments he offers,
and that they have the audacity to suggest that only a person who
has experienced tongues can possibly understand their validity.57
Preus carefully reinforces the validity of the paradigm by insisting
that the glossolalia found in the New Testament cannot be compared
to common ecstatic phenomena; it is not babbling, but a miracle
given to the apostolic generation.58 Again, both he and his Pentecostal
counterparts share this evaluation of the biblical evidence. However,
Preus will use that evaluation as a means by which to distinguish
conformance with the Bible, his own and his community’s, from the
incomprehensible non-language spoken by Pentecostals and Charis-
matics. Preus can make the claim that what present-day glossolalists
are doing is not at all compatible with the biblical paradigm because
he has no problem subjecting the behavior of his proximate other
to comparative scientific scrutiny. He writes:
Since the Pentecostal experience of tongues is more important than
the texts of the Scripture to the charismatic, no amount of Biblical
evidence is likely to shake the Neo-Pentecostal’s confidence in his expe-
rience. Knowing this, many scholars have attempted to evaluate tongues
56
In fact, Preus argues that Pentecostals deny the very authority of the para-
digmatic New Testament by their practice of glossolalia (“Tongues,” p. 278, n. 5.
57
Preus, “Tongues,” pp. 278–79. Preus actually goes further than Strauss, citing
published examples of Pentecostal appeals to experience to back up his claim.
58
Preus, “Tongues,” p. 278, n. 6.
from a different perspective. Their studies have shown that the tongues
phenomena can be explained on psychological, sociological, physio-
logical and linguistic ground alone.59
Tongues, according to the scientist, says Preus, is a factor of altered
mental states.60 Preus explicitly cites cross-cultural, anthropological
studies, quoting, e.g., Felicitas Goodman’s work in support of the
claim that the tongues speaker is in a dissociative state of mind, in a
“hyper-aroused trance.”61 Preus goes on to add a range of sources, each
describing the natural origin of glossolalia in some kind of altered
mental state, an abnormal and potentially destructive condition.62
In the midst of his social-science guided dismantling of contem-
porary glossolalia, Preus makes an interesting and clever rhetorical
move. To quote him again:
In defense of the psychologists cited, I should point out that all but
one (Felicitas Goodman) confess to be Christian, some of them (Oates,
Cutten) with reputable theological credentials. These people have no
“axe to grind” with religion in general or even with Christianity.63
The cleverness of Preus’ caveat lies in the fact that while his state-
ment is true with respect to religion in general and perhaps Christianity
in general, it is not true with respect to Pentecostalism in particular.
Preus and his Christian sources are denominationally invested in
communities struggling with and opposing the inroads of Pentecostalism.
He and those he cites emphatically do appear to “have an axe to
grind” where Pentecostalism is concerned. These writers are all con-
veniently selective in their handling of the evidence; biblical tongues
were a miraculous gift from God to the apostolic church, while con-
temporary tongues, practiced by those who are “not-us,” are not
59
Preus, “Tongues,” p. 280.
60
Here Preus cites other non-Pentecostal writers, such as Wayne E. Oates,
Christian psychologist, who co-edited along with Frank Stagg and E. Glenn Hinson,
the collection of essays, Glossolalia: Tongue Speaking in Biblical, Historical, and Psychological
Perspective (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1967). Oates, Stagg, and Hinson were all fac-
ulty members of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. It
is important to note that Preus follows their lead in using social-scientific criticism
to draw the negative comparison between contemporary glossolalia and abnormal
or non-Christian phenomena, thereby devaluing any claim for a unique, supernat-
ural origin for the contemporary experience.
61
Preus, “Tongues,” p. 280, citing Speaking in Tongues (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1972), pp. 59–60.
62
Preus, “Tongues,” pp. 280–81.
63
valid because they cannot be equated with the biblical model that
Preus and his allies uphold and which they have defined according
to their own interpretive criteria.64
Like Strauss, Preus offers an explanation of why so many Christians
seek the experience of glossolalia. He cites some of the same authors
he had already cited in support of several causes, e.g., the natural
craving for release from tension, similar to a sexual orgasm or the
relief one gets from the cessation of stomach cramps. He cites some
who account for tongues as a way to reassure persons plagued by
guilt that God has counted them acceptable (reminiscent of the
Jamesian “sick soul” scenario). Preus cites his sources to say that in
the overwhelming number of cases investigated, a crisis of some mag-
nitude preceded the individual’s glossolalic experience.65 Of course,
the last observation would also seem to include in this category the
fearful disciples of Jesus huddling together in the upper room trying
to make sense of the loss of their master prior to their experience of
glossolalia, if it were not for the fact that their experience was
recorded in the paradigmatic, therefore inerrant, text of the Acts of
the Apostles. Even so, the implication for Preus is clear; contempo-
rary glossolalia can be explained in rational, bio-psychological terms
and is therefore neither supernatural nor unique. Consequently, it
fails comparison with the absolutely valued scriptural examples and
cannot be judged a valid expression of Christian experience.
Next, Preus argues that present-day tongues speakers are not man-
ifesting a divine gift simply because glossolalia is learned behavior.66
His sources provide evidence that tongues-speakers simply follow the
leader; the leader sets the pattern for the glossolalia exhibited by the
followers.67 Preus derives the context of this learned behavior from
Goodman’s cross-cultural studies, linking the prerequisite to the induc-
ing stimuli of “rhythmic music, hand-clapping, loud persistent prayers
in a strongly accented pattern, loud incessant glossolalia which is
rhythmic and patterned, and persistent shouted directions to the
64
Of course, none of the commentators cited in this regard have conducted crit-
ical and repeatable clinical research on the subject nor have any experienced glos-
solalia for themselves, citing Kildahl, Psychology of Speaking in Tongues; Oates,
“Socio-Psychological Study,” pp. 76–99; Bergsma, Speaking with Tongues; Cutten,
Speaking With Tongues; Samarin, Tongues of Men and Angels; Smith, Tongues in Biblical
Perspective.
65
66
67
suppliant.”68 What Preus has done is to describe Goodman’s evidence

in such a way that it essentially constitutes the stereotypical description
of a Pentecostal worship service. The negatively-valued, cross-cultural
examples are equated by the comparativist with the important char-
acteristics of the targeted “other.” This is precisely the same move
Smith described in the construction of the comparative categories
employed by the Reformers in their critique of Roman Catholicism.69
Reciprocally, just as the cross-cultural evidence can be explained nat-
urally, so Preus proclaims, “no miraculous explanation of contemporary
glossolalia is necessary.”70
Finally, Preus, like Strauss, contrasts Pentecostal glossolalia with
the New Testament paradigm because it is not linguistic, but non-
language. Preus cites the submission of recorded glossolalia to lin-
guists who could not identify the utterances with any known language.71
Again, like Strauss, Preus implies, by means of his source’s analysis,
that speakers-in-tongues are like children, not mature Christians.72
The attribution of childlike immaturity to Pentecostals is followed by
an extension of that lack of concern for intelligibility to theology;
according to their critics, Pentecostals are no more concerned with
“meaningful theological expression” than they are with meaningful
linguistic communication.73
To seal his comparison by reaffirming the absolutely idealized ele-
ment in his comparison, Preus writes:
The findings of modern psychology, sociology, and linguistics cannot
be applied to the tongues of which Scripture speaks. The Biblical
68
Here Preus is referring to Goodman’s notion of “driving” by the tongues-
speaking group leader who tries to establish the conditions under which individu-
als can successfully experience glossolalia (Preus, “Tongues,” p. 284, citing Goodman,
Speaking in Tongues, p. 79). Preus also includes hyperventilation as one of the pre-
ferred strategies for inducing glossolalia.
69
See above, pp. 189–195.
70
71
72
Preus, “Tongues,” p. 287. He has already cited Oates’s crudely condescend-
ing essay, “A Social-Psychological Study of Glossolalia” (see above n. 60), in which
tongues-speakers are equated with children, speaking the “cradle speech” of infants;
as children’s language begins with “ego-centric” babbling (here Oates relies on
Piaget), so, by implication, Pentecostal tongues-speakers pratice a self-centered form
of infantile gratification, 84–90; cf. also Mills, “Glossolalia as a Sociopsychological
Experience,” pp. 430–32.
73
Here we recall the quotation from Spittler given above on p. 204.
accounts are beyond linguistic investigation since no speech in these

tongues was recorded, although three thousand witnesses understood
them on one occasion (Acts 2) and Paul expects a translation in another
situation (1 Corinthians 14). Psychologically, it would be inaccurate to
say that the apostles were in an altered mental state. Peter himself dis-
counts drunkenness, and nothing in any of the relevant episodes indi-
cates anything psychologically abnormal. Sociologically, at least in the
book of Acts, the tongues of which Scripture speaks have none of the
elements which modern tongues do.74
This passage, of course, provides what our model suggests we should
expect. Preus has described the paradigm, the positively-valued ref-
erendum, in terms that clearly set it apart as unique. The New Testament
experiences are incomparable in modern social-scientific terms, and
consequently, they are not similar to the modern Pentecostal evidence
(the comparandum) which is entirely explicable by scientific comparison.
Mark J. Cartledge offers us an only more sophisticated, scholarly
example of the apologetic comparison we have described.75 By insist-
ing that the New Testament phenomena is not ecstatic in the sense
that the term is used to categorize both contemporary cross-cultural
and ancient Mediterranean examples he protects the uniqueness of
the biblical phenomena. For example, he offers the methodological
warning that we must be careful to define precisely what we mean by
ecstatic before we use that category to describe the ancient evidence.
While we may describe modern phenomena with that term, pheno-
mena usually related to types of spirit possession, he warns that we
cannot simply read the category back into the ancient evidence. At
one level, of course, we might all agree; Cartledge’s warning seems
to presuppose that no scholar wants to be charged with unjustified
comparison. However, like those he cites, Cartledge seems all too
willing to sacrifice the principle of analogy on the altar of Christian
uniqueness, and thereby run the risk of destroying the possibility of
historical-critical reconstruction altogether.76 It is no coincidence then,
74
75
Cartledge, “New Testament Glossolalia,” pp. 135–50.
76
Cartledge, “New Testament Glossolalia,” p. 142, citing, e.g., Gundry, “ ‘Ecstatic
Utterance’,” 299–307. The unworkable methodological principle proposed by Cartledge
is common among conservative Christian apologists; the protection of the unique
origins of Christianity and its miraculous claims demands the abandonment of the
historical-critical principle of analogy in the study of Christianity, thus innoculating
the Christian phenomena against serious critical investigation.
that in the same moment he denies that New Testament tongues-

speaking was ecstatic he also implicitly performs an exclusive com-
parison between modern, ecstatic Pentecostal glossolalia and the
positively-valued referendum.77
Cartledge makes another complimentary set of comparisons. On the
one hand, Cartledge dismisses the common critical equation between
the Corinthian glossolalia and modern Pentecostal tongues-speaking
by grounding it in his preceding methodological warning about the use
of analogies. On the other hand, having ruled out such analogical
explanations, he implies an inclusive comparison between modern
Pentecostal tongues-speaking and unintelligible, cross-culturally doc-
umented ecstatic utterances. Finally, according to Cartledge, while
the New Testament phenomena is certainly not ecstatic, and therefore
not comparable to either the non-Christian or modern phenomena,
it is still a gift without an edifying purpose for the Church; its efficacy
is restricted to the private use of the individual and in that sense
alone is it comparable to the modern Pentecostal phenomena. Here,
Cartledge seems to echo earlier criticisms that glossolalists are self-
indulgent and their tongues-speaking serves no communally beneficial
purpose.78
In the end, Cartledge reflects the same basic comparative struc-
ture we have documented across a range of examples. Like Harding,
Cartledge also follows the exhaustive study of Christopher Forbes in
his critique.79 Forbes epitomizes and perhaps, with his often inex-
plicable rejection of analogies, caricatures the conservative defense
of the uniqueness of New Testament tongues-speaking.80 He does
not restrict analogies by using the specific broad-brush Cartledge
wields, but isolates the Christian phenomena by defining their char-
acter so precisely that there is, or can be, nothing similar in the
ancient world or for that matter in the modern world—including
77
Cartledge refers to Pentecostalism explicitly only in footnotes 74, 84 (65 implic-
itly), and always to add a corrective to the Pentecostal viewpoint. Cartledge seems,
in my view, to give away his theological hand when he writes at this point, “[t]he
idea that Paul could have lumped together xenolalia [the miraculous gift of the
ability to speak unlearned human languages] and the modern unintelligible phe-
nomenon of glossolalia is, of course, possible, but it is beyond any kind of empir-
ical investigation and therefore must remain speculative” (see p. 149).
78
Cartledge, “New Testament Glossolalia,” pp. 143–44.
79
See above, n. 31.
80
I shall here repeat at many points the critique of Forbes so ably presented in
Martin, “Tongues of Angels”, pp. 547–89.
modern Pentecostal glossolalia. Forbes writes, “Neither in the Hellenistic

nor the Jewish background have we found sufficient evidence to over-
throw the case that early Christians almost uniformly believed glos-
solalia to be the power to speak in otherwise unlearned human
languages.”81 This statement sounds a tone very reminiscent of that
we have presented from less sophisticated conservative and funda-
mentalist critiques of Pentecostalism. We could have predicted as
much on the basis of our proposed model of the apologetic comparison.
The New Testament ideal was a unique, once-for-all-time miracle
of xenolalia, and not some ecstatic pseudo-linguistic utterance of
unintelligible syllables—precisely the explanation of modern glosso-
lalia offered by many contemporary social-scientists.
I must note, finally, that Luke Timothy Johnson has recently
described the running battle over tongues in terms very similar to
those used in this essay. His comments are more clearly directed to
the debated issues. For example, while leaving open the question of
the ultimate, or transcendent, origin of the New Testament pheno-
mena, Johnson takes a critical position on the historicity of the Acts
account as a miraculous endowment of the ability to speak human
languages never learned because he believes that Luke has created
the form of this narrative to fit his own purposes, and that the writer
apparently knows nothing of the Pauline form of glossolalia.82 Johnson,
agrees with the majority of anthropological analyses that glossolalia
is not language but a language-like patterning of syllables. Paul’s
tongues were not communicative unless interpreted (1 Cor 14:2–5,9–11,
13,26b–28); they were easily mistaken by the uninformed as mania,
or prophetic madness related to the possession of the individual by
a communicating deity.83 According to Paul, in contrast to human
speech, tongues are uttered “in the Spirit” (1 Cor 14:2), and unlike
81
Forbes, Prophecy and Inspired Speech, p. 228.
82
Johnson, “Glossolalia,” 116–17. Johnson removes Luke’s account on historical
grounds arguing that it narrates a hearing miracle, not a speaking one, thus demon-
strating that Luke has no awareness of the type of experience occurring in the
Pauline churches, p. 117.
83
1 Cor 14:23, cf. 12:2; ma¤nomai can refer to both negative states of rage, or
being carried away with anger, e.g., Euripides, Bacchae 359, and to positive states
of possession by a deity, Herodotus 4.79; Euripides, Bacchae 298–301; Plato, Phaedrus,
259a. Johnson, “Glossolalia,” p. 119 sees Greek mantic prophecy as a parallel to
the Christian evidence, this form of prophecy was “. . . so complete a possession
(enthysiasmos) by the divine spirit ( pneuma) that the mind of the prophet (mantis) was
inoperative, and the oracles were literally spoken by the god.”
prophecy do not employ the mind (the noËw, 1 Cor 14:14). The
Corinthian tongues addressed God and per se edified only the speaker
(1 Cor 14:2,4,28), not the congregation. Therefore, they are prop-
erly of private provenance (cf. 1 Cor 14:18–19,28). All this, says
Johnson, is consistent with both the ancient and modern parallels.84
More importantly for our purposes, Johnson addresses the ques-
tion of what is at risk in the debate over glossolalia. In line with
our suggestion that the comparative enterprise is inherent in the self-
definitional process for competing Christian communities, Johnson
points out that the questions about the nature of glossolalia in the
New Testament and its relation to both modern parallels within
Christianity and those drawn from non-Christian sources are inti-
mately related to the issue of authenticity grounded in a perceived
continuity between modern and ancient Christians.85 The compar-
ing group constructs a comparison through which it can claim greater
continuity between itself and an ideal that should be determinative
for the group with which it is in competition and from which it
wishes to distinguish itself. Johnson also recognizes the necessary
counterpart to the positive comparison when he discusses the con-
troversy over the question of whether tongues is a uniform or plu-
riform set of phenomena. If either New Testament or modern
Pentecostal tongues-speaking can be classed without significant dis-
tinction, for example, in a general category of dissociative states, the
question is raised as to whether these types of equivalencies support
the likelihood that Christian glossolalia is unique or that contempo-
rary Christian practice is the same as ancient.86
Johnson also correctly notes that the contemporary, anti-Pentecostal
conservative must preserve ancient Christian experiential uniqueness
in order to leave room for divine intervention in the form of a mir-
acle of language, while simultaneously denying any parallel structures
or features equating the ancient, “true” Christian practice with what
modern Pentecostals are doing. The latter, on the one hand, can safely
be paralleled and explained in terms of all sorts of contemporary
cross-cultural explanations. On the other hand, the Pentecostal
response, which must necessarily respond in terms of the categories
used to construct the comparison, must insist on the continuity
84
Johnson, “Glossolalia,” p. 118, cf. pp. 120–21.
85
Johnson, “Glossolalia,” p. 114.
86
Johnson, “Glossolalia,” p. 115.
between Pentecostals’ personal experiences and what is documented

in the New Testament. At these points then, Johnson’s discussion
appears to confirm the structure of the basic polemic-apologetic com-
parison that we have here proposed.
Comparing Comparisons: Implications
This essay has not been concerned with how comparison might help
us interpret glossolalia. Instead, it has explored the way comparing
comparisons might complicate our view of the dynamics of group
self-definition as an integral part of group formation, and aid our
understanding of the relations between proximate groups that might
be revealed in the way they construct comparisons.87 I have tried to
illustrate how the comparative enterprise may be used for specific
and targeted polemic and apologetic. In these terms, the examples
of Strauss, Preus, Cartledge, and Forbes amply demonstrate how,
even when cloaked in scholarly robes, comparative studies that impose
the definitional criteria of one comparandum on the other easily serve
the “other-negating,” group self-defining purposes of competing prox-
imate communities.
By asking our students to compare comparisons they must deal
with Smith’s description of the comparative enterprise in terms of
investment and risk, i.e., politics.88 Difference becomes important to
the degree that the perceiver, the comparing agent, has something
at risk; specifically, the more distinctive of one’s self-definition a per-
ceived difference is, the greater the investment in emphasizing it. To
say “they are like that” is to place the first item in a position of
being determined by the second item—it is inherently hierarchical.89
If that second item is a negatively-valued referendum, the comparison,
87
We may take it for granted that prima facie it is extremely unlikely that any-
one, either modern or ancient (including the earliest Christians), has ever spoken
through a supernatural endowment a linguistically intelligible language they did not
already know. As a critical scholar of early Christianity, I must assume as altogether
likely that the phenomena preserved for us in the New Testament is a factor of psy-
chological and sociological forces, and is therefore comparable to empirical pheno-
mena categorized as religious ecstasy and spirit possession, see Lewis, Ecstatic Religion.
To do otherwise without extraordinary justification would be to abandon the prin-
ciple of analogy and along with it the possibility of historical-critical explanation.
88
Smith, “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” pp. 4, 47.
89
Smith, “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” pp. 9–10.
while certainly destructive, is simultaneously constitutive of the com-

paring community’s self-definition. Our example supports Smith’s
observation that the greater the degree of perceived sameness between
two proximate, competing groups the greater become the risks and
the sharper the differences.90 “Otherness” is, therefore, always a mat-
ter of degree, and political because that degree of difference is always
determined by the comparing agent.91
Our students will profit by realizing that “Otherness/Alienness” is
not ontological but political and rhetorical language functioning in
a competitive language game. The real problem arises when the
“other” claims to be us. In such cases the use of comparison is
intended to increase difference, not to remove it.92 This is abundantly
clear in the case represented by Strauss and Preus. Here we see two
communities, both laying claim, as the comparisons selected pre-
suppose, to the same positively-valued element, the shared body of
sacred scripture in which both groups ground their self-definition.93
This proximate otherness, by Smith’s reckoning, constitutes the most
volatile comparative context wherein the most is invested; our sur-
vey confirms that much. The purpose of such comparisons is deter-
mined by the needs of the comparativist; “[c]omparison provides the
means by which we ‘re-vision’ phenomena as our data in order to
solve our theoretical problems.”94 This exposes the source of the polit-
ical in comparison, and is something made visible to students clearly
when we compare comparisons. Having examined such targeted com-
parisons, students should, consequently, be able to distinguish theses
from the comparisons that foster our participation in the discourse
of difference for which Smith’s manifesto calls.95
It is appropriate here to add a final note that returns us to Smith’s
critique of comparison. Whatever else one might say about the book,
Smith leaves the reader of Drudgery Divine with no doubt that the
90
Smith, “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” pp. 4–10, 15.
91
Smith, “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” p. 15; what Smith has called
a “privileged comparison,” Drudgery Divine, p. 74.
92
Contrast Smith, “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” p. 41.
93
The positioning of the other, and especially in this case, where that position
is relative to a shared touchstone such as religious tradition, is in reality a self-
definition, Smith, “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” p. 47.
94
Smith, Drudgery Divine, p. 52, also p. 115 (Smith’s emphasis).
95
Smith, Drudgery Divine, pp. 42, 47, here citing To Take Place: Toward Theory in
Ritual, Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1987), p. 14.
kind of self-serving apologetic comparison carried out by the Reformers

and their heirs continues tragically to characterize much of the scholar-
ship touching on Christian origins.96 In this essay, we have taken
perhaps a microcosmic look at one of the sharper examples of the
dangers of such a comparative application, and, to be sure, an exam-
ple which runs the risk of appearing to some a tempest in a teapot.
Hoping to remedy such a reaction, I suggest in closing an example
for further critique of the use of comparison that touches a far larger
set of nerves in the history of scholarship, namely the question of
the relationship between Christianity and anti-Semitism.
While we can only set the stage for further investigation here, we
might open the curtain by recalling Rosemary Radford Ruether’s
now famous proposal that anti-Semitism/anti-Judiasm is inherent in
Christology. Her challenge provoked a swift and impassioned response
from a range of scholars, many of whom explicitly denied that their
theological responses were apologetically motivated.97 The intensity
of their response to Ruether was reflective of the level of risk her
proposal raised for traditional self-definitions of Christianity. Ruether
was essentially calling for the destruction of the orthodox markers
of Christian boundaries. Despite the criticism of Ruether, the apolo-
getic crisis for Christian orthodoxy continues to be profound. The
risk posed by the idea of an inherent connection between Christianity
and anti-Semitism/anti-Judaism is great, and the revulsion of con-
temporary Christian scholars of all camps at such a proposal is easy
96
Smith, Drudgery Divine, p. 143, his manifesto: “The history of the comparative
venture reviewed in these chapters has been the history of an enterpreise under-
taken in bad faith. The interests have rarely been cognitive, but rather almost always
apologetic. As such, no other purpose for comparison has been enterteined but that
of genealogy . . . the old Reformation myth, imagining a ‘pristine’ early Christianity
centred in Paul and subjected to later processes of ‘corruption,’ has governed all
the modulations we have reviewed. As in the archaic locative ideology, the centre
has been protected, the periphery seen as threatening, and relative difference per-
ceived as absolute ‘other.’ The centre, the fabled Pauline seizure by the ‘Christ-
event’ or some other construction of an originary moment, has been declared,
a priori, to be unique, to be sui generis, and hence, by definition, incomparable. The
periphery . . . is to be subjected to procedures of therapeutic comparison. This is
exorcism or purgation, not scholarship. The mythic model of radical conversion,
that of wholly putting off the ‘old man’ and wholly assuming the ‘new,’ has been
inapropriately projected into the historical realm.”
97
E.g., Gager, Reinventing Paul, p. 17; Davies takes issue with the notion of anti-
Judaism in the New Testament, esp. as formulated by Ruether, and immediately
links it to the question of the parting of the ways between Christianity and Judaism,
“Paul and the People of Israel,” pp. 19–20; Idinopulos and Ward, “Is Christology
Inherently Anti-Semitic?,” 193–214.
to understand. Nevertheless, the question that must be worked out

by scholars is the relationship between desired outcome and method-
ological soundness. The later does not, of course, necessarily negate
the former.
This controversy has found its most vigorous discussion in the
scholarship dealing with the so-called “parting of the ways” between
Judaism and Christianity.98 I would suggest that the widening dis-
cussion of the nature of the separation of Christianity from Judaism
provides a dynamic context in which our students might examine
the kinds of comparisons currently being used by scholars. In the
end, the evidence may well prove that anti-semitism/anti-Judaism
was not an essential or natural implication of Christian doctrine.
Whatever the case proves to be, the question that shadows the enter-
prise is whether through the application of the comparisons con-
structed in this specific context, methodological soundness has been
sacrificed to insure a desired outcome, namely, the protection of
Christianity from such a crippling accusation.99
Inclusive comparisons are routinely used by scholars of the “part-
ing of the ways” to break the putative connection between Christianity
and anti-semitism/anti-Judaism. For example, students might exam-
ine the implications of the comparison implied by Daniel Boyarin’s
analogy for the relationship between Christianity and Judaism as
“twins in a womb.”100 As Boyrain’s introduction continues we might
justifiably ask what implications follow from his use, as well as that
of those he criticizes, of the formula “parting of the ways.” What
values, either negative or positive, are encapsulated in the use of
such a phrase? Is the comparison of comparanda labeled “Christianity”
and “Judaism” affected by defining the “parting” under considera-
tion as singular or plural, relative or absolute? If, as Boyarin demands,
Jewish Christianity is a category that needs to be “pulled in from
the marginal cold, . . . as a third term,” in order to complicate sim-
plistic distinctions between Christianity and Judaism, to what shall
it refer? If, as for many scholars, it designates ethnic Jews who have
accepted Jesus as the messiah, in what sense can the category “Jewish
Christianity” be taken as comparable to the category “Gentile Christ-
98
E.g., Dunn, Partings of the Ways.
99
Stendahl, “Religion in the University,” pp. 521–528.
100
Boyarin, Dying for God, pp. 2–6.
ianity” which reduces the incredible ethnic diversity of the non-Jewish

Mediterranean to irrelevance?
The goal of blurring the commonly assumed distinctions between
Christianity and Judaism has led to the reduction of Christianity to
a singularity, using Christianity as an undifferentiated whole, and
usually in the form of an “official” or “orthodox” system, which can
safely be said to have become distinct only centuries after the time
of Jesus and his first followers. As a result, “early/earliest Christianity”
can be described, as a whole, as virtually indistinguishable from con-
temporary Judaism (by which is usually meant, Judaism as a spectrum
inclusive of all its possible manifestations). When the purpose is served
either Christianity or Judaism may be used as the generalization,
with the other presented in its accommodating diversity.
For example, James D. G. Dunn, arguably the most recognized
participant in the “parting of the ways” debate, provides an exam-
ple of the prevalence of such comparative strategies. Assuming the
“thoroughly Jewish character of Christianity’s beginnings,” he ques-
tions initially whether there are certain definitively Christian elements
that provoked, or at least marked, the break from Judaism, and then
continues by asking how early this break can be dated.101 Dunn
begins by describing certain fundamental ideas in Second-Temple
Judaism that constitute what he calls its “four pillars,” in order to
describe how Jesus, and his earliest followers, related to them, and
whether this relationship was so radical as to exclude them from
Judaism.102 Here Dunn exhibits the common tendency to reconstruct
the parting of the ways by first generalizing something resembling a
whole Judaism, a composite or spectrum consisting of all of its vari-
ations and possibilities, against which a particular, putative essence
of Christianity might then be compared. Perhaps somewhat cynically
considered, one might ask whether this is simply a clever interpre-
tive move facilitating the discovery of something within the whole
101
Dunn, Partings, pp. 1, 17.
102
Dunn, Partings, beginning at p. 18, Dunn calls these pillars “core Judaism,” a
“common heritage” behind the spectrum of various Judaisms,” cf. Sanders similar
construction, “common Judaism,” the body of belief shared by all self-confessed
Jews, Judaism, pp. 47, 256–57; more recently, “Common Judaism and the Synagogue
in the First Century,” in Fine, ed., Jews, Christians, and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue,
pp. 1–17. That we should presume such common ground is a not a methodolog-
ical concern for students of the New Testament alone, see, e.g., Yunis’s study, A
New Creed, especially pp. 38–58.
spectrum of Judaism analogous to the specific Christian essence (or

constructed singularity) in question, and thereby to establish another
line of continuity with some aspect of the multivalent spectrum of
Judaism. With each move of this sort, the boundaries between
Christianity and Judaism become fuzzier allowing Dunn to conclude
that, except for a very short list of anomalies, there is nothing in
the New Testament (i.e., paradigmatic Christianity) that falls outside
of Judaism.
Even with this cursory glance at but one of the principals in this
debate over the distinction between Christianity and Judaism, we
can see that this is certainly an arena in which deeply vested inter-
ests are engaged, and where the choice and description of comparanda
leave little doubt as to the powerfully political quality of the com-
parisons being employed. Again, Smith has something to say about
such generalizations; the terms, “Early Christianity, Jewish, Gentile,
Pagan, Greco-oriental” are generalizations that must be “deaggre-
gated” for the purposes of comparison. The consequent comparisons
must be carried out so that each component is compared with respect
to a broader category of scholarly construction and interest. Approach-
ing the phenomena this way, he argues, we may well find that differ-
ent kinds of Christianity are further apart from each other than they
are from forms of pagan cult or Judaism. “The presupposition of
‘holism’ is not ‘phenomenological,’ it is a major, conservative, theo-
retical presupposition which has done much mischief in the study of
religious materials, nowhere more so than in the question of Christian
‘origins.’ ”103
With that I suggest that the current “parting of the ways” discus-
sion of Christian origins become a focus for a critical investigation
of the comparative enterprise. By eliminating the differences, or
reducing them to insignificance, many of the scholars participating
in the debate defend biblical Christianity, the positively-valued com-
parandum in the comparison, from the accusation of anti-Judaism. By
inclusively comparing early Christianity with diverse elements within
the synthesized spectrum labeled Judaism, these scholars are able to
read anti-Judaism out of the New Testament documents. Given the
fact that New Testament Christianity serves, at least to some degree,
103
Smith, Drudgery Divine, pp. 116–18, the quotation is from p. 118 and is based
on Smith’s Map is Not Territory, pp. 253–54, citing Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia,
p. 274; cf. Drudgery Divine, pp. 52–53.
as the normative model for most contemporary Christians, apolo-

gists hope to eliminate any possible use of the tradition to justify
anti-Judaism.104
Of course, the broader remaining question is whether or not the
structure we have described here can serve our investigations of com-
parison in cultural contexts beyond that of post-Reformation Christ-
ianity. Although I cannot develop the demonstration here, I shall
offer a single example to suggest that the same comparative structure
just presented can be discerned in religious propaganda and apologetic
in non-Christian contexts, specifically in the ancient Greek sources.
In Euripides’ Bacchae, king Pentheus of Thebes engages in an exchange
with two old male devotees of the newly-arrived Dionysos that exhibits
reciprocal inclusive and exclusive comparisons. One of the sources
of the tension raised by the immigrant cult’s invasion of Thebes is
its proximity; Dionysos is at once alien and native.105 Pentheus deval-
ues the novel cult by an implicit exclusive comparison to the native
Theban cults, proclaiming that the cult of Dionysos has no history
and is disruptive, i.e., it compares unfavorably with the civic cults
in terms of the presumed shared referenda, antiquity and decorum.106
In other words, whereas the civic cults represent hoary tradition and
reinforce the traditional domestic roles of women, the maenadic rites
are called recent innovations, socially disruptive, and are allusively
likened to the immigrant ecstatic cults from beyond the borders of
Hellas, of which the playwright’s audience was so profoundly aware.
Euripides makes clear that the referenda are plausible by casting the
apologetic defense offered by the cult members in precisely the terms
laid down in Pentheus’ criticism.107 this certainly echoes the reciprocal
104
In the end, it seems that both Ruether and her critics recognize that the
problem with Christian anti-Judaism lies in the normative model. For Ruether the
model is flawed and therefore to be rejected, for her critics, the model is merely
misunderstood. The apologetic motivation behind the comparisons used to argue
the latter seems, at least at this preliminary stage of the critique, hard to miss. The
question in this case may be whether the end justifies the means, a question about
which students comparing comparisons need to make critical judgments.
105
Dionysos claims to be returning once again to the land of his birth, but he
comes fresh from his conquests in the mysterious lands of the east, ll. 1–2a; 13–20
(line numbers refer to the text presented in, Euripides’ Bacchae, 2nd ed., trans. and
ed. E. R. Dodds [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970]).
106
The king complains that he has returned home to find Theban wives caught
up in the sham ecstasies of a new-fangled claimant to divinity, ll. 215–25.
107
E.g., though Pentheus styles theirs a cultic novelty having no history, the two
old cultists counter that they are, in fact, following ancestral tradition, ll. 201–202a.
structural relationships of the comparisons used in our examples from

the conservative Christian discourse about glossolalia. In this context,
I can only hope to show with such intriguing hints that there is great
potential for further investigations of this comparative structure, and
to hope that, as I stated in the introduction, I have made my two basic
points sufficiently clear: first, with respect to pedagogy, that allowing
students to engage in comparative comparisons can fulfill Smith’s
goal of creating situations in which students must “negotiate difference,
evaluate, compare, and make judgments,”108 and second, with respect
to theory, to propose by the example of a specific modern conservative
Christian comparison a structural framework with which the proposed
comparing of comparisons might be profitably carried out. Ideally,
the profit derived from this suggested intersection of theory and ped-
agogy will be measured in the greater critical scrutiny with which
our students approach the comparative study of religion.
108
See, n. 2 above.
Part Three
POSTCOLONIALISM, POSTMODERNISM, MODERNISM

IN THE COMPARISON OF RELIGION
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ORIENTALISM AND THE COMPARISON OF RELIGIONS
Arvind Sharma
Comparative religion,1 or more accurately the comparative study of

religion,2 which commenced in the 1860’s,3 has enjoyed a chequered
career.4 Three broad stages can be identified in the intellectual
trajectory it has followed since its inception, each of which may be
conveniently designated by a word beginning with M: Material,
Method and Motive as its outstanding concern during a particular
stage.5 Its original focus was on material, when the data about the
religious life of humanity came to be collected and collated. Such
collection pertained to both the literate and the non-literate dimen-
sions of religion. Work along the first route involved the identification
and publication, often with a translation in a European language, of
the various scriptures of the so-called world religions, of which seven
were identified early on; namely, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
(the three religions of the West); Hinduism and Buddhism (two reli-
gions from India); and Confucianism and Taoism (two religions from
China). The scriptures of the non-Western religions were rendered
accessible through the Sacred Books of the East Series edited by
Max Müller (1823–1900). Islam was at the time still considered
a religion of the East; it is only after the oil crisis of the 1970’s
that it graduated as a religion of the West. In relation to the non-
literate religious traditions, this process of data-gathering took the
form of anthropological research, which soon evolved the technique
1
See Sharpe, Comparative Religion.
2
Brandon (ed.), A Dictionary of Comparative Religion, p. 202.
3
“The modern comparative study of religion reflects a cross cultural perspective”
[but] “prior to the middle of the nineteenth century . . . European explanations of
human religiousness was devoted largely to considerations of European culture”
(Oxtoby [ed.], World Religions: Eastern Traditions, p. 496).
4
De Vries, The Study of Religion.
5
Sharma (ed.), The Sum of our Choices, pp. 3–4.
222 arvind sharma
of observer participation for recording such data. The work of

E. B. Tylor (1823–1917), R. R. Marett (1866–1943) and J. G. Frazer
(1854–1941) is particularly noteworthy in this respect. It should be
clarified that methodological advances did take place during this
period, of which the pervasive use of the evolutionary hypothesis is
on example.6 So when it is claimed that the field as a whole was
focused on material it is a statement of where the main thrust of
the field lay, without implying that it was the sole thrust.
The accumulation of such material had reached a critical mass
by the 1900’s, when the focus began to shift from the continuing
search for material towards various methods for studying that data
which had emerged, and now began to occupy center-stage, although
the accumulation of both classical and anthropological data contin-
ued apace. The philological method has already taken great strides
on account of its association with the study of the scriptures of the
various religions. It was now complemented with a series of new
methods, among which the pride of place must go to the sociological
and the psychological methods. These methods arose from a con-
templation of the data provided by both the literate and the non-
literate religious communities. Thus Émile Durkheim’s (1858–1917)
sociological theories arose from the data gathered about the non-literate
Australian aborigines, while the sociological theories of Max Weber
(1864–1920) were basically built from the evidence provided by the
literate religious traditions. In the field of psychology of religion the
basic material came from the literate traditions, the distinctive
contributions of its two main exponents, Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
and Karl Jung (1875–1961) arising from the fact that while the for-
mer focused on the Judeo-Christian tradition, Jung extended his net
to take Eastern religions also into account.7
Political developments in the middle of the twentieth century were
partly responsible for the emergence of another method in the study
of religion, somewhat cumbersomely known as the “Phenomenology
of Religion,” or more simply later as the phenomenological method.8
Until the decolonization which occurred around this time, the religious
6
Sharpe, Comparative Religion, chapter 2; Oxtoby (ed.), World Religions, p. 496;
Brandon (ed.), A Dictionary of Comparative Religions, pp. 83ff.
7
See Heisig, “Psychology of Religion.”
8
See Sharma, To the Things Themselves. The phenomenological method involves
the questioning of the evolutionary paradigm of the nineteenth century in a major
way; see Kristensen, The Meaning of Religion, pp. 13–15.
orientalism and the comparison of religions 223
traditions of the world other than the Judeo-Christian were usually

understood second-hand as it were. The focus until then lay on the
texts of these traditions, without having to engage the believers them-
selves. With the end of the age of empire it was no longer possible
to overlook the believers. A method took shape for studying the reli-
gion of the believers on their own terms—as distinguished from out-
siders’ attempts to understand it in absentia.
By the 1980’s however, the comparative study of religion had
entered a new phase. Material continued to be collected and the
various methods brought to bear on it continued to flourish; what
was new was a desire to probe the motives underlying the phenom-
enon of religion itself and, even more significantly, underlying the
desire to study the various religions of the world on the part of the
West. This twin approach led to the emergence of the “hermeneu-
tics of suspicion” within the hermetical method, and the identification
of what has since become widely signified by the term Orientalism.9
II
The purpose of this paper is to problematize the comparison of

religions by introducing Orientalism10 as an element in the comparative
equation.11 Its purpose then is still to compare religions but it is now
to compare religions as reconstructed by Orientalist discourse. We
shall compare three such reconstructions by Orientalist discourse—
of the religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam and compare and
contrast these three reconstructions as a new way of doing comparative
religion.
9
Said, Orientalism. It is a tribute to the impact of this book that “Once the study
of ‘Oriental’ or Near Eastern and Asian Languages and literatures, Orientalism is
now taken to mean the Western domination and exploitation of the East, the West
viewing the East as alien, as ‘the other.’ ” (Smith, Hinduism and Modernity, p. 86).
10
“Five distinct senses of the word have crystallized over the last two centuries:
the Scholarly Study of the languages and texts of the Orient (initially conceived as the
Middle East but later encompassing all of Asia); a late 18th century policy of the East
India Company favouring the preservation of Indian languages, laws and customs; the
adoption of an artistic style and subject matter associated with East; a discourse of power
fashioned in the West and deeply implicated in European imperialism; a corporate
institution harnessed to the maintenance of the ideological and political hegemony
of Europe throughout Asia.” (Oldmeadow, Journey’s East, pp. 6–7).
11
This might be a hitherto unanticipated way of doing comparative religion in
a new way; see Patton and Ray (eds.), A Magic Still Dwells.
224 arvind sharma
The novelty of what is being attempted should not go unnoticed.

Typically the discourse of Orientalism and allied discourses, such as
post-colonialism, shy away from religion, although it is the study of
Islam by the West which is generally cited as the prime illustration
of Orientalism. Harry Oldmeadow, after noting the “obvious irony”
that the Orientalist “assault on the Western fabrication of the Orient
is itself a product of the Western intellectual heritage of which they
are such strident critics,”12 goes on to say:
In Said’s case the irony is sharpened by the fact that the “defense”
of the Islamic civilization is conducted by a rootless intellectual of
Protestant upbringing who is quite unable to conceal his own distaste
for religion which provides the very raison d’être of the civilization in
question. Moreover, his argument is rooted in ideas and values (secu-
lar humanism, high culture) which are irredeemably Western and mod-
ernistic, and thus are quite out of tune with those values that Muslims
themselves hold most dear.13
He goes on to add:
Not only is the theoretical arsenal of the anti-Orientalists drawn almost
exclusively from Western sources but, with few exceptions, it is also
relentlessly secular, materialistic and humanistic in its assumptions, atti-
tudes and values. These critics assert ad nauseam that no knowledge
can be “apolitical” and “disinterested” but, in terms of their own argu-
ment, they often seem quite obtuse in understanding the limitations
and prejudices which must govern their own outlook. This is especially
problematical in the domain of religion. Scholars committed to an
essentially modern, western, areligious world view (which, with respect
to religion itself, might be hostile, indifferent or vaguely “tolerant” but
which from a religious point of view, will necessarily be reductionistic)
are thereby disqualified form the deepest understanding of the spiri-
tual impulses which motivate men and women who immerse them-
selves in the doctrines and practices of alien religious traditions. These
critics, for the most part, are locked into Salman Rushdie’s facile
dichotomy of the “light of secularism” and the “darkness of religion.”14
Harry Oldmeadow offers these remarks after acknowledging “the
brilliance of Edward Said’s work.”15 Similarly, Sharada Sugirtharajah
begins by acknowledging the contribution Orientalism has made to
our scholarly understanding when she writes:
12
Oldmeadow, Journey’s East, p. 11.
13
14
Oldmeadow, Journey’s East, pp. 11–12.
15
Although Orientalism has become a loaded and contentious term, it

is still very useful in examining varied discourses, whether they be
literary, political, religious, or philosophical. Orientalism has been useful
in uncovering a variety of perplexing Western attitudes and conceptions
of the East as well as Eastern conceptions of the West.16
But again, like Harry Oldmeadow, she draws attention to the neglect
of religion when she goes on to add:
One of the future tasks of postcolonialism should include theorizing
religion and examining how it operates in a multi-cultural postcolo-
nial context. Postcolonial theorists have shown a great reluctance to
interrogate religion; scholars in the field of postcolonial studies have
theorized about literature, art and history, but not religion. In other
words, postcolonialism has not adequately addressed the question of
religion and how it operates in a postmodern world. Postcolonial the-
orists have drawn attention to colonialism and its impact on culture,
history, and politics but not on religion, despite the fact that its pioneers
and theorists such as Frantz Fanon, Albert Memuni and Edward Said
come from the Islamic world where religion is not divorced from
everyday life.
Postcolonial discourses share the secular assumptions and biases
present in other discourses. Despite religion being a significant aspect
of most non-Western cultures, postcolonial theorists have not taken on
board its potency. For example, Gandhi used religious resources to chal-
lenge and subvert colonialism. In Latin America, liberation theologians
have utilized religion to champion the cause of the poor. In present-
day India, religion is being used to promote a narrow nationalism and
religious fundamentalism. The future of postcolonialism depends on its
ability to address how religion affects and shapes societies, for religion in
one form or another continues to surface even in secular environments.17
III
Our present enterprise is Orientalist in a dual sense. The word

Orientalism has now acquired the primary meaning of a mode of
discourse but its earlier and original meaning pertained to the schol-
arly study of the Orient—and religions of the Orient, by the schol-
ars of the West. It is often not realized to what extent what we all
describe today as Hinduism, or Buddhism, or Islam is itself the work
16
Sugirtharajah, Imagining Hinduism, p. 142.
17
Sugirtharajah, Imagining Hinduism, pp. 142–43.
226 arvind sharma
of European scholarship, quite apart from what consequences this

fact may have had for the mode of discourse. The Indian historian
K. M. Panikkar offers an almost rhapsodic account of this process
in the case of Hinduism when he writes:
The creation of a Hindu historiography and the recovery of India’s
great past constitute the most spectacular, as also the first fundamen-
tal contribution of European scholarship to India. In the century that
passed between the acceptance of the identification of Sandrocottus of
Alexander’s history with Chandra Gupta Maurya and the discovery of
the Indus valley civilization lies the great romance of the rediscovery
of India’s past and the creation of a national self-image for the Hindus
as one of the creative civilizing peoples of the world with a continu-
ous history of 3000 years. The works of scholars like Princep Bothilingk,
of excavators and archaeologists like Alexander Cunningham and
Marshall, of students of literature, religion and culture like Sir William
Jones, Max Müller and A. B. Keith opened up to the astonished eyes
of Indians themselves a continuous history of political, social and cul-
tural activity which was not inferior to that of other contemporary civ-
ilizations. Also, European scholars working in Central Asia, China and
South-East Asia recovered the astonishing history of ancient Indian
cultural expansion, which established Hinduized kingdoms and empires
in the Pamirs, in Malaya, in the Indonesian archipelago, and the fer-
tile valleys of the Mekong.18
He goes on to say, with a fulsomeness almost embarrassing to a con-
temporary Indian:
All this reconstruction of India’s past and the translation and popu-
larization of great Indian philosophical and religious classics was the
work almost exclusively of European scholars: English, German, French,
Swedish, Russian, in fact scholars from every part of Europe. It was
only in the last decades of the nineteenth century that Indian scholar-
ship began to participate effectively in this work. The foundation of
the Asiatic Society of Bengal by Sir William Jones, poet, scholar and
judge, the decipherment of Asokan inscriptions, opening up the vista
of ancient history from the records preserved in stone, metals and
coins, the discovery of Ankor Vat in the overgrown jungles of Cambodia,
the exploration of Central Asian caves by Stein, Pelliot and others,
and others, and finally the excavations at Mohenjodaro—these are but
the most sensational events of a truly thrilling story of the rediscovery
of a lost intellectual world through the disinterested work of foreign
scholars. Nor should one forget to mention the massive achievements
of men in the different Universities of Europe and later America—
18
Panikkar, The Foundations of New India, p. 68.
Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, Heidelberg, Leyden, Harvard—who through

love of learning translated, interpreted and published the vast litera-
ture which lay buried in Sanskrit and Pali, thereby opening up not
only to the West but to the new middle classes in India itself an
immense and almost unknown realm of religious thought and artistic
achievement.19
The same holds for Buddhism in relation to which Philip C. Almond
offers an account far more analytical in comparison to the previous
one, as follows:
The creation of Buddhism took place in two more or less distinct
phrases. The first of these coincided with the first four decades of the
nineteenth century. During this period, Buddhism was an object which
was instanced and manifested ‘out there’ in the Orient, in a spatial
location geographically, culturally, and therefore imaginatively other.
Buddhism, as constructed in the West, made manageable that which
was encountered in the East by travelers, diplomats, missionaries, sol-
diers, traders, and so on. Buddhism as a taxonomic object organized
that which the Westerner confronted in an alien space, and in so doing
made it less alien, less other. The locus of Buddhism was the Orient.20
He goes on to say:
This would subtly change in the first twenty-five years of the Victorian
period. Originally existing ‘out there’ in the Oriental present, Buddhism
came to be determined as an object the primary location of which
was the West, through the progressive collection, translation, and pub-
lication of its textual past. Buddhism, by 1860, had come to exist, not
in the Orient, but in the Oriental libraries and institutes of the West,
in its texts and manuscripts, at the desks of the Western scholars who
interpreted it. It had become a textual object, defined, classified, and
interpreted through its own textuality. By the middle of the century,
the Buddhism that existed ‘out there’ was beginning to be judged by
a West that alone knew what Buddhism was, is, and ought to be. The
essence of Buddhism came to be seen as expressed not ‘out there’ in
the Orient, but in the West through the West’s control of Buddhism’s
own textual past.21
Bernard Lewis raises a fundamental point in this regard. He writes:
Civilizations, in their educational systems, usually teach the languages
of their classics, of their scriptures, and of government, later of business.
19
Panikkar, The Foundations of New India, pp. 68–69.
20
Almond, The British Discovery of Buddhism, p. 12.
21
Almond, The British Discovery of Buddhism, p. 13.
228 arvind sharma
In contrast to this general pattern, Europeans at one time or another

have studied virtually all the languages and all the histories of Asia.
Asians did not study Europe. They did not even study each other,
unless the way for such a study was prepared by either conquest or
conversion or both. The decipherment of ancient texts, without any
such preparations or motivation is still peculiar to western Europe, and
to the inheritors and emulators of the European scholarly tradition in
countries such as the United States and Japan.22
He offers several answers why this might have happened,23 but he
leaves little doubt that what we know of Islamic civilization in the
academia is the work of Western “orientalists such as Adam Mez,
J. H. Kramers, W. Björkman, V. Barthold, Thomas Arnold, and
many others.”24 Among the British and French orientalists he lists
“Claude Cahen, E. Lévi-Provençal, Henri Corbin, Marius Canard,
Charles Pellat, William and Georges Marçais, William Wright,”25
and then again “R. C. Nicholson, Guy Le Strange, Sir Thomas
Arnold, and E. G. Browne.”26 He mentions these names in rebutting
Edward Said’s critique of Orientalism. The following comment of
Said incidentally goes to demonstrate the extent to which the study
of Islamic culture even today remains a product of the West: “No
Arab or Islamic scholar can afford to ignore what goes on in the
scholarly journals, institutes, and universities in the United States
and Europe; the converse is not true.”27
The reader might be forgiven for wondering if this excursion into
terra cognita is really necessary. It had to be undertaken to clarify the
precise nature of the kind of comparison of religions which is being
undertaken here. Europe carried out two intellectual enterprises simul-
taneously and seamlessly. It identified the history and development
of the major religious traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam
and also simultaneously initiated the comparative study of religion
for which these traditions, along with others, also provided the data.
What we intend to do new is to first look at the way these three
religious traditions were identified and constructed and then compare
and contrast these constructions. If what was going on in the nineteenth
22
Lewis, Islam and the West, pp. 123–24.
23
24
Lewis, Islam and the West, p. 112.
25
26
27
Cited in Lewis, Islam and the West, p. 113.
century may be called comparative religion, then a new kind of com-

parison is being undertaken here, when the traditions will be com-
pared after they had come into being as academic entities and not
while this was happening. The double meaning of Orientalism comes
in handy here. The first comparative religion did its work only in
the light of its first meaning. The new comparison of religions is
being carried out in the light of its second meaning when its first
meaning denotes “the academic discipline which dates . . . from the
great expansion of scholarship of western Europe from the time of
the Renaissance onward,”28 and its second meaning denotes the results
of such a discipline as resulting in a European construction of the
reality being studied (rather than what it might be in itself ).
One can only hint here at an interesting epistemological issue
which keeps surfacing in our field and which binds these two mean-
ings of Orientalism together. It appeared in hermeneutics in the for-
mulation that Kant understood Plato better than Plato himself because
Kant knew more about the life and times of Plato as a modern
scholar than Plato did himself. The earlier assumption was that we
will always know less than what Plato knew because the inevitable
shortfall between the possession of knowledge and its full communi-
cation. In the present context Orientalism in the first sense seems
to imply that the outsider knows more than the insider; while in the
second sense it seems to imply that far from knowing more than the
insider, the outsider can never know as much as the insider and can
at best only achieve an approximation.29
28
29
The same issues surface in the structuralist post-structuralist context as follows:
From the 1960s through the 1980s in several fields of cultural studies, ‘structuralist’
approaches were popular. The term ‘structuralism’ was multifaceted, its specific
sense depending on the field in which one was working, whether anthropology,
developmental psychology, linguistics, or literary studies. But a recurring feature of
efforts termed ‘structuralist,’ such as those of the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-
Strauss (b. 1908), was that the structures proposed had validity if they made sense
in the mind of the investigator, regardless of whether they were understood in the
minds of tribal populations or were the overtly declared intent of literary texts.
James Frazer had thought he knew better than his subjects what they were doing.
So had Freud. And so did Lévi-Strauss.
The poststructuralist era emerging in the 1980s in a sense took the assumption ‘We
know better than you what you are doing’ and turned it on the stance of the inves-
tigator itself. Twentieth-century scholarship has undergone a kind of politicization, in
which the motives of the investigator are analyzed as socially and economically deter-
mined. Intellectuals are seen as slaves to their political, racial, class, and gender pref-
erences. Scholars are portrayed as career-driven rather than thirsting for understanding.
230 arvind sharma
IV
This Orientalist reconstruction of Hinduism emphasized its tolerant

and passive character, which ultimately led to the identification of
non-violence as its basic characteristic. Hinduism was deemed toler-
ant despite a history of its militant encounter with other religions of
Indian origin and the presence of such an obviously militant text
within it such as the Bhagavadgita. This tolerance was related to its
non-missionary character,30 overlooking the fact that if it originated
in north-western India it had to be missionary in some sense to
spread over the rest of India. Moreover, its expansion in south-east
Asia all the way to Bali was ignored to make the description stick.31
These attributes of being tolerant and non-missionary supported its
depiction as a passive religion, conveniently overlooking the fact that
the British, by one count, had to fight 111 wars to establish their
rule over India.
Why did the Orientalist discourse take this shape? It could be
argued that, as Christianity is a missionary religion, it helped achieve
its goal if its rival could be depicted as non-missionary so that it could
pose no counter-threat. Similarly, with only a handful of Britishers
ruling the whole of India, it was in British interest to believe that
Hindus were tolerant; so outnumbered were they that an intolerant
majority could simply overwhelm them as it almost did in the Mutiny
of 1857–1858. Europeans shared this assessment and “Kant thought
that the Hindu religion gave to its followers ‘the character of pusil-
lanimity.’”32 One could even argue that the Gandhian movement
can be traced back to this Orientalist construction. Ronald B. Inden
has even boldly stated: “I doubt very much, for example, if Gandhi’s
concept of non-violence would have played the central part it did
in Indian nationalism had it not been singled out long ago as a
defining trait of the Hindu character.”33
Where one might have assumed a kind of free will in the history of ideas, one is
now confronted with a kind of determination in the sociology of knowledge. To
overstate the developments only slightly: people do not seek truth, but act out of
interests (Oxtoby (ed.), World Religions, pp. 500–501).
30
The New Encyclopaedia Britannica (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1992)
Vol. 20, p. 529.
31
Renou, Hinduism, p. 16.
32
See Halbfass, India and Europe, p. 407.
33
Inden, Imagining India, p. 38.
In other words, the challenge to the West also came in the way
it had defined Hinduism as a passive religion. Alongside these descrip-
tive developments, however, evaluative procedures of the evolution-
ary kind had also been put in place. India had been colonized and
by this criterion its own major religion, Hinduism, had failed the
evolutionary test. It therefore had to be low down on the evolu-
tionary totem pole of religions—which meant that it had to be poly-
theistic.34 When it was discovered that the description polytheism in
its usual acceptance did not quite fit it, the term henotheism was
coined.35 But henotheism also represented a stage inferior to monothe-
ism, which had only been reached by the religions of the West, spe-
cially Christianity. From this perspective the Hindu response was to
argue that Hindu religious thought had found its culmination in
monism, which is a step above monotheism.
This is how Advaita Vedanta emerged as a theological challenge to the West,
a fact which can be directly related to the Orientalist take on Hindu philosophy.36
The Orientalist reconstruction of Buddhism emphasized its ratio-
nal and altruistic character. The fact that Buddhism was a non-the-
istic religion was a crucial factor in the projection of Buddhism as
a rational religion. Belief in God came to be looked upon virtually
as a superstition, or close to it, as the scientific approach gained
ground in the West. When the West thus discovered a religion with-
out belief in God, it projected it as the supreme example of a ratio-
nal religion, even though Buddha’s life, and that of his disciples’
abounds in the performance of miracles37 and even though belief in
spirits is an integral part of Buddhism as it is lived, as for instance,
in Burma.38 The rational presentation of Sri Lankan Buddhism is
said to be one of the great achievements of Colonel Olcott.39
Thus identification of Buddhism with rationality played a major
role in the Buddhist encounter with the West. The success of Zen
in the West can be explained at least in part in these terms; the
purpose of Zen is to break down the mind. The mind contains many
dimensions but human beings identify maximally with its reasoning
34
Murty, Vedic Hermeneutics, p. 10.
35
Klostermaier, A Survey of Hinduism, p. 130.
36
37
Thomas, The Life of the Buddha in Legend and History, pp. 98ff.
38
Spiro, Buddhism and Society.
39
Ellwood, “Buddhism in the West,” p. 437.
232 arvind sharma
faculty and, as homo sapiens, identify themselves with it. Zen thus sets
out to destroy a human being’s confidence in the rational faculty by
bringing the mind to an impasse through the Koan. Such rational
(i.e.: non-theistic) spirituality thus appeals to the West.40 Tibetan
Buddhism is more tolerant of the ceremonial cloak which rests on
the shoulders of the tradition but the dialogue forged by the Dalai
Lama with the scientists once again harks back to rationalism.
The non-theistic character of Buddhism at the level of philosophy
led to its orientalization as a religion which has not evolved to the
idea of ‘gods’ from the spirits on the one hand and as nihilistic in
its philosophy on account of its doctrine of Emptiness, which also
emptied the world of God. However, with the disenchantment of
the world after the Enlightenment, this too fit in snugly with the
modern mentality. The ascendancy of scientific materialism also
helped image Buddhist thought in a positive way.41
The challenge to the West then which Buddhism posed was also one of a
rational spirituality consistent with science.42
The Orientalist reconstruction of Islam emphasized its militant
character. It would be tempting to attribute this to the facts of his-
tory. The three main empires in the world in the East at the begin-
ning of the nineteenth century, apart from the Chinese, were the
Moghol Empire in India, the Safavid Empire in Iran and the Ottoman
Empire in Turkey. By the early decades of the twentieth century
they were effectively gone, having lost out militarily to the West.
Islam then could have been orientalistically reconstructed as a defeated
passive religion. The reason this did not happen could partly be
attributed to the militant origin of Islam. Comparative religion in its
early phase was immensely interested, even obsessed, with the issue
of the origins of a religion. Hindu tolerance and Buddhist rational-
ism were similarly identified in the context of the search for origins.
This identification of militancy with Islam as original to it, in this
sense, must be clearly borne in mind, for medieval Islam, under the
influence of the Sufi silasilahs had also acquired an extraordinarily
tolerant dimension.43
40
Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, p. 111.
41
See Zaehner, “Conclusion,” in his The Concise Encyclopedia of Living Faiths, pp.
407, 415–16.
42
Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, passim.
43
Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam, pp. 105ff.
The challenge to the West which Islamic militancy now poses then may be
related to its own Orientalist construction,44 as a boomerang effect of it, if
you will.
At the level of philosophy, Islam was attacked for possessing a rig-
orous but less than compassionate theism. But while the West thus
attacked it on the basis of theism, Islam counterattacked with the
prophetic principle. All the three Abrahamic religions are founded
on the word of God, but none except Islam on the literal word of
God. Here Islam was able to turn the developments of biblical crit-
icism on their head by claiming that such criticism deconstructs the
basic texts of Judaism and Islam, while the Qur’an emerges virtu-
ally unscathed for this intellectual baptism.
IV
By factoring Orientalism into the comparative equation then one

makes a surprising discovery in the context of comparing religions:
that the West got what it gave. The reason why Orientalism enables
us to gain this insight is because it allows a point of reference from
which the academic definition Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam
achieved in the study of religion can be viewed that lies beyond the
mere comparison of the traditions themselves. If one looked merely
at the traditions themselves one would be tempted to go on com-
paring Hindu non-violence, Buddhist rationalism and Islamic mili-
tancy without recognizing their common reflection and refraction in
the Western mirror. It is doubtful that without this insight one would
have been able to make the connection between such disparate devel-
opments as the renewed privileging of Advaita Vedanta in Hinduism,
the renewed privileging of the non-theism in Buddhism, and the
renewed privileging of the literalness of the Qur’an in Islam. These
might have been misread merely as the extension, in modern times,
of the inherent tendencies of these traditions when in reality they
constitute veiled reactions to Orientalism.
44
It is worth noting that once these orientations had been established, even the
developments within these religions came to be understood in these terms. Thus
any rational development within Hinduism was attributed to Buddhist influence and
any militant development to Islamic influence. In the case of Buddhism, any non-
rational development was traced to Hindu influence and militant developments often
to Islamic influence. The ‘domestication’ of Islam in India was attributed to Hindu
tolerance.
CHAPTER TWELVE
CIRCLING THE WAGONS: THE PROBLEM WITH THE

INSIDER/OUTSIDER IN THE COMPARATIVE
STUDY OF RELIGION*
Russell T. McCutcheon
My wife and I once worked in a co-ed residence at the University

of Toronto. One of the building’s porters, an older gentleman named
Carl who has since died, worked the afternoon shift. Originally from
somewhere in what we once called Eastern Europe, he had fought
in World War II, for various armies. As one was defeated by another,
some soldiers simply changed sides, took up with their new compatriots,
and kept on going; after all, the alternative was more than likely not
nearly as appealing.
Late one evening while on his rounds, he came upon a small
group of undergraduate students in one of the dimly lit common
rooms, confessing to one another their past misdeeds: the curfews
they had missed and their high school drinking-binges. Stopping his
rounds for a moment, I was told the next morning how the porter
stood just outside their circle and listened. Turning to him, a young
student invited Carl to divulge one of his own past infractions. Because
he was old enough to be the student’s great-grandfather, more than
likely they all anticipated hearing some quaint, antique recollection—
a confession that would enable the old man to join yet another new
group of compatriots.
Instead of offering a familiar tale about the “good ole days,” Carl
replied in his thickly accented English:
“In zee var ve vould burn Polish villages.”
* This chapter, which is a revision of chapter two of McCutcheon, ‘Religion’ and

the Domestication of Dissent, or How to Live in a Less than Perfect Nation, relies on material
elaborated in McCutcheon, “The Ideology of Closure and the Problem of the
Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion.” Earlier versions were presented
as lectures at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Chicago, both in
February 2004 and both of which were sponsored by the Wabash Center. I would
like to thank Faydra Shapiro and Lucy Pick, respectively, for organizing these events
and for including me among those invited to speak.
236 russell t. mccutcheon
In the complete silence that greeted his disclosure—calling his words

a confession entirely misses the point of my anecdote—he turned,
and, as it was told to me, walked back into the darkness to con-
tinue his nightly rounds.
Thinking of the task of doing comparison in the classroom, I can-
not help but recall Carl walking out of the room after having upped
the ante considerably. For those upper-middle class students were
completely unprepared to entertain anyone’s world as being so far
removed from their own—unprepared to entertain that aesthetically
pleasing deep similarities might not underscore human communi-
ties—that Carl’s story would be anything other than sneaking out
of his room late one evening to meet a young lady. In the same
manner that their late-night confessions—much like telling scary tales
around a camp fire—functioned to unite them by reinforcing the
boundaries of the expected and the allowable, their dumbfounded
reaction to the porter’s report, recounted with no hint of shame or
irony, makes apparent the parochial nature of the preferences that—
prior to hearing his tale, that is—they had taken for granted as uni-
versal and self-evident.
Such moments therefore remind me of the inevitably local and
self-serving nature of all forms of in-group story-telling that presumes
to exist some inclusive vantage point outside of interest-ladened, con-
tingent and potentially contradictory perspectives of historical agents.
This is none other than the ideology of closure that, in our field,
takes the forms of attempts to address what, in our classrooms, we
commonly call the insider/outsider problem.1 For such efforts are
often motivated by the goal of arriving at some form of mutual
understanding in which observer and the observed each tell their
story, thereby discovering in the telling that they share some other-
wise overlooked similarity (often called Human Nature). But this so-
called problem of overcoming different perspectives and commitments
is a problem only for those motivated by the wishful hope that there
somewhere exists a detached, god’s eye viewpoint from which the
entire pachyderm of human meaning can somehow be experienced
by having the privileged narrator carefully listen to the seemingly
conflicting tales of the proverbial blind men. If this is indeed the
1
For background on the problem. see McCutcheon, The Insider/Outsider Problem
in the Study of Religion.
circling the wagons 237
case, if there is some big picture that we will recognize only after a
considerable amount of inductive data gathering—and how to demon-
strate its existence is, of course, the $64,000 question!—then I can
at least understand what compels many teachers to presume that we
all have a story to share and thus to construct their courses as pro-
viding differing peoples with their fifteen minutes of fame (what other-
wise goes by the name of courses on religious autobiography). But
if there is no such beast, if the blind men are truly blind, each grop-
ing without the benefit of the omniscient narrator who is required
to make that proverb work, then teachers are disingenuous in invit-
ing everyone to tell their story as part of a quest for a common
human denominator, for I suspect that—like those students in my
anecdote—neither we nor our students are prepared to listen patiently
and appreciatively to everyone who might come out of the darkness
to tell their tale.
To understand the problems with the insider/outsider problem we
should first note that there are many academic fields in which com-
parative analysis is not motivated by the quest for similarity and in
which there is therefore nothing equivalent to the insider/outsider
problem that we use to mediate between what may very well be a
profusion of voices. These are fields in which teachers feel no guilt
when they offer participant disclosures as data that is then subjected
to theoretical analysis. In once comparing the scholar of religion to
the doctor whose efforts to understand the workings of the human
body require no input whatsoever from the comatose patient, Robert
Segal, of Lancaster University, once took an obviously provocative
stand on this issue, one seldom adopted by scholars of religion for
fear of offending the people whom they study. That some members
of the audience at the conference where he struck upon this anal-
ogy were, to put it mildly, aghast suggests that the study of religion
is not one of the fields that somehow escapes the insider/outsider
problem.2 But why is this?
The common answer draws on the sharp split between the so-
called sciences of the spirit and those of nature. Insomuch as humans
are thought to possess independent consciousness, we are free, moral
beings. Therefore, unlike the predictable behavior of physical objects
2
Segal’s comment was made as part of a presentation he gave at the 1995
Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR), held
in Mexico City, Mexico. See Segal 2000 for an elaboration on this topic.
that occupy the attention of students in, say, a physics or chemistry

course, properly studying human beliefs and actions necessarily requires
that students take into account the intentional ghost inhabiting the
physical machine. An inductively-based, objective “science of man”
is therefore seen by many as demeaning insomuch as it places people
on a par with unthinking, objects. As quoted by Faydra Shapiro, in
an article on the intersection between ethnography and autobiography:
In trying to become ‘objective’ Western culture made ‘objects’ of things
and people when it distanced itself from them, thereby losing ‘touch’
with them. This dichotomy is the root of all violence.3
Because human beings are thought to act, rather than simply behave —
the former implies motivation and thus accountability, whereas the
latter implies unthinking reactions—their actions must be understood
as part of a larger system of intentions and meanings. Accordingly,
the study of these actions must be interpretive, not explanatory, and
the participant’s understanding of their own motivations and meanings
enters a dialogue with the understandings of the observer—otherwise,
or so it is said, scholars will do violence to the dignity of the person
under study, not to mention jeopardize their own humanity as well.
Even if we grant this Dilthean division of labor—and let me add
that it is far from obvious that we ought to!—the traditional split
between the sorts of objects under study (e.g., people versus things)
and the methods used in their study (e.g., interpretation versus expla-
nation) does not really help to account for why those in only some of
the intellectual pursuits that focus on the study of human beings
worry so much over having the scholar keep “in touch” with the
participant by having them exchange self-disclosures in a quest for
similarity, much as symbolic gifts are exchanged whenever we try to
forge new friendships. It does not help because, as made plain in
my opening anecdote, there may be no lowest common denomina-
tor that suits our specific tastes. If we might not want to dance with
everyone, then we had better prompt our students to be a little more
explicit about how it is that we go about identifying both similari-
ties and differences, and how it is that we then go about accounting
for them.
3
Shapiro, “Autobiography and Ethnography: Falling in Love with the Inner
Other,” p. 193, quoting Andaluza, Borderlands/La Frontera, p. 37.
But so long as we keep dancing with people who already know

our steps, we really do not have to be very articulate about when
we do and do not make our own personal disclosures, for we likely
make them all the time. And whenever someone steps on someone
else’s toes while doing this consensual dance, then we can always
just invoke the insider/outsider problem to finesse the misstep (that
is, to solve the problem of difference). This helps us to explain why
we would never expect to see a book entitled something like The
Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Nazism. For it is likely inconceivable
for scholars in modern, liberal democracies to entertain that their
adversaries either share fundamental similarities with them or have
a legitimate opinion about themselves and their motives that is worth
sharing as part of an ongoing conversation—and by “legitimate” I
simply mean one that is seen to compete with, complement, or
enhance the scholar’s own analysis. In fact, entertaining any of these
options would, more than likely, be judged as an immoral stand,
perhaps prompting some to accuse us of a seditious act of treason.
Although it would be easy to draw on a contemporary example—
say, the manner in which so-called Islamic fanatics’ explanations for
their own violent actions are dismissed as lies, delusions, or double-
speak in need of careful decoding (making those who fail to question
the epistemic status of these reports mere pawns in the terrorists’
hands)—consider the case of the onetime Nazi Minister of Armaments
and so-called “architect of the Third Reich,” Albert Speer (1905–1981)—
one of the few defendants to plead guilty at the Nuremberg trials
and who served twenty years in Spandau prison, in what was once
East Berlin, until his release in 1966. His memoirs4 hold a celebrated
status for scholars but only insomuch as Speer’s recorded self-dis-
closures are understood as an example of an astute political actor,
working with the benefit of hindsight, to rationalize his own actions
and thereby fool his obviously culpable self (and his unwary read-
ers alike!). Such an insider’s self-report is therefore not part of an
ongoing conversation with the scholar who is on a quest for shared
similarities; instead, it is of interest only insomuch as it is understood
either as an example of self-delusion or evidence of the participant
apologizing for his past misdeeds.
4
Speer, Inside the Third Reich; Speer, Spandau.
Whether or not one agrees with how scholars have used Speer’s
memoirs, we must at least note that their goal has not been to search
for commonality and neither has it been to avoid doing violence to
his self-disclosures—as if participants set the bar for how their behav-
iors ought to be understood. Instead of trying to identify with or
protect his authorial voice, their goal has been to explain why some-
one as seemingly educated and cultured as Speer would understand
his own behavior in a way that differs so dramatically from how we
understand it. Because we have such confidence in the superiority
of our own systems of morality and our own understanding of his-
tory—because any comparison of his world to ours is lost in the all
too obvious differences we cannot help but see when we look back
on mid-twentieth-century German politics—no apologies are needed
when our conclusions regarding self-deception trump Speer’s own
protestations of his well-meaning political naiveté.
It would appear, then, that we have no need of this thing we call
the insider/outsider problem to mediate between the competing dis-
closures and differing commitments whenever we study our enemies,
for they are simply wrong, lying, or brainwashed. All we have are
the differences between us and our interest is in explaining why
someone can’t help but see how wrong they are. So the question
arises: when does the suspension of first person interpretive authority
of the people we study qualify as an instance of epistemic violence
and when does a failure to suspend it amount to an offensive, traitorous,
or immoral act?5
To answer my own question, it strikes me that the so-called
insider/outsider problem is an opportunity for uncovering core sim-
ilarities and achieving mutual understanding only when the teacher
and students already have some sort of affinity for the behaviors under
study. When beliefs and behaviors with which we disagree make their
way onto the syllabus, when the differences are all too apparent to
us, we lose no sleep whatsoever when we offer an analysis that con-
tradicts participants’ own self-understandings and suspends their right
to add their voice to our conversation. For instance, pick up virtually
any of the many syllabi on religion and violence and, despite the best
intentions of the empathetic professor, the point of studying this topic
is not to be “in touch” with those people who use coercive violence
5
On the topic of first person interpretive authority, see Godlove, “Religious
Discourse.”
to achieve practical ends. Sooner or later the other shoe drops when
the teacher adopts an explanatory framework in order to determine
why anyone would do such a thing —which, of course, is the first step to
getting them to stop doing it. We seek understanding in order to
change their understandings as well as their actions, not to be in
dialogue with them.
I therefore see teaching qua conversation as having profound political
motivations and ramifications; it is a social engineering technique
used by specific groups to establish tactical coalitions by using the
classroom to selectively smooth over what, for the purpose of some
anticipated coalition, are perceived to be relatively minor differences,
all in an effort to circle the wagons against the onslaught of the
significant differences that threaten some apparent “us” and “our”
interests. Recognizing and then trying to address seemingly competing
commitments by means of the insider/outsider problem therefore
arises only when an empirically diverse and possibly conflicting
“many” is, for whatever reason, presumed by its members to be sub-
ordinated to a common, non-empirical “oneness” (call it human
nature, nationality, religious experience, spirituality, gender, or ethnicity).
That this triumphant oneness, achieved by means of establishing
mutual understanding, turns out to be anything but an inclusive con-
versation must not go unnoticed.
For instance, consider how all of this works in a recent British
collection of essays entitled Theorizing Faith: The Insider/Outsider Problem
in the Study of Ritual. The various chapters in this book—on the com-
parative study of such diverse groups as British Muslims, New Religious
Movements, Soka Gakkai in the UK, British Quakerism, and British
Wicca—set about addressing the problem of differing perspectives
by presuming that there exists some “big picture” to which participants
and observers alike have limited yet complementary access. This is
phrased in the book’s conclusion as follows:
All of this is rooted in an epistemology . . . in which no single ‘voice’ has
the capacity for the whole truth, but in which every voice is a potential
source of fact and insight, and in which valid conclusions and adequate
interpretations are more likely, when the multiple voices are sensitively
heard and considered. . . . If we can build multiple perspectives into our
research project, whether through team research in the field, sharing at
conferences, or other forms of collegial discourse, we are blessed.6
6
Arweck and Stringer, eds., Theorizing Faith, p. 159.
The unelaborated qualifications that lead to this blessed event surely

deserve some attention, for they provide such writers with consider-
able wiggle-room to accomplish two crucial things: to avoid sanc-
tioning the wrong voices and to keep anyone from noticing that they
avoid sanctioning the wrong voices. In this manner we can feel rather
good about how open our conversation is, all the while hearing sto-
ries that we already know by heart, for the conventions that deter-
mine the form our conversation takes preclude the wrong voices
gaining entry and the wrong similarities being identified. I am
reminded here of an aside made on April 9, 2003, by a cable news
commentator as the television news cameras zoomed in on the top-
pling of the statue of Saddam Hussein, on the day that U.S. troops
first arrived in Baghdad. One of the risks of bringing democracy to
Iraq, the pundit said, was that they might elect the wrong govern-
ment. More than likely this remark went unnoticed to the majority
of viewers, since we all pretty much know what the wrong govern-
ment is—they’re the ones we call regimes because they don’t look
like ours. His comment went unnoticed, that is, until his colleague
observed that in a democracy there’s no such thing as electing the
wrong government. Touché !
But usually there’s no one present to identify the manner in which
those straining to hear all of the voices inevitably slip into a self-
interested monologue that is shouted loudly enough so as to sound
like more than one voice. After all, as noted in the earlier quota-
tion, every voice is merely a potential source of fact and insight; con-
clusions can be either valid or invalid while interpretations can either
be adequate or inadequate; we are told that, as listeners, we must be
sensitive and our discourse must be collegial, otherwise, I presume, we
are not allowed to play the game. All too predictably, however, we
find no argumentation in favor of any explicit criteria whereby, for
instance, valid from invalid conclusions can be distinguished and no
suggestion as to what constitutes a collegial discourse. This should
be enough to cause the wary reader to pause, especially those
acquainted with the ways in which the category “collegiality” is some-
times used in the academy to assert some rather unprofessional cri-
teria that determine ones inclusion within the guild.
This presumption that our criteria are self-evident and universal—
something many of us share with those students in my opening
anecdote—is evidence of a nostalgia for the innocence that comes
with full understanding—a nostalgia for some posited totality that is
greater than the sum of its individual and seemingly conflicting parts.
It is a profoundly anti-historical attitude that strikes me as most trou-
blesome in the work of those who use the insider/outsider problem
to mediate between differing viewpoints and commitments. For,
instead of presuming that historical existence is shot through and
through with competing interests, the rhetoric of “full understand-
ing” that propels the desire to keep in touch with some of the peo-
ple we study and which prompts some of us to think that all so-called
deeply held beliefs can find a place at the our seminar tables, bypasses
the requirements (and thus the risks) of public persuasion; in bypass-
ing these requirements it shows itself to be based on anything but
a humble epistemological foundation. Instead, it provides a pas-
sive/aggressive means to portray some local as the self-evident uni-
versal without ever really considering that interests and viewpoints
might be incommensurable or contradictory. I think here of Jonathan
Kirsch’s recent book, The Woman Who Laughed at God: The Untold
History of the Jewish People (2001), which stands as a useful example
of a writer coming to grips with the fact that, at least in the case
of Judaism, the only so-called core value is diversity and disagreement.
Thus, all we seem to have is a host of differing Judaisms all talking
with each other. But in dropping the singular in favor of the plural,
we find a subtle argument that naturalizes but one sort of liberal
Judaism as opposed to those other contenders for normative status
that might contest whether the apparent variety has anything significant
in common. In other words, the old “unity in diversity” nugget is
a political rhetoric doing its own sort of group building in compe-
tition with other mutually exclusive conceptions of the group, some
of which don’t particularly want to gain entry into the big tent.
The rhetoric of the big picture that propels many of the classes
that utilize the comparative method may therefore be one of the
most powerful political techniques we’ve yet come up with to silence
just some voices while amplifying others. For, as phrased in a rhetor-
ical question posed by Slavoj ¥i≥ek in his critique of “The Matrix”—
a film very popular with the generation we find ourselves now
teaching: “What if ideology resides in the very belief that outside
the closure of the finite universe, there is some ‘true reality’ to be
entered?”7 For, as afficionados of this film will recall, outside the
7
¥i≥ek, “The Matrix, or the Two Sides of Perversion,” p. 214.
seemingly never-ending yet only virtually real matrix is a really real

world—what ¥i≥ek characterizes as “the pre-modern notion of ‘arriv-
ing at the end of the universe’.”8 But rather than being as radical
as many of our students no doubt understood it to be, it is a film
informed only by what Pierre Bourdieu once termed radical chic
and apparent subversion;9 the “problem with the film,” according to
¥i≥ek, is that “it is not ‘crazy’ enough. . . . Much more subversive
than this multiplication of virtual universes would have been the
multiplication of realities themselves.”10 Translated into the topic at
hand, he seems to be saying that the far more radical way to engage
in cross-cultural analysis is to prompt our students to take seriously
that there is no resolution to be had—or better yet, that what gets
to count as a resolution is itself informed by but one of the many
contestable viewpoints. The task of comparative scholarship, then, is
to recognize that since we’ll never exhaust the voices to be heard,
adding our own to the mix accomplishes nothing. Instead, we need
to prompt our students to determine some defensible principle of
selection, some criterion of focus suitable to the institutions in which
they do their labors, to determine how it is that we will look into
the issue of difference and, more importantly, what will get to count
as a difference worth looking into.
I’m hoping that you now see why what Bruce Lincoln once termed
sentiments of affinity and estrangement ought not to function as our
scholarly criteria of selection,11 and why it is that our role as teach-
ers ought not to be that of nurturing our students’ identification with
their objects of study through entering a dialogue with them about
their deepest dreams and their ultimate concerns. With this, I return
to my opening anecdote: as laudable as it may be to invite others
to leave the darkness and join the circle around our seminar table—
and who but an uncivilized brute would be against swapping stories
around the glowing campfire that we euphemistically call free mar-
ket, liberal democracy—we cannot forget that the shared interests
that make it worthwhile huddling around our fire are not the only
interests out there. Moreover, I am at a loss to find anything other
than self-serving rationalizations for why some social groups receive
8
9
Bourdieu, Practical Reason, p. 137.
10
11
Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, p. 10.
an invitation to visit our class whereas those with whom we have

limited affinity, those with whom we are in outright competition,
become the objects of everything from derision to state-sponsored
coercive violence. Are they just so obviously wrong that we need no
rationale or persuasive reason for excluding them from the big con-
versation? Are their interests so out of sync with reality that we need
not acknowledge that our so-called dialogue is in fact a monologue
efficiently reproducing our local interests under the guise of multi-
vocality?
Sadly, such topics are rarely investigated in classes; the problem
with the insider/outsider problem in the study of religion is there-
fore the classification “religion” itself, for it selects only the easy and
familiar cases of meaning-making and identity-construction, enabling
us to converse exclusively with those who already satisfy our condi-
tions for what it means to be “civil,” “faithful,” “tolerant,” “sensi-
tive,” and “collegial.” In this way, we place on the table only those
personal commitments that never offend. Case in point, consider the
use of the autobiographical voice so commonly found in classrooms
today, and which often influences the sorts of scholars hired to teach
students, in which an authoritative insider is asked to speak on behalf
of an entire tradition—to provide the authentic viewpoint. When it
comes to bringing such personal commitments to the classroom all
is fine until the wrong commitments make their appearance. For
instance, what if you teach in a region of the U.S. where many of
your students inform you that Roman Catholics are not Christians.
Are professors to enter a jousting match with their students, con-
testing how it is that the students’ own groups police their limits?
Or consider a film many have used in our classes or seen as stu-
dents, “Footprint of the Buddha” (from the well known “Long Search”
series): there is a scene in which Sri Lankan laywomen are wildly
possessed by spirits as the local shrine priest authenticates their pos-
session by hitting them and splashing them in the face with water;
anyone even partially familiar with the contemplative Buddhism of
our textbooks will immediately recognize that this is just the wrong
sort of commitment. Where are the Five Noble Truths? Where is
the sedate lifestyle that looks beyond appearances and slowly sips
tea? Or consider how, beginning on September 12, 2001, the pun-
dits began working in earnest to distance so-called authentic Islam—
guided by timeless “principles” communicated by means of an
apparently uniform thing we call “tradition”—from those accused of
carrying out the previous day’s attacks. Is it merely a coincidence

that authentic Islam ended up looking an awful lot like yet another
personal choice in the free market? As phrased by one such com-
mentator: “The challenge of the future can only be faced by an
Islamic worldview that embraces diversity, equality of the sexes, and
the freedom, not only to be right, but also to be wrong”—so writes
Vincent Cornell, himself a Muslim and the Director of the King
Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University
of Arkansas, in a post-September 11 essay collection entitled Dissent
from the Homeland. “Failure to meet the challenges of a diverse, multi-
centered, and religiously pluralistic world,” he adds, “will ultimately
lead to an Islam that is irrelevant to contemporary life, and might
even herald the decline of Islam as a world religion.”12 After all, as
he concludes: “People who appear uncivilized do not get invited into
the community of nations.”13
As with the useful rhetoric of “collegiality”—useful to tenured pro-
fessors keeping their cards close to the chest when making tenure
and promotion decisions, that is—such writers do not need to define
just what gets to count as “right,” “wrong,” “relevant,” “authentic,”
“civilized,” or “community,” for those of us at the seminar table
already swapping our stories know what they are. Much like inde-
cency, although we couldn’t actually define the limits of each of
these if we had to, we apparently know once the rules have been
overstepped—as did approximately 200,000 people in early 2004,
complaining to the U.S.’s Federal Communications Commission about
the liberties taken by Janet Jackson, among others, with what I gather
is the normally family-values nature of Super Bowl halftime shows.
As this episode makes clear, anyone who deviates too far from the
unarticulated script will suffer consequences—either symbolic or actual.
In our field, trespassers are classified, and studied, and silenced as
radicals, militants, extremists, and tribalists who belong to move-
ments that are comprised of agitators and people with strident voices
who are led by belligerent leaders—to borrow a few of the terms
used by the well-known inclusivist Martin Marty, in his book, The
One and the Many: America’s Struggle for the Common Good (1997) to brand
those who are bold enough to put into practice their own thoughts
on what ought to be the so-called common good.
12
Cornell, “A Muslim to Muslims,” p. 93.
13
Cornell, “A Muslim to Muslims,” p. 92.
To sum up, we can draw on the work of the French political the-
orist Dominique Colas, who was himself commenting on the politi-
cal utility of the slippery rhetorics of “civil society” and “fanatic,”
and conclude that seeing the classroom as a place where we share
personal disclosures and work toward massaging difference and estab-
lishing mutual understandings is a political problem because it “tends
to present political issues as problems of management rather than
as conflicts between various powers and groups with divergent or
antagonistic interests.”14 And it is precisely the limits of meaning and
social identity that we are attempting to manage with our efforts to
prompt students to converse with just some others—efforts that ensure
specific groups remain within arm’s reach while others are kept
securely at arm’s length.
Perhaps you can now understand why I see classes that seek the
goal of conversation, dialogue, self-expression, and mutual under-
standing to be entirely suspect: they leave their descriptive data unthe-
orized and, leaving it untheorized, they implicitly reinforce the object
of study’s status as self-evidently meaningful and sensible. Now, by
“theorize” I simply mean studying all human artifacts, such as par-
ticipant self-reports, as instances of data in need of historicization
and explanatory analysis, and not simply appreciation or dismissal;
for our roles as scholars and teachers is not to be “in touch” with
the people under study, and not to feel their pain, whether or not
we have affinity for them. Failing to subject the descriptive data to
theoretical analysis results in simply adopting uncritically someone
else’s view of themselves and their place within their world. Then,
so long as it complements or enhances our own interests, we merely
perpetuate it uncritically by offering our own story that serves merely
as a repetition of what the participants have already said for them-
selves. Despite the apparently good intentions that inspire those who
seek to be “in touch” with the people they study, scholarship as
repetition strikes me as chauvinistic insomuch as it presumes that
what the speakers have already said for themselves requires our
authorization.
Because I tend to think that our responsibility qua teachers is first
and foremost to that circle of wagons called the discourse of acad-
emia, I advocate a far more humble project for scholarship on human
14
Colas, Civil Society and Fanaticism, p. 40.
behaviors. As phrased by Jack Lightstone—a scholar of Greco-Roman

Judaism who, as far back as 1984 made it evident that he had care-
fully read his Jonathan Z. Smith—one of the basic rules that such
an epistemologically modest study follows is that
the scholar’s own (analytic) taxa must be other than those of the data.
To wholly adopt the subjects’ classifications, unable to move beyond
them in acts of interpretation, is to become a member of the group,
bound by its framework.15
Although scholars study all sorts of human behaviors, that we do not
speak the same language as the people we study, that we do not
swap stories with just anyone, is precisely the point that ought to
attract our attention, prompting us to be curious about why some
encourage us to enter conversations about personal commitments
with our students rather than initiating these same students into what
Tomoko Masuzawa terms “rigorous historical discourse analysis.”16
In trying to minimize difference and conflict by presuming our
identification with just some of the self-reports we study, we miss an
ideal opportunity to make a significant contribution to just such a
rigorous study, one which will tell us much about how uncertain
and contestable social boundaries are managed. And so it is with
this more modest goal in mind that I conclude by citing the last of
Bruce Lincoln’s “Theses on Method”:
When one permits those whom one studies to define the terms in
which they will be understood, suspends one’s interest in the tempo-
ral and contingent, or fails to distinguish between “truths,” “truth-
claims,” and “regimes of truth,” one has ceased to function as historian
or scholar. In that moment, a variety of roles are available. . . . None,
however, should be confused with scholarship.17
15
Lightstone, The Commerce of the Sacred, p. 5.
16
Masuzawa, “From Theology to World Religions: Ernst Troeltsch and the
Making of Religionsgeschichte,” p. 164.
17
Lincoln, “Theses on Method,” p. 227.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
POSTMODERNISM AND THE COMPARATIVE METHOD*
Robert Segal
In the field of religious studies there are four main positions on the
comparative method.
Postmodernism
At one extreme lies the postmodern position, which spurns com-

parison altogether. In light of the postmodernist focus on the unique,
the eccentric, the exotic, the marginal, the neglected, and the excluded,
the “modernist” concern with the general is anathema. The assump-
tions here are that the comparative method seeks only similarities,
that similarities deny differences, that similarities take the items com-
pared out of context, that similarity means identity, that similarities
are invariably superficial, and that similarities are ineluctably invid-
ious. To quote Pauline Marie Rosenau, who distinguishes between
tamer, “affirmative” postmodernists and bolder, “skeptical” ones:
Post-modernists believe that representation encourages generalization,
and in so doing it focuses on identity and fails to appreciate the impor-
tance of difference. . . . The very act of comparing, in an effort to
uncover similarities and differences, is a meaningless activity because
post-modern epistemology holds it impossible ever to define adequately
the elements to be contrasted or likened. The skeptical postmodernists’
reservations about the possibility of generalizing and their emphasis on
difference . . . form the basis of rejecting the comparative method. If,
as they conclude, everything is unique, then the comparative method
is invalid in its attempts to search for and explain similarities and
differences while holding certain dimensions constant (assuming a degree
* A version of this essay was presented at a conference in December 2003 at

Lancaster University on “Religious Studies: What’s the Point?” My colleague Gavin
Hyman gave a forceful rejoinder, defending postmodern criticisms of the compar-
ative method. I thank him for his most helpful comments.
250 robert segal
of sameness in other variables). The affirmative post-modernists, as well,

question the linguistic representation upon which any comparative
statements are necessarily based.1
Here the comparative method serves to find similarities only and is
therefore objectionable.
Seemingly far less radical than one would expect, postmodernist
Mark Taylor acknowledges that comparison can serve to find differ-
ences as well as similarities. More, he considers the quest for sheer
differences no less one-sided than the quest for sheer similarities:
While always involving an interplay between sameness and difference,
the activity of comparison can have as its goal either the reduction of
differences to identity or the establishment of differences that have little
or nothing in common. When carried to extremes, the former approach
leads to a monistic perennial philosophy according to which all religions
are purported [sic] to express the same truth differently, while the latter
issues in a dualistic heresiological model in which true religion is privi-
leged over and set against false religions.2
But the middle ground that Taylor then proposes is in fact the one-
sided quest for sheer differences:
The challenge of effective comparison is to find a mean between these
extremes that allows interpreters to understand differences without eras-
ing them. . . . [I]t is necessary to develop comparative analyses that do
not presuppose universal principles or reinscribe ahistorical essences.
Whether or not it is possible to realize such a comparativist program,
many critics schooled in poststructuralism insist that the very effort to
establish similarities where there appear to be differences is, in the last
analysis, intellectually misleading. . . .3
In other words, would-be similarities cover up irreducible differences.
While Taylor, unlike Rosenau’s postmodernists, is prepared to use
the term “comparative method” for the quest for differences only,
he, too, objects to the method insofar as it seeks similarities. And
his objection is on political as well as intellectual grounds: “When
reason is obsessed with unity, they argue, it tends to become as
hegemonic as political and economic orders constructed to regulate
1
Rosenau, Post-Modernism, pp. 97, 105–6.
2
Taylor, ed., Critical Terms for Religious Studies, p. 14.
3
Taylor, introduction to Taylor, ed., Critical Terms for Religious Studies, pp. 14–15.
postmodernism and the comparative method 251
whatever does not fit into or agree with governing structures.”4 The

distinctiveness of the “other” overrun by the focus on similarities is
imperialistic.
While often spurned by other postmodernists for not going far
enough, Clifford Geertz is really the key postmodernist anti-com-
parativist. Hailing from the social sciences, Geertz bases his opposi-
tion to the comparative method on a broader opposition to an
explanatory approach to culture, of which religion is a part. To be
sure, he does not, like conventional postmodernists, equate “explana-
tory” with “scientific.” Rather, he pits explanatory social science against
interpretive social science, which he espouses. By an interpretive approach
to culture, Geertz means many things, but one thing he means is
the primacy of the particular over the general, or of differences over
similarities. By an explanatory approach to culture he means the pri-
macy of the general over the particular.
Geertz opposes generalizations on multiple grounds. They are inac-
curate and tendentious. They are somehow inseparable from the par-
ticulars that yield them and, when separated, prove to be banal or
empty: “Theoretical formulations [i.e., generalizations] hover so low
over the [particularistic] interpretations they govern that they don’t
make much sense or hold much interest apart from them. . . . [S]tated
independently of their [particularistic] applications, they seem either
commonplace or vacant.”5
Above all for Geertz, generalizations miss the distinctiveness of the
particulars they amass:
Within the bloated categories of regime description, Feudalism or
Colonialism, Late Capitalism or The World System, Neo-Monarchy
or Parliamentary Militarism, there is a resident suchness, deep Moroc-
canicity, inner Indonesianness, struggling to get out. Such a concep-
tion of things is usually called nationalism. That is certainly not wrong,
but, another bloated category, grouping the ungroupable and blurring
distinctions internally felt, it is less definite than it seems. Every quid-
dity has its own form of suchness, and no one who comes to Morocco
or Indonesia to find out what goes on there is likely to confuse them
with each other or to be satisfied with elevated banalities about com-
mon humanity or a universal need for self-expression.6
4
Taylor, ed., Critical Terms for Religious Studies, p. 15.
5
Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures, p. 25.
6
Geertz, After the Fact, p. 23.
252 robert segal
It is in the particular and not in the general that the significance of

any cultural phenomenon lies:
[T]he notion that the essence of what it means to be human is most
clearly revealed in those features of human culture that are universal
rather than in those that are distinctive to this people or that is a prej-
udice we are not necessarily obliged to share. Is it in grasping such
general facts—that man has everywhere some sort of “religion”—or
in grasping the richness of this religious phenomenon or that—Balinese
trance or Indian ritualism, Aztec human sacrifice or Zuñi rain-dancing
that we grasp him? Is the fact that “marriage” is universal (if it is) as
penetrating a comment on what we are as the facts concerning Himalayan
polyandry, or those fantastic Australian marriage rules, or the elaborate
bride-price systems of Bantu Africa?7
What the proper place of generalization is, Geertz never makes clear.
At his most exasperated, he rejects generalizations altogether, even
though he himself employs them in contrasting one case of religion
or of marriage to another. More often, he limits generalizations to
identifying the categories under which particulars fall. Still other
times, he allows generalizations to determine the “cause” but not
the “meaning” of particulars. What counts is that his opposition to
generalizations is his opposition to the comparative method.8
Controlled Comparativism
The second position, less radical and much older, allows for com-
parisons, but on only a regional or local rather than worldwide scale.
The comparisons permitted are called “controlled” comparisons.9
This kind of comparativism regularly takes place among, for exam-
ple, scholars of the ancient Near East, where ancient Israel is com-
pared with ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia—but not with some place
in Asia. Thus even though biblicist S. H. Hooke is prepared to use
7
Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, p. 43.
8
On Geertz’s interpretivism, including his fluctuating position on generalizations,
see my Explaining and Interpreting Religion (New York: Lang, 1992), pp. 77–101; “Weber
and Geertz on the Meaning of Religion,” Religion 29 (1999): 61–71; and “Clifford
Geertz’s Interpretive Approach to Religion,” in Selected Readings in the Anthropology of
Religion, edited by Stephen D. Glazier and Charles A. Flowerday (Westport, CT:
Praeger, 2003), pp. 17–34.
9
See Eggan, “Social Anthropology, pp. 743–63; p. 754.
the term “primitive” to characterize the stage of civilization in the

circumscribed area of Egypt and Mesopotamia, he objects to the use
of the term for any universal human stage:
Now the expression “primitive man” is almost as vague as the phrase
“the man in the street”. . . . The only kind of behaviour or mentality
which we can recognize as “primitive” in the strict sense is such as can
be shown to lie historically at the fountain-head of a civilization. The
earliest civilizations known to us are those of Egypt and Mesopotamia,
and the earliest evidence which we can gather concerning the beliefs
and practices there prevalent constitutes for us what is “primitive” in
the historical [rather than evaluative] sense.10
The assumptions here are, again, that the comparative method iden-
tifies only similarities but that narrow comparisons are acceptable
because they presuppose the distinctiveness —the uniqueness, the in-
comparability—of the area or element within which the cases being
compared lie. Hooke attributes the kindred beliefs and practices in
the ancient Near East to circumstances that would seemingly be, or
have been, worldwide, yet the “myth and ritual pattern” that he
works out is nevertheless confined to the ancient Near East:
When we examine these early modes of behaviour we find that their
originators were not occupied with general questions concerning the
world but with certain practical and pressing problems of daily life.
There were the main problems of securing the means of subsistence,
to keep the sun and moon doing their duty, to ensure the regular
flooding of the Nile, to maintain the bodily vigour of the king who
was the embodiment of the prosperity of the community. . . . In order
to meet these needs the early inhabitants of Egypt and Mesopotamia
developed a set of customary actions directed towards a definite end.
Thus the coronation of the king, both in Egypt and Babylon, con-
sisted of a regular pattern of actions, of things prescribed to be done,
whose purpose was to fit the king completely to be the source of the
well-being of the community. This is the sense in which we shall use
the term “ritual”. . . . Moreover, we find that these early ritual patterns
consisted not only of things done but of things said. . . . In general the
spoken part of a ritual consists of a description of what is being done,
it is the story which the ritual enacts. This is the sense in which the
term “myth” is used in our discussion.11
10
Hooke, “Myth and Ritual Pattern,” pp. 1–14; pp. 1–2.
11
Hooke, “Myth and Ritual Pattern,” pp. 2–3.
254 robert segal
There is a double irony in Hooke’s procedure. First, the source of

his regional pattern is J. G. Frazer’s theory of “primitive” religion
worldwide.12 To keep his comparativism regional, Hooke must attribute
similarities within the area to physical proximity and thereby to
diffusion rather, than, like Frazer, to independent invention. Once,
but only once, the distinctiveness of the ancient Near East is pre-
supposed, can similarities within it safely be sought. Second, even
the most circumscribed comparisons do not fend off particularistic
critics. Some critics of Hooke asserted that Egypt and Mesopotamia
were distinct from each other.13 William Foxwell Albright and his
followers asserted, even more forcefully, that Israel was distinct from
both. Hooke’s regional comparativism was itself used to highlight the
differences between, especially, Israel and its “pagan” neighbors.
Books with titles like The Old Testament Against its Environment, by a
student of Albright’s, say it all.14
New Comparativism
A third, more recent position allows anew for universal comparisons,

but only when differences as well as similarities are sought. This
position, which dubs itself the “new comparativism,” assumes that
older comparativism—though not, as with the first two positions,
comparison per se—seeks only similarities, that similarities exclusively
are invariably superficial, and that similarities exclusively are unavoid-
ably invidious. To quote William Paden, one of the better-known
new comparativists:
12
Hooke, limiting himself to Frazer’s later, intellectualist, anti-ritualist view of
“primitives” and of myth, sets his own view against Frazer’s. But in fact Hooke’s
whole myth and ritual pattern comes from earlier, ritualist Frazer. On Hooke’s
actual beholdenness to Frazer, see my edited Myth and Ritual Theory, pp. 5–7, 83.
13
Egyptologist Henri Frankfort stresses the differences between Egypt and
Mesopotamia: “It is now, I hope, also evident that the similarities between Egypt
and Mesopotamia are by no means more important than their differences” (The
Problem of Similarity, p. 17). See also his Kingship and the Gods.
14
Among those responding to Hooke, Mowinckel argues for a weaker case of
Hooke’s pattern in Israel: see his The Psalms; He That Cometh, ch. 3. Albright
differentiates Israelite monotheism from the conceptions of god in all surrounding
cultures, including the worship of Akhenaten, and attributes the distinctively Israelite
conception to the genius of Moses: see his From the Stone Age to Christianity, pp. 249–72.
To ensure the avoidance of theological miscegenation, Albright rejects evolution as
the source of Israelite monotheism. In so doing, he reinforces the linkage between
One of the most serious criticisms of the older comparativisms was

that they obliterated local meanings and contexts. . . . If it is similarity
which makes a comparative analysis possible, . . . it is difference which
makes it interesting. A central purpose of comparison should be to
expose the diversity of the variant objects it compares.15
The new comparativism does not merely permit the quest for differences
but demands it. And clearly, difference is the point of comparison.
Doubtless the most engaging practitioner of new comparativism
was Ninian Smart, but he himself never used the term and was tem-
peramentally too irenic to push for any dogmatic commitment to
the method. Rather, his own delight in spotting both unexpected
similarities and stalwart differences among religions evinces new com-
parativism at its best.
The most celebrated advocate of “new comparativism,” though
himself not using the term either, is Jonathan Z. Smith. Against “old
comparativism,” likewise a term not used by him, he asserts that
similarity is not identity, that difference therefore remains, and that,
as for Paden, difference is the point of comparativism:
It is axiomatic that comparison is never a matter of identity. Comparison
requires the acceptance of difference as the grounds of its being inter-
esting, and a methodological manipulation of that difference to achieve
some stated cognitive end. The questions of comparison are questions
of judgment with respect to difference: What differences are to be
maintained in the interest of comparative inquiry? What differences
can be defensibly relaxed and relativized in light of the intellectual
tasks at hand?16
old comparativism and evolution. Wright puts forcefully his Albright-inspired rejec-
tion of, at once, old comparativism and evolution: “The purpose of the lectures is
to examine and lay emphasis upon those central elements of Biblical faith which
are so unique and sui generis that they cannot have developed by any natural evo-
lutionary process from the pagan world in which they appeared. . . . It is the con-
tention of this monograph that the faith of Israel even in its earliest and basic forms
is so utterly different from that of the contemporary polytheisms that one simply
cannot explain it fully by evolutionary or environmental categories” (The Old Testament,
p. 7). Undeniably, for Frazer comparativism is tied to evolution, but old compar-
ativism per se is not, so that old comparativism cannot be facilely rejected, as it
often is, on the grounds that some practitioners of it assume evolution: see my “In
Defense of the Comparative Method,” pp. 339–74; pp. 346–47.
15
Paden, “Elements of a New Comparativism,” pp. 5–14; pp. 8–9.
16
Smith, To Take Place, pp. 13–14.
256 robert segal
Against postmodernism, Smith asserts that the quest for uniqueness

is as vain as the opposite: the search for identity. By nature, unique-
ness precludes comparison:
Uniqueness denies the possibility of comparison and taxonomy; [by
contrast,] the individual [i.e., the particular] requires comparative and
classificatory endeavors. Uniqueness prevents science and cognition;
the individual invites the same. To put this another way, absolute differ-
ence is not a category for thought but one that denies the possibility of
thought.17
For Smith, new comparativism, unlike old, avoids identity by seeking
differences as well as similarities. Unlike postmodernism, new compar-
ativism avoids uniqueness by seeking similarities as well as differences.
Old Comparativism
The fourth and final position in religious studies today is that of

“old comparativism,” or what used to be called simply “The Com-
parative Method.” Here comparisons are universal, and the quest
can, though not must, be for sheer similarities. The exemplar of old
comparativism is J. G. Frazer. Old, or traditional, comparativism
would spurn the criticisms of the other three positions. The critic-
isms, it would be said, do not apply even to Frazer, let alone to old
comparativism itself. This fourth, stalwart position has few defenders
in contemporary religious studies.18 I am not displeased to number
myself among them.
Hoariness of the Positions

Apart from the persuasiveness of the four positions, none of them
is new. Old comparativism is truly old, going back at least to Aristotle.
Postmodernism is also as old as ancient Greek skepticism. In the
fifth century BC, Herodotus employed the equivalent of new com-
parativism to find differences—differences between his fellow Greeks
and the often eccentric and exotic “other.” True, he was hopelessly
17
Smith, To Take Place, pp. 34–35.
18
Eilberg-Schwartz seeks to revive the comparison of ancient Judaism with “prim-
itive” religions. Yet the brand of comparativism that he proposes amounts to new
comparativism, albeit with as much emphasis on similarities as on differences. See
his The Savage in Judaism.
politically incorrect and presumed that the Greeks alone were civi-
lized and that all others, especially Persians, were barbarian, but it
was the differences that he nevertheless sought. Furthermore, he did
not simply note the differences but accounted for them: the superi-
ority of Greek, or at least Athenian, culture stemmed from its demo-
cratic form of government, whereas the inferiority of its nemesis,
Persia, stemmed from its tyranny.
Somewhat closer to our time, new comparativism was practiced
magisterially more than a century ago by William Robertson Smith.
In his Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (1889) Smith compared
ancient Semitic religion with “primitive” religion to show at once
the similarities and the differences. Where the younger, if still old-
style, comparativist Frazer sought to show only the similarities between
primitive religion and Christianity, new-style comparativist Smith
sought to show the differences as well. He wanted to show how far
Christianity, which in its ancient, pre-Christian, Semitic form was
primitive-like, had advanced beyond its primitive roots. And he, too,
accounted for the differences—by a mix of internal and external fac-
tors. Contrary to some new comparativists, the new comparativism
did not arise merely a few decades ago in reaction to Mircea Eliade’s
presumably old-style comparativism.
Defending the Comparative Method

Elsewhere I have defended the comparative method against the
assumptions made by controlled comparativists and by new compara-
tivists: that the only proper similarities are regional rather than universal
(controlled comparativism) and that differences are more important than
similarities (new comparativism). I have enlisted the grand cause of
William Robertson Smith both to show that regional comparisons
are not at odds with universal ones and to show that the quest for
similarities is not at odds with the quest for differences.19
Now I want to defend the comparative method against the much
stronger assumption made by postmodernists: that the quest for sim-
ilarities is in itself objectionable. I have previously enlisted J. G. Frazer
in defense of old comparativism against controlled comparativism
19
See my “In Defense of the Comparative Method,” pp. 363–72.
258 robert segal
and new comparativism.20 Now I want to enlist him anew in defense

of old comparativism against postmodernism.
Postmodern Objections to the Comparative Method

From a postmodern viewpoint, the quest for similarities sought by
old comparativism is objectionable because the quest:
(1) ignores differences

(2) confuses similarity with identity
(3) generalizes too broadly
(4) generalizes prematurely
(5) takes phenomena out of context
(6) generalizes at all.
All of these objections are in fact misconceptions, either about com-

parison or about knowledge itself.21
(1) Ignoring Differences

First, to compare phenomena is simply to match them up. It is
scarcely to dictate what will be found. It is therefore scarcely to dic-
tate finding only similarities. Indeed, to compare phenomena is neces-
sarily to find differences as well as similarities. Even if one were seeking
only similarities, one would know that one had found them all only
at the point at which no further differences could be converted into
similarities. Consequently, one can as readily use the comparative
method to find differences as use it to find similarities. Geertz himself
compares Indonesia with Morocco to illuminate the differences between
them:
The dissimilitudes of Morocco and Indonesia do not separate them
into absolute types, the sociological equivalent of natural kinds; they
reflect back and forth upon one another, mutually framing, recipro-
cally clarifying. Or so they seem to do for me. I learned more about
Indonesia when, shaken by the disturbances of the mid-sixties, I decided
it the better part of valor to work in Morocco, than I would have had
I gone back then directly to Indonesia. And I learned more about
20
See my “In Defense of the Comparative Method,” pp. 359–62.
21
The following section is a revised version of my “In Defense of the Comparative
Method,” pp. 348–58.
Morocco when, after things had settled down again in the seventies,
I returned, not without trepidation, to Indonesia, than I would have
by confining myself, as beginning to find my feet in another civiliza-
tion, I was tempted to do, thenceforth to North Africa.22
The comparative method can thus be used by those who seek differ-
ences—postmodernists and new comparativists—as well as by those
who seek similarities—controlled comparativists and old comparativists.
(2) Confusing Similarity with Identity

Second, it is a logical truism that any two entities, however much
alike, are still distinct. Therefore the comparison of phenomena can
never yield identity, only similarity. Even to seek only similarities is
not to eliminate differences. Conversely, to seek only differences—a
typically defensive reaction by those fearful of comparison—is not to
eradicate similarities. The options are neither wholesale identity nor
total uniqueness but only further similarities or further differences.
But to argue that the comparative method can be used to find
either differences or similarities or even both is not to argue that
the method must be used to find both—as if the quest for either
alone were improper. It is against the assumption that the method
not merely can but must be used to find differences—whether
differences as well as similarities (new comparativism) or differences
in place of similarities (postmodernism)—that I am arguing.
Those who seek sheer similarities not only cannot but do not deny
differences. They deny the importance of differences. To counter vaunted
similarities with sheer differences is, then, to miss the point. To argue
from the fact of differences, which are never denied, to the impor-
tance of them is to beg the question: why are differences more significant
than similarities? The argument in favor of similarities—that simi-
larities are weightier than differences—may be question-begging, but
so is the argument in favor of differences—that differences are deeper
than similarities. What “privileges” difference, as Derrida would put
it, is the assumption, which requires defending, that difference is
deeper than similarity. Contrary to Geertz, the question whether the
universality of marriage is “as penetrating a comment on what we
22
Geertz, After the Fact, p. 28. See also Geertz, Islam Observed.
260 robert segal
are as the facts concerning Himalayan polyandry, or those fantastic

Australian marriage rules, or the elaborate bride-price systems of
Bantu Africa” is not rhetorical. In any case the comparative method
itself establishes only the fact, not the importance, of either similar-
ities or differences.
(3) Generalizing Too Broadly

Third, any two phenomena are comparable. Comparisons are use-
ful or useless, not right or wrong, not too broad or too narrow. It
is fallacious to assert, for example, that earliest Christianity is com-
parable only with other religions of late antiquity and not with prim-
itive religions. Controlled comparativism rests on this fallacy. (The
premise that comparison yields only similarities is also fallacious.)
The point of a comparison determines the proper scale. If one wants
to understand why people X practice animal sacrifice, a comparison
with a people who do not practice it would ordinarily, though not
invariably, be too broad. But a comparison with any other people
who practice it would likely not be.
(4) Generalizing Prematurely

Fourth, comparisons are always considered provisional, not conclu-
sive. Comparisons are subject to correction or abandonment, as new
facts arise. The failure of existing generalizations is scarcely an argu-
ment against generalizations per se. Moreover, one will never be
able to identify all the cases of animal sacrifice or all the informa-
tion about all of those cases. How would one even know if one had?
It is a rudimentary fallacy of explanation—the so-called Baconian,
or inductivist, fallacy—to oppose drawing conclusions until all the
knowable facts are “in.” Because generalizations are recognized as
tentative, the comparative method does not generalize prematurely.
If it does, then even noncomparativist conclusions about people X
alone are also premature, for here, too, all the knowable facts are
never “in.” And the facts do not include causes, which are inferred.
(5) Taking Phenomena Out of Context

Fifth, proper comparisons do not take phenomena out of context.
The attentiveness to differences by new comparativists and the restric-
tion of comparisons to contiguous regions by controlled comparativists
are meant to be antidotes to the disregard of context. But in actual-
ity proper comparisons not only do not but cannot take phenomena
out of their contexts. To be able to compare the offering of animal

sacrifices by people X with the offering of the same by people Y,
one had better be sure that both peoples do indeed kill animals and
offer them to their gods to win their gods’ favor. From where but
the context can this information be secured?
Frazer, who is routinely castigated for supposedly tearing cases out
of context, himself emphasizes the centrality of context:
The [anthropological] method is neither more nor less than induc-
tion. . . . And the first condition of a sound induction is exact observation.
What we want, therefore, in this branch of science is, first and foremost,
full, true, and precise accounts of savage and barbarous peoples based
on personal observation. Such accounts are best given by men who
have lived for many years among the peoples, have won their confidence,
and can converse with them familiarly in their native language. . . . 23
Sounding just like his critics, Frazer declares that “Hardly anything
impairs the value of observations of a particular people so much as
the interpolation of comparisons with other peoples. . . .”24 Worried
that comparison prior to observation will contaminate the observation,
Frazer insists that “Every observer of a savage or barbarous people
should describe it as if no other people existed on the face of the
earth”—that is, in its particularity. Frazer permits the observer to
be a comparativist as well, but only if the activities are kept separate:
The business of comparison is not for him [i.e., the observer], at least
not for him in the capacity of observer; if he desires to draw com-
parisons with other peoples, as he is of course at liberty to do, he
should keep his comparisons strictly apart from his observations: mix-
ture of the two is, if not absolutely fatal, at least a great impediment
to the utility of both.25
Far, then, from comparing phenomena severed from their contexts,
the comparative method compares phenomena in their contexts. How,
then, can old comparativists be guilty of having “obliterated local
meanings and contexts,” to quote again new comparativist Paden?
23
Frazer, “The Scope and Method of Mental Anthropology,” pp. 580–94; p. 588.
24
Frazer, “The Scope and Method of Mental Anthropology,” p. 590.
25
Frazer, “The Scope and Method of Mental Anthropology,” p. 590.
262 robert segal
What might seem to be taking phenomena out of context is in

fact mere selectiveness. Insofar as the object of comparison is ani-
mal sacrifices, much else about the peoples compared will properly
be ignored as irrelevant—and not “obliterated” though relevant. Even
an analysis of the animal sacrifices of people X alone will ignore
many aspects of their lives that have no bearing on the topic of
hand. The difference between the selectiveness of a generalist and
that of a particularist is only one of degree. The broader the scale
of a comparison, the more selective the elements compared will be—
this in order to encompass all cases. But selection is not oblitera-
tion. If one is comparing animal sacrifices worldwide, one will disregard
the differences between one form of animal sacrifice and another.
But to select only common elements from all the cases is not to
ignore the context, which is still indispensable for determining the
existence of animal sacrifice in each case.
(6) Generalizing at all

Sixth and most of all, comparison is not merely permissible but
indispensable. To understand any phenomenon, however specific, is
to identify it and to account for it. To identify something is to place
it in a category, and to account for it is to account for the category
of which it is a member. Both procedures are thus inescapably
comparativist.26
Suppose one wants to know why people X—just people X—
practice animal sacrifice, and suppose one ascertains from people X
that they offer animal sacrifices to their gods because they believe
that sacrifices will win their gods’ favor. One then claims that peo-
ple X offer animal sacrifices for this reason. But presupposed in the
claim that people X offer animal sacrifices because they believe that
they will thereby win their gods’ favor is the claim that other peoples
who believe that their gods’ favor can be won through animal sacrifices
26
On the connection between categorization and explanation see Mayr and
Ashlock, Principles of Systematic Zoology, pp. 124–25; Hempel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation,
pp. 453–57. A most helpful example of the connection between the two is that of
medical diagnosis, which is cited by not only Hempel and others but also Geertz,
who, however, ironically invokes it as a would-be illustration of sheer categoriza-
tion—one of the ways he tries to distinguish interpretation from explanation: see
The Interpretation of Cultures, pp. 26–27.
will also offer them. Otherwise why do people X offer them? To

propose the belief as a sufficient explanation of people X’s offering
animal sacrifices is to presuppose a generalization, however obvious,
about other peoples: that they are prepared to give up valuable pos-
sessions to their gods because they believe that it pays to do so. This
generalization about the practical, vested motivation of other peo-
ples alone accounts for the behavior of people X in particular.27
Take the case of the French Revolution. Suppose one claims, on
the basis of an intensive study of French urban poor, that the urban
poor revolted because the price of bread kept rising. Built into this
claim, even if offered only about the French case, is the generalized
claim that whenever the price of bread rises, people will revolt.
Otherwise what explains why the French revolted? Because they were
French? That answer is circular. Because they were hungry? But
then one is explaining the French Revolution in particular by appeal
to the generalization, however self-evident, that when people are
hungry enough, they will revolt. If one replies that by no means all
peoples revolt when the price of bread or of food generally rises,
then the purported explanation of the French case is inadequate, for
something more than the rising price of bread must have been the
cause in that case if the rising price is not sufficient to spur revolt
every time. Whatever else is added—hatred of the monarchy, despair
over the prospect of reform, agitation by the press—constitutes a
sufficient explanation of the French Revolution only if it also con-
stitutes a sufficient explanation of every other revolution. If these
same circumstances do not produce revolution every time, then they
inadequately account for revolution any time.
Apply this argument to animal sacrifice. Suppose, again, one claims,
on the basis of a meticulous study of people X, that they sacrifice
animals to their gods because they believe that they will thereby win
their gods’ favor. Built into this claim about people X is the gener-
alization that whenever people believe they can win their gods’ favor
27
The locus classicus of this view of explanation is Popper, The Logic of Scientific
Discovery, section 12. The locus classicus of the view that the explanation of human
events is of the particular is Collingwood, The Idea of History. For decades, the
generalist Hempel and the particularist William Dray debated. For references, see
my “In Defense of the Comparative Method,” p. 355 n. 28.
264 robert segal
by animal sacrifices, they will do so. If one replies that not all peo-
ples who believe that their gods’ favor can be won by animal sacrifice
proceed to practice it, then the explanation is inadequate even for
people X. For something else must be at work to account for why
people X proceed with the sacrifices when other peoples who share
the belief in the efficacy of animal sacrifice do not. What must be
added can range from, say, the desperation of people X to win their
gods’ favor to the inexpensiveness of their sacrifices. Whatever else
suffices to account for the case of people X does so only if it also
suffices to account for the sacrifices of other peoples in the same cir-
cumstances as well.
Several anticipated objections can readily be met. It might be
argued that other peoples offer animal sacrifices for different rea-
sons. Suppose a study of people Y reveals that they offer animal
sacrifices out of duty rather than out of a calculated payoff. But that
discovery is no argument against the proposed explanation for peo-
ple X, for the claim made about them is intended to provide only
a sufficient, not a necessary, explanation. The claim is not that the
only reason for animal sacrifice is the calculation that it pays but that
whenever the calculation exists, there will be animal sacrifices. Most
explanations of human behavior and even of physical events are
intended to be at best merely sufficient, not necessary, ones.28 Ordi-
narily, there are too many possible causes of the same behavior to
be able to stipulate necessary ones. People may revolt for many rea-
sons. They need not be famished to do so.29
Conversely, it might be argued that even would-be sufficient gen-
eralizations invariably fail to suffice. Suppose a study of people Z
discloses that they, like people X, believe that animal sacrifices will win
28
To be sure, some explanations of human behavior claim to be only necessary.
Émile Durkheim’s sociology of religion is so much more extreme than Max Weber’s
because Durkheim claims to be providing sufficient as well as necessary causes of
religion, where Weber claims to be providing only necessary ones. David Hume
maintained that explanations must be necessary as well as sufficient. John Stuart
Mill argued that they need only be sufficient.
29
Franz Boas’ objection to the comparative method is exactly that, according to
him, it presumes to provide necessary as well as sufficient causes. Boas insists that
the same effects often stem from different causes, so that no one cause is necessary.
See “Limitations of the Comparative Method,” pp. 901–8; (rpt. Boas, Race, Language,
and Culture [New York: Macmillan, 1940], pp. 270–80).
their gods’ favor, are desperate to gain that favor, and can readily
afford the sacrifices. Yet suppose that even so, they, in contrast to
people X, do not make the sacrifices. Obviously, the explanation of
people X thereby proves insufficient and must be supplemented to
account for their proceeding to make sacrifices. But suppose, further,
that no matter how many additions are made, the explanation still
fails to account for the difference between people X’s behavior and
people Z’s. The proper conclusion to be drawn is not that the reasons
for people X’s behavior are mysterious but that the reasons are so
numerous or so complex that no other people will likely share them
all. Most explanations of human behavior and even of physical events
are intended as less than sufficient ones.30 Most often, they are offered
as merely probabilistic.31 The claim is that whenever the conditions
named occur, the behavior will likely, not inevitably, occur, and the
degree of likelihood can even be less than 50%. No matter how
famished people are, not all and maybe not even most will revolt.
Finally, it might be argued that even necessary and sufficient gen-
eralizations are irrelevant because the behavior itself is unique. Suppose
that only people X offer animal sacrifices. Or suppose that only peo-
ple X offer sacrifices of a particular animal, one found only in their
locale. But the uniqueness of their case is merely a historical con-
tingency. The explanation offered of their unique case would still
have to hold, even if as less than a sufficient explanation, for any
other people in the same circumstances who also offered animal
sacrifices, of any kind or of a specific kind. The comparative method
is often confused with the assumption of universals—as if it stands
30
As Ernest Nagel writes, “The search for explanations is directed to the ideal
of ascertaining the necessary and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of phenomena.
This ideal is rarely achieved, however, and even in the best-developed natural sci-
ences it is often an open question whether the conditions mentioned in an explanation
are indeed sufficient” (“Some Issues,” pp. 162–69; p. 167).
31
As Wesley C. Salmon writes of modern physics, “Some first-rate physicists are
presently working to find a deterministic theory to replace the current quantum
mechanics, one by which it will be possible to explain what now seems irreducibly
statistical by means of ‘hidden variables’ that cannot occur in the present theory.
No one can say for sure whether they will succeed; any new theory, deterministic or
indeterministic, has to stand the test of experiment. The current quantum theory
does show, however, that the world may be fundamentally and irremediably inde-
terministic, for according to the best currently available knowledge, it is” (“Determinism
and Indeterminism, pp. 321–26; p. 321).
266 robert segal
committed to similarities not merely across any cultures but across all
cultures. In actuality, the method requires the search for multiple instances
of a phenomenon but allows for the discovery of even just one. Still,
unless the explanation given of people X would apply to any other
people in kindred conditions who did offer these sacrifices, the expla-
nation fails to explain even the sole case to date of people X.
In short, the way to understand people X is not merely by myopi-
cally studying them more and more. It is also by studying other peo-
ples as well. One cannot, in postmodern fashion, ignore other peoples
and focus only on people X. One cannot say blithely that one cares
only about people X or, like Geertz, that the differences between
people X and other peoples are more profound than the similarities.
Even if one is interested only in the particular, similarities are indis-
pensable, both in categorizing, for example, the French Revolution
as a revolution and in accounting for it. Geertz himself employs sim-
ilarities even in the effort to articulate the distinctiveness of the cul-
tures he has studied. Without such favorite categories as culture,
ethos, world view, ritual, social change, ideology, revolution, nationalism,
politics, person, art, and law, he would be rendered speechless.
The comparative method amounts to more than the juxtaposition
of phenomena. It means the identification of a common category
for those phenomena. That identification spurs either the application or
the discovery of a common explanation of that category. While the com-
parative method can be used to find differences as well as similarities,
the method itself seeks similarities and finds differences only where the
similarities cease. Put another way, new comparativists must be old
comparativists as well. And postmodernists must be comparativists, too.
Frazer’s Old Comparativism
In his Folk-lore in the Old Testament (1918) J. G. Frazer seeks to show

the primitive character of a seemingly advanced culture:
Despite the high moral and religious development of the ancient
Hebrews, there is no reason to suppose that they formed an excep-
tion to this general law. They, too, had probably passed through a
stage of barbarism and even of savagery; and this probability, based
on the analogy of other races, is confirmed by an examination of their
literature, which contains many references to beliefs and practices that
can hardly be explained except on the supposition that they are rudi-
mentary survivals from a far lower level of culture. It is to the illustration
and explanation of a few such relics of ruder times, as they are preserved
like fossils in the Old Testament, that I have addressed myself in the
present work. . . . The instrument for the detection of savagery under
civilization is the comparative method. . . .32
Frazer’s procedure is to note some odd belief, practice, or incident
in the Bible that the Bible itself fails to explain. He then turns to
comparable cases around the world, makes sense of them, and applies
that “solution” to the biblical case. Only the similarities, not the
differences, between Israelite and primitive religion faze him. Because
the similarities are with primitive religion, Israelite religion is reduced
to a primitive religion and, even more, to the yet earlier practice of
magic.
For example, Frazer is struck by the Israelite fear of a census in
2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21, which recounts 2 Samuel. While
on other occasions the census is not feared, in 2 Samuel God is said
to be angry with Israel beforehand and orders King David to con-
duct a census in retaliation. Not only God but also David and his
general Joab know that harm will thereby befall Israel. Joab objects
to his king’s order but is overruled. No sooner is the census com-
pleted than David himself regrets the deed and asks God, who had
instructed him to undertake the census, for forgiveness for having
undertaken it! God offers David three forms of punishment, and
David chooses one: three days of plague, which kills 70,000 Israelites.
A true Hobson’s choice! To quote 2 Samuel 24.1–15:
Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited
David against them, saying, “Go, count the people of Israel and Judah.”
So the king said to Joab and the commanders of the army, who
were with him, “Go through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to
Beer-sheba, and take a census of the people, so that I may know how
many there are.” . . . So Joab and the commanders of the army went
out from the presence of the king to take a census of the people of
Israel. . . . But afterward, David was stricken to the heart because he
had numbered the people. David said to the Lord, “I have sinned
greatly in what I have done. But now, O Lord, I pray you, take away
the guilt of your servant; for I have done very foolishly.” When David
rose in the morning, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad,
David’s seer, saying, “Go and say to David: Thus says the Lord: Three
things I offer you; choose one of them, and I will do it to you.” So
32
Frazer, Folk-lore, I, pp. vii–viii.
268 robert segal
Gad came to David and told him; he asked him, “Shall three years
of famine come to you on your land? Or will you flee three months
before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’
pestilence in your land? Now consider, and decide what answer I shall
return to the one who sent me.” Then David said to Gad, “I am in
great distress; let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is
great; but let me not fall into human hands.” So the Lord sent a pesti-
lence on Israel from that morning until the appointed time; and sev-
enty thousand of the people died, from Dan to Beer-sheba.
David then performs a triple penance, and God ends the plague. In
the version of the incident in Chronicles it is Satan, not God, who
prods David into taking the census. God there merely punishes Israel
for the census and does not initiate it.
Incontestably, Frazer skirts many aspects of the event: why either
God or Satan is angry with Israel; why God or Satan resorts to the
census as the way of getting back at Israel; why David, knowing bet-
ter, nevertheless carries out the census; why God offers David a
choice of punishments; and why David chooses the punishment that
he does. But Frazer does not claim to be answering these questions
and so cannot be faulted for failing to answer them. He claims to
be answering only one central question: why the census is feared.
He cites case after case in which primitive and peasant peoples fear
that counting something will lead to the loss of it:
The objection which Jehovah, or rather the Jews, entertained to the
taking of a census appears to be simply a particular case of the gen-
eral aversion which many ignorant people feel to allowing themselves,
their cattle, or their possessions to be counted. This curious superstition—
for such it is—seems to be common among the black races of Africa.
For example, among the Bakongo, of the Lower Congo, “it is con-
sidered extremely unlucky for a woman to count her children one,
two, three, and so on, for the evil spirits will hear and take some of
them away by death. The people themselves do not like to be counted;
for they fear that counting will draw to them the attention of the evil
spirits, and as a result of the counting some of them will soon die.”
. . . Similar superstitions are to be found in Europe and in our own
country to this day. . . . On the whole we may assume, with a fair
degree of probability, that the objection which the Jews in King David’s
time felt to the taking of a census rested on no firmer foundation than
sheer superstition, which may have been confirmed by an outbreak of
plague immediately after the numbering of the people.33
33
Frazer, Folk-lore in the Old Testament, II, pp. 557–63.
In other words, the superstition rests on the commission of the post

hoc, propter hoc fallacy.
In the Bible itself counting is sinful: it incurs divine wrath. In
Frazer’s primitive examples it is unlucky: it automatically sets off malev-
olent forces. By Frazer’s distinction, the effect of counting is magical,
not religious, so that what in the Bible is manifestly a religious objec-
tion is for Frazer a magical one. God becomes a mechanical force
unleashed by the counting rather than the agent of the plague. He
is like a genie released from a bottle.
Lamentably, Frazer never specifies how counting subjects its victims
to harm. Most likely, knowing the number of a group is akin to
knowing its name, which is equivalent to possessing a portion of it,
which by Frazer’s second law of magic is equivalent to possessing it
all. Whoever learns the census total thereby controls the subject and
can inflict harm on it by doing something to the name, which in
magic is regarded as tangible. God does not initiate the counting.
It is not clear who does. Nor is it clear who the magician is.
There is nothing objectionable in Frazer’s version of the comparative
method. He is not claiming that the Israelite case is identical with
the other ones, only similar. Rather than denying any differences,
he is simply interested in the similarities. Rather than taking either
the Israelite case or the parallel ones out of their contexts, he first
establishes them as cases of fear of a census. He then invokes the
magical fear of counting as the common explanation of the cases.
He offers his analysis “with a fair degree of probability,” not with
certainty. He is able to make sense of the Israelite case because he
is able to make sense of so many similar cases. The Israelite census
was likely feared for magical reasons because elsewhere censuses have
been feared for magical reasons.
Frazer’s use of the comparative method doubtless seems extreme
because his analysis of the Davidic case does not merely commit
him to a generalization but is itself the application of the general-
ization. This distinction is, however, false. Suppose Frazer were expli-
cating the Davidic case internally. He would still be explicating it
on the basis of a tacit generalization. His argument that the Israelites
opposed censuses because they believed that counting unleashed
malevolent forces would still rest on the generalization that when-
ever people believe that a census will unleash malevolent forces, they
will fear it. Frazer would simply already have reached that general-
ization before studying the Israelite case. In truth, Frazer has reached
270 robert segal
that conclusion before opening the Bible. In presenting himself as

initially puzzled, he is being rhetorical. He is presenting himself as
an innocent, even devout reader of the Bible who cannot make sense
of the story internally and must therefore turn to parallel cases to
do so. But even if he were genuinely puzzled, he would not be
exceeding the limits of the comparative method by enlisting it to
explicate a particular case as well as to justify the explication by
appeal to the generalization. At the same time the generalization
must fit the Israelite case, and one can maintain that by Frazer’s
own distinction, the case seems to be more magical than religious,
for the fear is more of God’s decision to punish than of the unleash-
ing of a mechanical force.
The issue, however, is not whether Frazer’s analysis is persuasive.
The issue is whether he is entitled to analyze the Israelite case cross-
culturally—i.e., comparatively. I claim that he is and that he is guilty
of none of the charges made against old comparativists by controlled
comparativists, by new comparativists, or above all by postmoderns.
If even he, the epitome of old comparativism, stands innocent of
any abuse of the comparative method, who, pray tell, is guilty?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE ONLY KIND OF COMPARISON WORTH DOING:

HISTORY, EPISTEMOLOGY, AND THE “STRONG
PROGRAM” OF COMPARATIVE STUDY
Ivan Strenski
For at least a hundred years, the sprawling cross-cultural compara-

tive studies of the 19th century linked with the Frazers, Tylors, and
Robertson Smiths of the day have come in for sharp criticism. In
his 1903 review of Edgar Crawley’s Mystic Rose (itself dedicated to
Frazer), Durkheim spared the method of Frazer no ridicule:1
One certainty finds interesting insights there. But, to a rare degree,
the method lacks a critical and discriminating character. In order to
prove an assertion, the author does not hesitate to gather together,
without distinguishing between them, facts borrowed from the most
heterogeneous societies. All the continents are scoured without order
or discrimination.2
Yet, despite such criticism of them, the classic 19th-century com-
parativists represented a paradigm of ambitious, full-bore comparative
study, and as such constituted a subspecies of what I shall call “strong”
programs in comparative studies. The question that drives this present
discussion is whether, once thus discredited, a “strong program” of
comparative study of equal or similar ambition to that of the classic
theorists can withstand critical epistemological assault? Perhaps the
discrediting of the classic “strong program” has doomed any method
of “strong” comparative study? I do not think this is so, and will
try to convince readers that a “strong program” in comparative stud-
ies is not only possible and desirable, but also practiced with success
in some fields of the humanities.
Jonathan Z. Smith throws open the question of the status and
nature of comparative study in a fruitful way by arguing that three
fundamental questions need to be addressed about comparative studies
1
Stocking, Victorian Anthropology, p. 173.
2
Lukes, Emile Durkheim, p. 451.
272 ivan strenski
if, in effect, the ambitions of the 19th-century theorists were to be

revived: “How” do we compare? “why?” and “so what?” Smith here
no doubt implicitly acknowledges Gopala Sarana’s identical list of
demands, which in Sarana’s handy discussion of the methodology of
anthropological comparison are answered in a variety of ways.3 I
take these questions to be critical as well, but wish to press on beyond
Smith, Sarana, and others to celebrate a preferred method of “how”
to do comparative studies, a justification for why to do them, and
thus silence the charge of “so what? Taking these queries in order,
I shall argue that hypothesis testing ultimately constitutes the main purpose
for doing comparative studies in the “strong” sense; “how” things are
to be compared and tested is well (even if not exclusively) exemplified
by the program of comparative study systematically articulated by
the Durkheimian “nucleus,” and interpreted thereafter by historians
of the Annales school like Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre. To answer
“so what?” is to speak directly to the quality of the various intellectual
strategies and values of intellectual workers in the human sciences
that they bring to their uses of comparisons. In general, then little
more can be specified here in advance of the unrolling of various
projects employing comparison. It all depends on how comparisons
are used. And, that depends in part on the virtuosity of those who
do the comparing, and in part on the issue selected in comparisons.
Comparing Comparisons and ‘Comparative Method’
The terms, “compare,” “comparison,” “comparative,” “comparative

method,” and their semantic kin are widely used in informal, every-
day, non-technical language and apply to a wide range of referents.
In this discussion, I want to concentrate instead on a rather formal
and more technically relevant span of such usages, and to the referents
to which terms such as these may be applied. A first order of business
is then to do some conceptual tidying so that the technical or formal
sense of comparison can be isolated for study. I want therefore to
exclude a number of logically ‘uninteresting’ or informal uses of these
terms so that we can concentrate on the usages and referents that
spawn the most acute controversy.
3
Sarana, The Methodology of Anthropological Comparisons, chapter 3.
the only kind of comparison worth doing 273
The first everyday sense of comparison to be set aside is the sim-

ple sense of comparing as pairing, matching or laying side by side. From
the Latin ‘comparare,’ the English ‘compare’ literally means to ‘match’
or to ‘pair.’ I take it as obvious that in the study of religion much
more is at stake than the neutral idea of laying things out in pairs.
In the study of religion, for example, we debate the hows and whys
of the comparison and comparative study of religions. We are, or
ought to be, sensitive, to the implications of what it is that we are
really doing and assuming in comparing religions. Thus when two
religions are paired, it is the purpose behind or appropriateness of
such pairing that poses the problematic question.
Second, in formal contexts of the comparative study of religions,
I shall want to put severe limits on the exclusive understanding of
comparing as likening as well. Although, as we will see, underlying
purposes may be concealed in mere pairing, they need not neces-
sarily be intended. Thus, I recognize that it is natural enough to
assume that certain hidden agendas may be implied in such simple
informal comparisons as pairings because at least one part of the
ordinary, informal meaning of ‘compare’ suggests as much; to com-
pare is commonly thought to ‘liken,’ to suggest similarity, analogy,
resemblance, or equality between those things compared. Here ‘to com-
pare’ opposes ‘to contrast’ as in the fusty (and redundant) language
of the quiz, test, and examination, where we ask students to ‘com-
pare and contrast’ this or that. But this usage is redundant, as I
think honest reflection will reveal. We dare not risk students think-
ing that they are only being asked to cite likenesses, and not also
differences. So, we become brutally explicit and underline the fact that
we seek a rounded answer to the question to hand by having
differences cited as well as similarities.
More seriously however, especially in the study of religion, the
implication of likeness in the vulgar language of comparison is also
the reason some religious folk have stood against religious studies or
comparative study of religions. They object even to the most inno-
cent pairing—comparison—of one religion to another because they
believe their religion unique—and thus incomparable. They take this
very act of ‘com-pairing’ to imply the religious equality of the religions
in question—or at the very least equality insofar as their common
membership in a class that includes both religions are members. To
some, even the mere implication of common class membership dimin-
ishes the unique value of their religion in the process. Such scruples
274 ivan strenski
were precisely why one of the first phenomenologists of religion, the

pious Christian, Chantepie de la Saussaye, omitted Christianity from
his pioneering Manual of the History of Religions.4 Doubtless as well Karl
Barth’s distinction between the Word and the ‘religion’ of Christianity
rests on the same foundations.
A third sense of comparison rises above the merely everyday and
informal, and fulfils a very useful function for creative thinking. This
is comparison in the sense of achieving a ‘comparative perspective.’
When things are paired there may not be any agendas or purposes
in mind. All sorts of agendas, or none at all, may flow simply from
things merely being put into ‘comparative perspective’—from their being
laid side by side, with the suggestion that they may belong to a com-
mon class, even if not yet determined. Rather than offering threats,
I think that some of these instances of such pairings offer benefits
to creative thinking. The mere suggestion of common class mem-
bership may awaken thought, even when no particular purpose for
doing so may be in mind, or when no particular hypothesis is being
tested. This is altogether salutary for stimulating thinking, and although
it may not be comparison at its most powerful, it is useful all the
same. For example, while one may pair the engagement of the United
States in Iraq with other foreign military engagements, some may
be more suggestive than others. Is it, for example, to be put into
the same class as that of the USA in Viet Nam, or the French in
Algeria, or the Israelis in southern Lebanon? Each pairing carries
with it a whole series of interesting implications, extended analogies
or differences, and further openings for thought without committing
one to a particular conclusion or hypothesis. Thus a comparative per-
spective can be delightfully heuristic, because comparison can help us
think—without necessarily determining the direction or end-result of
such thinking. As I mentioned, it draws somewhat shy of meriting
a place in a “strong program” in comparative studies because it is
not necessarily tied to advancing any sort of hypothesis, even if it
may provide an opening so to do.
4
Chantepie de la Saussaye, Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschicht; Hubert, “Introduction B
la traduction française.”
A Classic Revisited: “Comparative Method”
Fourth, and finally, in sorting through common usages of terms hav-

ing to do with comparison, the famous “comparative method” of
19th-century anthropology should be sorted out from other uses.
Suffice it to say then that it is problematic how “strong” a program
of comparative studies “comparative method” actually is. Evans-
Pritchard, for example, brushed off “comparative method” by observ-
ing that it has no particular method to it and has been practiced
informally, and thus innocuously, since Aristotle. It is a “title which
means little more than if one wishes to make a general statement
about the nature of some institution, one has first to examine it in
a number of different societies.”5 When Frazer, Tylor, or Eliade, for
example, are not cryptically advancing a thesis, the heaping up of
apparent likenesses amounts to no more than this. Such use of com-
parison might be characterized as just pairing items or at the very
best, adding a “comparative perspective” of no necessary value. No
logical necessity lies behind these instances of comparison, or even
less a material necessity—at least not until the grounds of such a cat-
alogue of pairings is made clear or discovered. In this vein, such
sorts of comparative studies would be said at best to be “useful,”
“illustrative,” “provocative,” “interesting,” and so on in a rather
patronizing litany of qualifiers. Comparative studies would then not
be necessary for understanding; they would merely be extras in an
already self-sufficient particular study. At best they provide “analo-
gies,” which are optional creations of the whims and/or intellectual
virtuosity of investigators. In the case then where no hidden agenda
is present, the kind of comparison offered in marshaling such lists
of analogies would be decidedly “weak.”
In the cases, however, where hypotheses are being put forth, and
in their own way, tested, “comparative method” shows itself to be
an early example of a “strong program” in comparative studies.”
Tylorian “comparative method” would, for instance, count as just
such a “strong program”—“rigorous,” Evan-Pritchard called it—of
comparative studies of its time.6 If its universal claims regarding the
nature of human evolutionary schemes of development and a particular
5
Evans-Pritchard, A History of Anthropological Thought, p. 173.
6
Evans-Pritchard, A History of Anthropological Though, p. 173.
276 ivan strenski
society’s place in it were true, and if all societies moved through the
same objective evolutionary levels of development, then the analo-
gies Tylor offered would have been rooted in the nature of things.
They were true because he thought there was a material necessity in
which the cultural differences seen round the world participated.
Veneration of spirits, no matter what various names they bore in
different cultures, was still the property of a particular level of uni-
versal evolutionary development. The historical classification of stages
of this developmental movement and the place a particular society
occupied in it were held to be objectively true. Societies, cultures, and
their contents were natural “phenomena”; they were “there” in the
same sense animal species and their features were “there.” Small
wonder then that when the arguments of Boas against cultural evo-
lution gained strength that the fortunes of the “strong program” of
comparative studies declined. Resting as it did on evolutionary bases,
the “comparative method” as a “strong program” would either have
to be abandoned or re-invented. The Boasians chose to abandon it.
As we will see, the Durkheimians sought to re-invent it.
When “comparative method” shows the kind of ‘strength’ of which
it is more than capable, religious folk resisting comparison have a
good deal to fear from it. Ninian Smart often would joke, half seri-
ously, that “comparative study of religion tends to make one com-
paratively religious.” Using this particular kind of approach to
comparison, many pioneers in the field of comparative study of reli-
gions indeed sought—overtly or cryptically—to support certain sub-
versive theses about the general nature of religion, and ultimately
against Christianity in particular. Sir James George Frazer, Edward
Burnett Tylor, and other British anthropologists of the day practiced
what they called, somewhat imperialistically, the “comparative method.”
Frazer, for instance, clearly sought to argue—at times implicitly, at
times explicitly—that there were significant and substantial parallels
between so-called “pagan” myths and Christian motifs. For Frazer,
this meant that the vaunted uniqueness of Christianity was simply
false. Frazer’s arguments for the existence of “Pagan Christs” in the
Mediterranean world, for example, were not meant to argue for
some apologetically satisfying praeparatio evangelium, but rather for the
thesis that Christianity had an ultimately ‘pagan’ nature, because its
historical and cultural roots were “pagan.” For Frazer and other
19th-century evolutionists, this condemned religion (and Christianity
in particular) as having a ‘primitive’ character—a characterization
for an evolutionist like Frazer that put Christianity ‘in its place’ as
a crude and uncivilized thing. On top of this, Christianity’s claim
to trans-historical revealed truth was therefore laid bare as bogus,
since key imagery of the Christian tradition could be found in the
pagan religions preceding Christianity! Indeed, pagan religions shaped
the very spirituality of Christianity, such as, for example, the ideal
of the resurrection foreshadowed in Mediterranean images of the
dying and rising god. As a latecomer on historical scene, Frazer and
others alleged, Christianity had borrowed freely from these base and
‘primitive’ non-Christian sources.
Ironically, one of the greatest defenders of the integrity and value
of religion, including Christianity, Mircea Eliade, employed the same
logic of “comparative method” but turned its implications on its
head, so to speak. As a classic anti-evolutionist, Eliade saw the ‘prim-
itive’—“archaic religious” humanity—as anything but crude and base.
Indeed, from Eliade’s perspective archaic religious consciousness was
the supreme form of religious consciousness, and from it all subse-
quent forms of spirituality evidence a definite de-evolutionary decline.
The struggle of the moderns is precisely to try to recapture and live
the archaic vision, after having degenerated for many years in terms
of their spirituality. By contrast, therefore, Eliade’s comparisons —his
citation of likenesses between Christian and ‘pagan’ images was meant
to ground Christian spirituality in some trans-historic, or “ab-original,”
“archaic” religiosity of great value. That, for instance, the ‘tree’ of the
crucifixion could be compared (likened) to the archaic, ‘ab-original’,
archetypal “World Tree” or the tree from which the ‘pagan’ deity,
Attis, was hung was only further evidence that Christianity was rooted
in an archaic spiritual experience.
Comparison, however cryptically used by Eliade for the purposes
of testing and finally proving such hypotheses to be true, fell into
line with the methods of the 19th-century evolutionist enemies of
religion. At its best, Christianity succeeds in perpetuating archaic
religiosity, despite claims to Christian uniqueness made by the ‘ortho-
dox.’ And, thus for Eliade, comparison had a kind of force—
“strength”—that informal—“weak”—comparisons, such as mere pairing
or even an intellectually playful setting into ‘comparative perspec-
tive,’ could never achieve. This, albeit typically unemphatic, use of
comparison by Eliade is one reason, one might suggest, for the force
of his influence. However shrouded in obscure language were his
plans and purposes in making comparisons, Eliade was putting forth
278 ivan strenski
‘strong’ and consequential—if, in my view, false—theses about the

nature of religion. The “comparative method” of the 19th-century
anthropologists and their unlikely heirs, such as Eliade, is then what
we can call a “strong program” in comparative studies. My argu-
ment lies with this style of comparison, although it is not the only
kind of “strong program” that one might construct today—all points
to which I shall return shortly.
Let me draw some preliminary conclusions about formal or tech-
nical uses of comparison in study of religion. First, while one may
recognize that in common usage comparison tends to imply similar-
ity, it need not. At the very least, all we mean in comparing things
is to bring things into relation with one another—to ‘pair’ them for
whatever purpose one may have. The purposes may be apologetic
or not. And, here we can celebrate the intellectual utility of putting
things into comparative perspective—without at the same time
committing ourselves to hard claims about the ontology of things
compared. To lay things alongside one another need not mean that
we are declaring them of the same substance—pious Christians can
still compare Christianity with other religions without feeling that
the essential uniqueness of Christianity is jeopardized. And, although
the pioneers of comparative studies in the 19th-century attributed to
themselves the ownership of comparative studies by declaring what
they did to be the “comparative method,” we need not bow to their
authority, even as we may admire their ambitions to use comparison
in a powerful way to make statements and put hypotheses to the
test. As we will see, there are other ways for comparative studies to
be “strong” than by tying it to an evolutionist (or devolutionist in
Eliade’s case) view of human culture.
The Strong and the Weak
As much a part of the study of religions as both informal and par-

tially formal approaches to comparison have been, if we seek a study
of religion that at least approaches something of a ‘scientific’ character,
I think we would need to articulate a “strong program” in com-
parative studies—and one that does not simply reprise what the 19th-
century comparativists did. By “strong program” I understand that
comparisons are devised for the sake of testing hypotheses—as the
19th-century evolutionists did, although often less than frankly. Further,
the “strength” of a comparison lies as well in whether the act of

comparing—the act of setting some particular within a presumed
class is either logically, conceptually, or in fact, necessary for under-
standing the particular—and in a sense which might be said to con-
stitute “scientific” understanding. Thus while setting some particular
within a “comparative perspective” may be helpful in stimulating
scientific curiosity and understanding, it does not seem necessary to
achieve such ends. Likening Portuguese to Indo-European may stir
the imagination in various ways, much as likening the Native American
‘Indian’ to the Asian Indian did for the early explorers. But merely
putting Portuguese into “comparative perspective” with Indo-European
neither entails the process of making or testing an hypothesis, nor
does it guarantee that one can only understand—in the profound-
est way—the grammar of Portuguese by comparing it to Indo-
European grammar. A “strong program” in comparative studies
would require both the statement of an hypothesis to be tested, and a
defensible claim about the scientifically consequential common class
membership of the two languages.
However, thanks to the sciences of linguistics, archeology, and his-
tory, we can embark on hypothesis-testing, assignment of class mem-
bership, and even the search for causes. Thanks to knowledge provided
by Indo-European studies, we can both test hypotheses concerning
Portuguese and Indo-European, as well as make the case that they
are members of a real class of languages, and that the ancient for-
mation of Indo-European caused Portuguese in part to be what it is.
We can, for example, make sense of gaps or apparent anomalies in
languages to create or identify missing forms by “interpolating a
graph” as it were, as Marc Bloch put it.7 I do not know Portuguese
well enough to offer an example, but one from English may serve.
What explains—causes—the occurrence of relatively unvoiced “gh”
in the pronunciation of modern English of words like “enough” or
“knight”? What moreover explains—causes —how these words may
have been pronounced in earlier forms of English, such as Chaucerian
Anglo-Saxon, when the study of this earlier literature—that is, its
poetics—reveals that such words rhyme with words ending in a hard
“gh”? If, because of knowledge of the history of the English-speaking
7
Bloch, “A Contribution Towards a Comparative History of Euorpean Societies,”
p. 47.
280 ivan strenski
peoples and their relation to Germanic speakers, we assume a com-

parative perspective with German, earlier or modern, the answer
becomes clear. Even though we have no direct knowledge of Anglo-
Saxon, we can advance the hypothesis that “knight” was pronounced
more or less like the German “genug” and “Knecht ”—which as it hap-
pens means roughly the same as “enough” and “knight,” respec-
tively. Such an example from comparative historical phonology thus
provides a good model of what a successful, scientific program of
comparison, a “strong program” in comparative studies, might look
like—one in which hypotheses can be tested, causes cited, and classes
of cultural elements constructed.
If then we are to obtain more than informal acquaintances with
things, say with a language, we will need to know (or decide) what
the language resembles and what it does not resemble. We would
need to know (or decide) to what class (or classes) the language
belongs and from what class (or classes) it should be excluded—if,
at least, we would be considered familiar with the language in a
“scientific” sense, and not merely acquainted with it. Thus, know-
ing Portuguese in a scientific sense, necessarily requires knowing, for
instance, that it belongs (or can be said to belong) to the class of Indo-
European languages, and not to the class of Semitic languages. Of
course, Portuguese may be said to belong at the same time to other
classes of language in addition to the Indo-European language fam-
ily. But, this does not count against my claim that class member-
ship and knowledge of it would be necessary for one to claim scientific
knowledge of Portuguese. By extension, I am saying that at least
part of what is true of the claim to have scientific knowledge of lan-
guage is true of other features of culture: if a “comparative per-
spective” is necessary here, it is necessary elsewhere.
Whatever the merits and outcome of this particular hypothesis-
testing strategy, it should be clear that hypothesis-testing would require
comparison, and also in what ways it might require such testing. In
the kind of concrete contexts students of culture and history typi-
cally work, hypothesis-testing would, moreover, require concrete com-
parative perspectives. This is to say that the necessity of comparison,
at the level where hypotheses are being tested, would not simply be
logically or conceptually necessary to the construction of the class of
Indo-European languages. It is a matter of historical fact that the mem-
bers of that class of languages are what they are. Therefore, the
necessity of testing hypotheses about English comparatively over
against other members of the Indo-European family is what one may

call “material” necessity. In the context of this chapter, one expects
that in many cases, matters of fact will determine the approach taken
to the questions one raises. Therefore, beyond the “strong program”
of comparison having a logical or conceptual necessity, it also has
a material one. Typically, this comes out in such modifications of
comparison as evidenced in enterprises that traffic in matters of mate-
rial fact, such as “cross-cultural comparison” or “comparative history,”
as opposed to, for instance, comparative philosophy. Examples of lead-
ing thinkers who have in fact practiced and theorized a “strong pro-
gram” of comparative studies would be represented by the classic
sociological “nucleus” of Durkheim, Hubert, and Mauss, and a series
of followers in the Durkheimian tradition—Louis Dumont, Antoine
Meillet, Georges Dumézil, Marc Bloch, and Lucien Febvre. But, no
mention of a “strong program” in comparative studies can exclude
thinkers in other intellectual worlds such as Max Weber and the lin-
guists Roman Jakobson or Paul Thieme.
Goethe’s classic formulation about knowledge of languages expresses
well the spirit of the “strong program.” “He, who knows one lan-
guage, knows none.” In 1873, this slogan was adopted by the great
student of religion, Friedrich Max Müller, as applying equally well
to our understanding of other cultural areas like religion and mythol-
ogy. More recently André Köbben gave voice to the essence of what
a “strong program” would be, here applied to comparative ethnol-
ogy: “Without knowledge of other societies, I do not even know
where to look or what to look for.”8 What each of these formulae
asserts is that comparison is necessary for understanding or explain-
ing religion. In this sense, along with the consequent effort at test-
ing hypotheses, this would articulate the essence of what a “strong
program” would be.
Natural Comparisons: Durkheim’s Empiricism

and Residual Evolutionism
Having said what I mean by a “strong program” in comparative

studies, I want to establish two final points. First, Durkheim and his
8
Köbben, “Comparativists and Non-Comparativists in Anthropology,” p. 593.
282 ivan strenski
‘team’ were chiefly responsible for this new conceptualization of a

“strong program” in comparative studies, even though they may not
have proven to be its most consistent or successful practitioners (I
note that the Weberian tradition could as well demonstrate many of
the same virtues and strategies as the Durkheimian).9 Of historical
note is that one of the leading figures in the comparative historical
phonology of Indo-European, pioneering the kinds of comparisons I
related in earlier examples of Portuguese, Indo-European, and such,
was Antoine Meillet—a person profoundly influenced by the Durk-
heimians. Second, the Durkheimian “strong program” was constructed
on epistemological bases only partly acceptable to ‘us.’ They grounded
their comparative method on objectivist, evolutionist grounds, although,
as I shall show, they were gradually moving away form these posi-
tions to one more acceptable to ‘us.’ Let me open a small parenthesis
to say what I think is entailed in this ‘us’ before moving on to the
significance of what the Durkheimians did to establish a “strong pro-
gram” in comparative studies.
Regarding evolution, I take it for granted that evolutionist views of
culture and society—except perhaps for technology—no longer have
the kind of status for ‘us’ that was taken for granted by leading
thinkers of the 19th-century, such as the Frazer, Tylor, and others.
Religions, for example, are not ranked according to their degree of
evolution—at least not without very considerable contestation. The
religions of the Inuit, for example, are just different from High Church
Anglicanism; they do not represent some kind of previous evolu-
tionary step. To make the claim that such religions are different
because one is more evolved than another would involve one in a
perhaps interminable controversy. Because of the way he regarded
the religions of aboriginal Australia, to name only one set of exam-
ples, Durkheim must also be included among the evolutionists although,
as we will see, he seems a genuine transitional figure.
Regarding objectivity, I also take for granted that the idea of the
constructed character of technical terms and objects likewise need
not extensively be argued here for ‘us.’ When we study ‘myth’ or
‘totemism’ or ‘sacrifice’ and so on, for example, ‘our’ epistemologi-
cal principles dictate that we clearly define these terms. ‘We’ feel
that it is necessary to take responsibility for our concepts. This is so
9
Smelser, Comparative Methods in the Social Sciences, chapter 3.
in part because the conceptual qualities of terms like ‘myth’ or

‘totemism’ or ‘sacrifice’ have a long history of contestation. Moreover,
in our social sciences, although we use these terms as part of our
own language, we often do not appreciate that the same terms might
not be recognized in the societies to which we apply them. Their
application is therefore part of what ‘we’ as investigators do, and
not necessarily part of how the folk we study live. Malinowski was
attracted to ‘lili’u’—a kind of story that his native informants related
to him as being important. Immediately, Malinowski decided to call
such stories ‘myths,’ for better or for worse. The point to be made
here is not that we should never translate in this way, but merely—
or at the very least—not forget that we are doing so, and that there-
fore ‘lili’u’ and ‘myth’ may not map each other perfectly. For example,
some little semantic ‘edge’ of ‘lili’u’ may stick out from under the
semantic map of myth with which we try to cover it. Intercultural
translation of this sort is inevitable; one can only enjoin caution,
sophistication, and readiness to adapt to cultural differences.
Back to Durkheim’s contribution to comparative studies; Nothing
could be clearer about Durkheim’s avowed resolve to put ‘strong’
comparative study at the center of his entire sociological enterprise
than his claim that “Comparative sociology is not a special brand
of sociology, it is sociology itself, insofar as it ceases to be purely
descriptive and aspires to account for facts.”10 There, in The Rules
(1894), Durkheim lays down a six-point program for ‘strong’ com-
parative studies which seems to have been common property of the
entire Durkheimian group:
(1) comparative studies aim to provide (“why?”) explanations of social
phenomena because they alone can provide the “indirect experiments”
necessary to test hypotheses;
(2) such “indirect experiments” need to be carried out (“how?”) within
the context of the “total social fact”, thus
(3) requiring intense studies of,
(4) well-chosen cases,
(5 of roughly the same order of development,
(6) In this way (“so what?”) Durkheim believed we would be able to
trace the historical development of institutions, and thus to understand
our own situation better.11
10
Durkheim, Rules of Sociological Method, p. 157.
11
Durkheim, Rules of Sociological Method, chapter 6.
284 ivan strenski
Why, however, does this set of proposals for comparative study count
as a call for a “strong” program in comparative studies, and from
whence does its “strength” derive. To what extent, if at all, does the
strength of this program derive from sources other than those empow-
ering evolutionist “comparative method”—even as Durkheim indi-
cates in point (5) that he believes it does?
Overall, Durkheim believes the “strength” of his comparative pro-
gram is evident from the fact that he is convinced it will eventuate
in sociological “laws”—the ultimate test of success in hypothesis-test-
ing, the discovery of ‘causes.’12 These laws were for him assured by
the objective reality of the evolutionary process of the development
of societies that Durkheim assumed from his earliest works, such as
the Division of Labor in Society and the developmental classification of
societies found there.13 Even in his late work, such as in Elementary
Forms of the Religious Life, Durkheim identifies certain phenomena to
be compared within well-drawn “primitive” contexts (e.g. aboriginal
Australia), by comparing the ‘same’ phenomena within another well-
drawn “primitive” contexts, (e.g. native North America, (points 3, 4
above), in order to test a hypothesis of “concomitant variation”14
(Point 1 above)—to discern laws or law-like relationships. “As soon
as we have proved that in a certain number of cases, two phenomena
vary with each other, we may be certain we are confronted with a
law,” he notes emphatically.15
Mauss later identified this method of Durkheim’s with Darwin’s
method of doing experiments governed by the certainties of the evo-
lutionary process, and therefore as a method with avowed scientific
intentions. This, Mauss described as the method of “indirect exper-
iment”—indirect hypothesis-testing, since like Darwin in the matter of
the causal genesis or the demise of species, the social scientist lacked
the ability to perform “live” experiments, the ability to test directly
theses regarding many sorts of human subjects.16 Durkheim would
therefore have found congenial what Radcliffe-Brown said many years
later about the role of comparison in the formulation of a scientific
investigation: “without systematic comparative studies, anthropology
12
13
Durkheim, Division of Labour in Society.
14
Durkheim, Rules of Sociological Method, pp. 151–3.
15
16
Karady, Marcel Mauss, pp. 170–71.
will become only historiography and ethnography.”17 For Durkheim,

sociology was more indeed, and partly so because developmental
schemes guaranteed the existence of certain objective historical
processes that provided a framework in which to evaluate and select
data.
Now, although we may not require or expect the objective
evolutionary process or the “laws” both Durkheim and Radcliffe-
Brown did, many of us interested in promoting the scientific aims
of the study of religion would be pleased if the study of religion were
to do a good deal more hypothesis-testing, or searching for the causes
of religious behavior and thought. So, while the Durkheimians rep-
resent a tradition in which comparative studies aim to produce nec-
essary truths (“laws”) by the necessary application of comparison, others
may be satisfied with the use of comparative studies for more mod-
est goals, such as serving heuristic purposes or achieving ‘understanding.’
Ironically, we can show how comparison aids understanding in
this way by showing how Durkheim’s “strong program” in compar-
ative studies can both historically and logically be better understood
by seeing it in the “comparative perspective” of its opposition to a
Frazerian “comparative method”! Since Frazerian comparative method
was arguably as “strong”—in intention, at least—as Durkheim’s was
supposed to be, what were Durkheim’s objections to it and proposed
improvements upon it? I believe they were two: first, “comparative
method” lacked a certain selectivity of cases to be compared, despite
the role of evolution in its justification for making certain selections.
Comparisons seemed extravagant and disorderly. Second, Frazer and
his circle failed fully, from Durkheim’s view, to consider the integrity
of social wholes in determining the meaning of the institutions com-
pared. How do we know the things claimed to be like each other
being compared are really in the class, “comparable,” given that
they may occur in different cultural settings? Is the lili’u narrative of
the Trobriand Islanders the same as the mythos of the Greeks?18
How then did Durkheimian comparisons promise to improve on
Frazer and company? Short of the help evolutionism provided the
investigator seeking to know what item to select for comparison, by
17
Radcliffe-Brown, Method in Social Anthropology, p. 110.
18
Strenski, Four Theories of Myth in Twentieth-Century.
286 ivan strenski
what criteria should things be selected for comparison? The answer

seems to have been found in a kind of lazy empiricism. This makes
Durkheim appear naive about the un-constructed nature of his con-
cepts, such as totemism. As an empiricist and evolutionist, Durkheim
felt that comparisons in general were only as strong as the concepts
employed in them. For Durkheim, only scientific concepts had foun-
dations sufficiently sturdy to endure the rigors of generalization in
cross-cultural comparison. Thus, part of him fell in with the empiri-
cist confidence in common sense. Totemism was just ‘out there’
because people in different parts of the world seemed to worship
animal and plant species, and to involve them in socially approved
rituals. Durkheim’s thought followed the well-known prescription of
empiricist or positivist faith in the power of ‘data’ to impress them-
selves upon the receptive mind
[i]n order to be objective, science must start from sense perception
and not from concepts that have been formed independently from it.
It is from observable data that it should derive directly the elements
for its initial definition. Moreover, it is enough to call to mind what
the task of scientific work is to understand that science cannot pro-
ceed otherwise.19
Accordingly, since social ‘data’ are fully objective data—“things”—
in Durkheim’s view, they too can act to impress themselves upon
the mind:
[s]ocial phenomena are things and should be treated as such. To
demonstrate this proposition one does not need to philosophize about
their nature or to discuss the analogies they present with phenomena
of a lower order of existence. Suffice to say that they are the sole
datum afforded the sociologist. A thing is in effect all that is given, all
that is offered, or rather forces itself upon our observation. To treat
phenomena as things is to treat them as data, and this constitutes the
starting point for science. Social phenomena unquestionably display
this characteristic.20
Durkheim even believed he could guarantee the absolute neutrality
and objectivity of the investigator. How “the facts are classified does
not depend on him, or on his own particular cast of mind, but on
the nature of things” themselves.21
19
20
21
Unnatural Comparisons: Durkheim’s Rationalism
Now, even as we may disagree with Durkheim’s evolutionism and

empiricism, one may agree with Durkheim’s recommendation that
“comparative studies” should proceed with detailed and well drawn
cases (Point 2, 3). After all, why should not data be as rich and
exact as possible? Similarly, why would one quarrel with the propo-
sition that items should be selected with care (Point 4) and, assuming
one wished to pursue a “strong program” in comparative studies,
for the purpose of testing hypotheses (Point 1)?
The issue of ‘selection,’ provoked by Durkheim’s empiricism, how-
ever, still remains problematic. Have we “selected” the same phenom-
ena or not? Durkheim was convinced, for example, that Australian
“totemism” makes a better kind of sense because it is set alongside
North American ‘totemism,’ and had certain hypotheses tested against
it. One can agree readily. Indeed, it would seem necessary in order
to understand Australia ‘totemism’ that we see it within the context
of other ‘totemisms.’ But, since ‘totemism’ is not a natural kind, a
species with its name written on it, how do we know that we really
have the same phenomenon—‘totemism’—in different cases?
I believe that Durkheim and his group answer this puzzle by con-
cluding—while not fully admitting it to themselves—in effect, that
it is they who decide what totemism is, and what its relatives are.
An act of conceptualizing will comes surprisingly into play among
thinkers who would in all likelihood refuse to admit it. This radical
shift in epistemology of concept formation from a ‘lazy empiricism’
to an actively theorizing rationalism is what makes Durkheim vex-
ing and interesting at the same time he is confusing on this point.
Durkheim thus ‘solves’ this dilemma by contradicting his own extreme
empiricism or positivism, and becoming—in part at any rate—crit-
ical of the status of common sense notions and their value for sci-
ence. Durkheim tells us, that the example of Copernicus taught him
how unreliable a science based on (the “illusions” of ) commonsense
would be and, therefore, how conceptual revolution and reform were
required for the formation of scientific concepts fit for cross-cultural
comparison.22 Durkheim’s emphasis upon rationalist conceptual
22
288 ivan strenski
construction produced many original and influential works of cross-

cultural comparison devised to establish certain sociologistic hypothe-
ses about the nature of concepts such as “magic,” “religion,” “sacrifice,”
and so on.
Hubert and Mauss’s Sacrifice, for example, does not “discover” a
reality waiting “out there” in nature, ripe for the finding. It recom-
mends a certain use of the word, “sacrifice”; it consists of a sustained
theoretical argument—all made within a comparative context—for
a particularly Durkheimian use of the concept, “sacrifice.” Sacrifice
then represents a fundamental theoretical demonstration of the
Durkheimian group’s “strong” comparative work. An hypothesis about
the theoretical identity of a term is advanced and tested in com-
parative contexts, not on the basis of the concept’s identity being
inscribed in nature, but rather in terms of how well it served the
needs of explanation for the Durkheimians themselves!23
But Durkheim’s venture into this new epistemological territory did
not necessarily begin auspiciously nor proceed steadily. Durkheim
never really abandoned an appeal to the objective character of cul-
tural and social evolution to solve the problem of how to select things
for comparison. In the Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, he noto-
riously appeals to the evolutionist notion of a ‘simple’ society as the
appropriate area in which the investigator should search.
Without plunging too deeply into the study of facts, it is not difficult
to summarize in what area to look for the characteristic properties of
social types. . . . If therefore we knew the simplest society that ever
existed, in order to make our classification we should only have to fol-
low the way in which these simple societies joined together and how
these new composites also combined.24
As noted earlier in our list of Durkheim’s ‘6 points,’ in the con-
cluding paragraph of the Rules, Durkheim says, “[t]he comparison
can therefore only serve as proof if we can eliminate this disturbing
factor of the age of a society. To do this, it will be sufficient to con-
sider the societies which one is comparing at the same period of
their development.”25
23
Strenski, “The Ironies of Fin-de-Siécle Rebellions against Historicism”; and
Strenski, Theology and the First Theory of Sacrifice.
24
Durkheim, Rules of Sociological Method, pp. 111–12.
25
How and why Durkheim began to change is still somewhat a

mystery. Both empiricist and rationalist tendencies may have been
there all along. Parsons and others have argued that Durkheim’s
thought “strained” towards theoretical positions opposed to a positivist
theory of action. Thomas Gieryn observes that this vacillation in
Durkheim’s attitude to the place of interests in theory construction
meant that Durkheim both believed that facts were selected accord-
ing to human interests but that their truth was not relative to human
interests.26 Even though we may never know the answer to the rea-
sons for this epistemological change, we at least can comprehend
what it was, and how that set comparison on a new footing. In their
new mood, the Durkheimians acknowledged the role of creativity
and will in comparison. The “strength” then of this newly justified
Durkheimian “strong program” in comparative studies came from
the fruitfulness of the interpretive virtuosity and theoretical imagi-
nation of the researcher or research programs that launched the
comparisons in question.
Durkheim’s Worthy Successors—The “Annales”
One of the surprising results of this chapter in the history of science

is that the foremost practitioners of this new “critical,” imaginative,
and interpretive comparative methodology sketched by Durkheim
and his team were the comparative historians of the Annales School,
Marc Bloch, Lucien Febvre, even down to our contemporary,
Ferdinand Braudel. They owed much to the Durkheimians, as did
other notable practitioners of Durkheimian comparative method, such
as linguist Antoine Meillet and historian, Henri Berr.27 They achieved
this not only by virtue of Durkheim’s example, but also because of
their assimilation of German critics’ positivism, led by such histori-
cally-minded neo-Kantian idealist philosophers as Rickert, and also
by the hermeneutics of Wilhelm Dilthey. Bloch had studied both in
Dilthey’s Berlin and in Wundt’s Leipzig from 1908–9, and was well
placed by his location in Strasbourg to absorb the intellectual influences
26
Gieryn, “Durkheim’s Sociology of Scientific Knowledge,” pp. 122–23.
27
Walker, “Review Essay: Marc Bloch’s Feudal Society”; Walker, “A Note on
Historical Linguistics”; Sewell, “Marc Bloch and the Logic of Comparative History.”
290 ivan strenski
from Germany.28 Bloch and his collaborators realized this new style
of comparative history by means of several methodological innova-
tions not utterly foreign to the Durkheimians, but neither embraced
by them consistently. These are the role of interpretation or hermeneu-
tics in knowledge, the place of theory and problematic with respect
to data, and the sense in which comparisons could and should be
disciplined in order to achieve maximum effect, and thus ‘strength.’
The end result of the conception of comparative history achieved
by the Annalistes was to create, firstly, “comparative” historical stud-
ies that drew their “strength,” in part at least, from the explanatory
fruitfulness of the interpretive process in history. In their magisterial
article “History” in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1932), Henri
Berr and Lucien Febvre develop this proper and essential role of
“imagination”—of subjective factors—in history writing. “While phys-
ical phenomena would be known even without the intervention of
someone to describe and classify them, the historical past is only
known to the extent that there is an image of it—in other words,
to the extent that it is created by the mind.”29 Against any positivist
“objectivism” Berr and Febvre say clearly, “[t]he historical fact is by
no means always ‘given.’ Very often the historian must in some
degree create it with the aid of hypotheses and conjectures, by delicate
impassioned labor.”30 As a result, it is not “facts” that autonomously
determine research but the “selection” of facts. And, in this “selectivity”
even the natural sciences partake. Once more, Berr and Febvre: “It
is to pretend that the histologist, has only to put his eye to the lens
of a microscope to discover immediately definite facts which can be
utilized as they are, while in truth the essential portion of his labor con-
sists in creating and interpreting the objects of his observation with the aid of
singularly complicated techniques.”31 For the Annalistes, then, interpre-
tation was essential to the task of doing history, comparative or not.
Secondly, Bloch also made a “strong program” in comparative
studies possible by introducing another methodological feature, half-
heartedly embraced by Durkheim, and not followed consistently.
28
Craig, “Sociology and Related Disciplines”; Perrin, “L’Oeuvre historique de
Marc Bloch.”
29
Berr and Febvre, “History,” p. 363.
30
Berr and Febvre, “History,” p. 363.
31
Berr and Febvre, “History,” p. 363 (my emphasis).
Bloch unambiguously gave priority to theory and problematic over

facts and, second, synthesis to analysis. Where Durkheim wanted
things both ways, and often thought on balance that facts spoke for
themselves, Bloch was a more outspoken rationalist. Bloch urged the
investigator to mistrust factitious arrangement of things in the world.
His oft-quoted maxim puts this view succinctly: “The unity of place
is only disorder. Only the unity of the problem creates a center.”32
His earlier 1928 classic essay on the comparative study of European
societies fleshes out his vision that brings to fruition implicit ten-
dencies in the Durkheimian projects for conceptual reform in soci-
ology of religion. Bloch here boldly strides across a boundary where
the Durkheimians lingered.
But before phenomena can be interpreted, they must be discovered.
And this preliminary step will reveal in the first place the usefulness
of the comparative method. But— it may be asked—is it really nec-
essary to go to such trouble to ‘discover’ historical facts? They are and
can only be known through documents: in order to bring them to
light, isn’t it enough to read texts and monuments? Yes, but one must
know how to read them. A document is a witness; and like most witnesses,
it does not say much except under cross-examination. The real difficulty
lies in putting the right questions. That is where comparisons can be of
such valuable help to the historian, who is always in the position of
the magistrate hearing the case.33
Thirdly, we know that Bloch was as dubious about Frazerian “com-
parative method” as was Durkheim.34 Accordingly, Bloch interpreted
Durkheim’s view of how to make comparisons “strong” in recog-
nizably Durkheimian, and thus anti-Frazerian ways. Recall that
Durkheim claimed that six requirements should govern comparisons—
if they were to be ‘strong.’ Of these six, three through five were
affirmed by the Annalistes and reflect the common critique of Frazer
that they shared with the Durkheimians. These were numbers 3–5:
the third point required intense indeed focused and detailed studies,
such as Durkheim undertook in the Elementary Forms of the Religious
Life. The fourth called for (4) well-chosen cases, again, such as those
32
Bloch, “Une étude régionale,” p. 81.
33
Bloch “Une étude régionale,” p. 48 (my emphases). See also confirmation in
Walker, “Review Essay,” pp. 247–48.
34
Rhodes, “Emile Durkheim and the Historical Thought of Marc Bloch,” p. 47.
292 ivan strenski
of Australia that Durkheim chose because of his (misguided) evolu-

tionist views. The fifth point likewise limited comparisons in terms
of the historical relations between items to be compared—in Durkheim’s
evolutionist parlance as “of roughly the same order of development.”
Jettisoning evolutionism, Bloch believed that these points meant that
comparisons had to be properly controlled and well drawn. Explicitly
citing his opposition to the sprawling comparisons of a Frazer, Bloch
says that “to compare various . . . societies . . . (one ought to compare)
societies that live close to one another, and that go back to one
common origin, at any rate to several.”35 As the comparative work
of Indo-Europeanists showed, comparison between and among closely
related societies held more promise for powerful results than Frazer
was able to achieve. Bloch argued that his more focused, Durkheimian
method of comparison—“the one with the more limited horizon is
also the richer in results. Because it is more capable of rigorous
classification, and more critical about the objects it compares, it may
hope to reach conclusions of fact that are less hypothetical and much
more precise.”36
In this little sketch of history and epistemology of comparative
studies I have tried to show how comparative studies have been var-
iously conceived, and more importantly how a powerful and mod-
ern conception of comparative studies struggled to emerge among
the Durkheimians and those influenced by them. The study of reli-
gion might do well to apply the methods and rationales of the “strong
program” in comparative studies conceived by the anti-positivist
Durkheimians and the Annalistes. Their epistemological sophistication,
reflecting the role of the investigator as well as the constructed nature
of ‘things’ compared, is bracingly contemporary. As such, they pro-
vide an epistemologically plausible way of doing comparison in the
‘strong’ sense, and in doing so, they advance the study of religion
towards scientific, or at the very least more rigorous, research goals.
The potential of a “strong program” in comparative studies to move
the study of religion toward a more rigorous practice of positing and
testing hypotheses makes this kind of comparison well worth doing.
35
Bloch, “A Contribution Towards a Comparative History of European Societies,”
p. 48.
36
Bloch, “A Contribution Towards a Comparative History of European Societies,”
p. 48.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ackerman, Robert. J. G. Frazer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Albright, William Foxwell. From the Stone Age to Christianity. 2d ed. Garden City, NY:
Doubleday Anchor Books, [1940] 1957.
Allison, Dale C. Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press,
1998.
——. “Review of Betz’s Sermon on the Mount.” Journal of Biblical Literature 117:1 (1998):
136–38.
Almond, Philip C. The British Discovery of Buddhism. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1988.
——. “‘The Heathen in his Blindness’?” Cultural Dynamics 8:2 (1996): 137–45.
Ammerman, Nancy Tatom, et al. Congregation & Community. New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 2001.
Andaluza, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco, CA:
spinsters/aunt lute, 1987.
Anonymous. Convention of Religions in India (Report of the first convention of religions
in India 1909). Delhi: Bimla Publishing House, [1909] 1982.
Arweck, Elisabeth, and Martin D. Stringer, eds. Theorizing Faith: The Insider/Outsider
Problem in the Study of Ritual. Birmingham, UK: The University of Birmingham
Press, 1999.
Asad, Talal. Genealogies of Religion. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1993.
——. “Reading a Modern Classic: W. C. Smith’s The Meaning and End of Religion.”
History of Religions 40:3 (2001): 205–22.
Ashbrook, James B. The Human Mind and the Mind of God: Theological Promise in Brain
Research. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984.
Ashcraft, J. Morris. “Speaking in Tongues in the Book of Acts,” in Tongues, edited
by Luther B. Dyer, 60–84. Jefferson City, MO: Le Roi Publishing, 1971.
Atran, Scott. In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion. New York, NY:
Oxford University Press, 2002.
Balagangadhara, S. N. ‘The Heathen in His Blindness . . .’: Asia, the West, and the Dynamic
of Religion. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994.
Balch, David L. “Paul’s Portrait of Christ Crucified (Gal. 3.1),” in Early Christian
Families in Context, edited by David L. Balch and Carolyn Osiek, 84–108. Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003.
Baltzell, E. Digby. Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia. Two Protestant Ethics and the
Spirit of Class Authority and Leadership. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1979.
Barnett, Donald Lee, and Jeffrey P. McGregor. Speaking in Tongues: A Scholarly Defense.
Seattle, WA: Community Chapel Publications, 1986.
Barrett, Charles K. A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Harper’s New
Testament Commentaries. New York, NY: Harper and Row Publishers, 1968.
Barrows, John Henry. The World’s Parliament of Religions: An Illustrated and Popular Story
of the World’s First Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago in connection with the Columbian
Exposition of 1893. Chicago, IL: The Parliament Publishing Co., 1893.
Bastide, Roger. The African Religions of Brazil. Toward a Sociology of the Interpenetration
of Civilizations, translated by Helen Sebba. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1978.
294 bibliography
Bayer, Oswald. “Luther as an Interpreter of Holy Scripture,” translated by Mark

Mattes, in The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther, edited by Donald K. McKim,
73–85. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Beardsworth, Timothy. A Sense of Presence: The Phenomenology of Certain Kinds of Visionary
and Ecstatic Experience, Based on a Thousand Contemporary First-Hand Accounts, Studies
in Religious Experience. Oxford: The Religious Experience Research Unit, 1977.
Beare, Frank W. “Speaking with Tongues: A Critical Survey of the New Testament
Evidence.” Journal of Biblical Literature 83.3 (1964): 229–46.
Behm, Johnannes. “gl«ssa, ÑeterÒglvssow,” in Theological Dictionary of the New
Testament, Volume 1, edited by Gerhard Kittel, translated and edited by Geoffrey
W. Bromiley, 719–27. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964.
Beisser, Friedrich. “Luthers Schriftverstandnis,” in Martin Luther: Reformator und Vater
im Glauben, Veroffentlichungen des Institut für europaischen Geschichte, Mainz
18, edited by Peter Manns, 25–37. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1985.
Bellow, Saul. The Adventures of Augie March. New York, NY: Viking Press, 1953.
Bendix, Reinhard. “Concepts and Generalizations in Comparative Sociological Studies,”
in Embattled Reason. Essays on Social Knowledge, 175–86. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1970.
Berger, Peter, and Thomas Luckmann. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in
the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1966.
Berger, Peter. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. Garden
City, NY: Doubleday, 1969.
——, ed. The Other Side of God: A Polarity in World Religions. Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday and Co., 1981.
Bergsma, Stuart. Speaking with Tongues. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1965.
Berr, H., and L. Febvre. “History,” in Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, edited by
E. R. A. Seligman and A. Johnson, 357. New York, NY: Macmillan, 1932.
Betz, H. D. Essays on the Sermon on the Mount, translated by L. L. Welborn. Philadelphia,
PA: Fortress, 1985.
——. The Sermon on the Mount: A Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, Including the
Sermon on the Plain (Matthew 5:3–7:27 and Luke 6:20–49), edited by Adela Yarbro
Collins. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1995.
Blasi, Anthony J. A Sociology of Johannine Christianity. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen
Press, 1996.
——. “General Methodological Perspective,” in Handbook of Early Christianity. Social
Science Approaches, edited by Anthony J. Blasi, Jean Duhaime, and Paul-André
Turcotte, 61–79. Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira Press, 2002.
Bloch, M. “Une étude régionale: géographie ou histoire?” Année d’histoire économique
et sociale 6 (1934): 81–85.
——. “A Contribution Towards a Comparative History of European Societies,” in
Land and Work in Medieval Europe, edited by M. Bloch, 44–81. New York, NY:
Harper, 1967.
Blumer, Herbert. “What is Wrong with Social Theory?” in Symbolic Interactionism.
Perspective and Method, 140–52. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1969.
Boas, Franz. “The Limitations of the Comparative Method.” Science, n.s., 4 (1896):
901–8.
Bouquet, A. C. Comparative Religion. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin
Books, 1964.
Bourdieu, Pierre. Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action. Stanford, CA: University
of California Press, [1994] 1998.
Bouthoul, Gaston. Traité de Sociologie, Première Partie. Paris: Payot, 1959.
Bouwsma, Franklin G., and Virginia Gentle, eds. Student’s Guide to the Long Search: A
Study of Religions. Miami, FL: Miami-Dade Community College, 1976.
bibliography 295
Boyarin, Daniel. Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism, Figurae:
Reading Medieval Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999.
Boyer, Pascal. The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion. Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 1994.
——. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York, NY:
Basic Books, 2001.
Bradfield, Cecil David. Neo-Pentecostalism: A Sociological Assessment. Washington, DC:
University Press of America, 1979.
Brandon, S. G. F., ed. A Dictionary of Comparative Religion. New York, NY: Macmillan,
1970.
Brickhouse, Thomas C., and Nicholas D. Smith. Socrates on Trial. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1989.
Bridges, James K., ed. The Bible: The Word of God. Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing
House, 2003.
Brooks, R. “Taking Sides and Opening Doors: Authority and Integrity in the
Academy’s Hinduism.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 68:4 (December
2000): 817–30.
Brothers, Leslie. Friday’s Footprint: How Society Shapes the Human Mind. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1997.
Brown, Daniel. A New Introduction to Islam. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.
Brown, Schuyler. “The Matthean Community and the Gentile Mission.” Novum
Testamentum 22 (1980): 200–202.
Bruce, Frederick F., The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary.
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1951.
Burkert, Walter. Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.
Bury, Robert Gregg. The Symposium of Plato, 2d edition. Cambridge: Heffer, 1932.
Byrne, Brendan. “The Messiah in Whose Name ‘the Gentiles will Hope’ (Matt 12:21):
Gentile Inclusion as an Essential Element of Matthew’s Christology.” Australian
Biblical Review 50 (2002): 55–73.
Byrne, Peter. “The Theory of Religion and Method in the Study of Religion in the
Encyclopedia of Religion.” Religious Studies 24:1 (1988): 3–10.
Caldwell, Sarah, and Brian K. Smith. “Introduction: Who Speaks for Hinduism?”
Journal of the American Academy of Religion 68:4 (December 2000): 706.
Campbell, Joseph. The Masks of God, 4 Vols.: Primitive Mythology, Oriental Mythology,
Occidental Mythology, Creative Mythology. New York: Viking Press, 1959–68.
Capps, Walter H. Religious Studies: The Making of a Discipline. Minneapolis, MN:
Fortress Press, 1995.
Cartledge, Mark J. “The Nature and Function of New Testament Glossolalia.” The
Evangelical Quarterly 72:2 (2000): 135–50.
Carver, William O. The Acts of the Apostles. Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1916.
Chantepie de la Saussaye, P. D. Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte, 2 Vols. Freiburg: np.,
1897.
Cherry, Conrad. Hurrying toward Zion: Universities, Divinity Schools, and American Protestantism.
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995.
Chidester, David. Savage Systems: Colonialism and Comparative Religion in Southern Africa.
Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1996.
Chinard, Gilbert. The Literary Bible of Thomas Jefferson: His Commonplace Book of Philosophers
and Poets. New York, NY: Greenwood Press, 1928.
Clark, S. D. Church and Sect in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1948.
Clarke, James Freeman. Ten Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative Theology. Boston,
MA: James R. Osgood, 1875.
Clayton, Philip. Explanation from Physics to Theology: An Essay in Rationality and Religion.
New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1989.
296 bibliography
Clooney, Frank. Theology after Vedanta: An Experiment in Comparative Theology. Albany,

NY: State University of New York Press, 1993.
——. “Comparative Theology: A Review of Recent Books (1989–1995).” Theological
Studies 56 (1995) 521–50.
——. Seeing Through Texts: Doing Theology Among the Srivaisnavas of South India. Albany,
Colas, Dominique. Civil Society and Fanaticism: Conjoined Histories, translated by Amy
Jacobs. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, [1993] 1997.
Collingwood, R. G., The Ideas of History. T. M. Knox, ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1946.
Collins, John J. Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora,
2nd ed., Biblical Resource Series. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000.
Connerton, Paul. How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1989.
Conzelmann, Hans. Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Handwörterbuch für Theologie
und Religionswissenschaft, Vol. 3. Tübingen: Mohr, 1957–1965.
——. Jesus, translated by J. Raymond and edited by John Reumann. Philadelphia,
PA: Fortress Press, 1973.
——. 1 Corinthians: A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, translated by
James W. Leitch. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975.
Cornell, Vincent J. “A Muslim to Muslims: Reflections after September 11,” in
Dissent from the Homeland: Essays After September 11, edited by Stanley Hauerwas and
Frank Lentricchia, 83–94. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.
Coser, Lewis A. The Functions of Social Conflict. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul,
1956.
Cosmides, Leda, and John Tooby, “Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange,”
in The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, edited by
Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby, 163–228. New York: Oxford
Cox, Harvey. Fire From Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of
Religion in the Twenty-First Century. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing
Company, 1995.
Craig, J. E. “Sociology and Related Disciplines between the Wars: Maurice Halbwachs
and the Imperialism of the Durkheimians,” in The Sociological Domain: The Durkheimians
and the Founding of French Sociology, edited by P. Besnard, 263–89. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Crossan, John Dominic. The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant.
New York, NY: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991.
Crossan, John Dominic, and Jonathan L. Reed. Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones,
Behind the Texts: The Key Discoveries for Understanding Jesus in his World. New York,
NY: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001.
Culpepper, Robert H. Evaluating the Charismatic Movement: A Theological and Biblical
Appraisal/Valley Forge, PA: Judson, 1977.
Cutten, George G. Speaking With Tongues. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1927.
d’Aquili, Eugene, Charles D. Laughlin, and J. McManus. The Spectrum of Ritual: A
Biogenetic Structural Analysis. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1979.
d’Aquili, Eugene, and Andrew B. Newberg. “Religious and Mystical States: A
Neuropsychological Model.” Zygon 28:2 (1993): 177–99.
——. “The Neuropsychological Basis of Religions, or Why God Won’t Go Away.”
Zygon 33:2 (1998): 187–201.
Dalai Lama. The World of Tibetan Buddhism, translated and edited by Geshe Thupten
Jinpa. Boston, MA: Wisdom Publications, 1995.
Darrow, William R. “The Harvard Way in the Study of Religion.” Harvard Theological
Review 8:2 (1988): 215–34.
bibliography 297
Davies, John D. “Pentecost and Glossolalia.” Journal of Theological Studies 3 (1952):

228–321.
Davies, William D. “Paul and the People of Israel.” New Testament Studies 24 (1978):
19–20.
——. “The Jewish Sources of Matthew’s Messianism,” in The Messiah: Developments
in Earliest Judaism and Christianity: The First Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian
Origins, edited by James H. Charlesworth et al., 502–503. Minneapolis, MN:
——. Jewish and Pauline Studies. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1984.
de Vries, Jan. The Study of Religion: A Historical Approach, translated by Kees Bolle.
New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1967.
Dennett, Daniel C. “A Method for Phenomenology,” in Consciousness Explained, 66–98.
Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1991.
Dewey, John. Logic: The Theory of Inquiry. New York, NY: Henry Holt, 1938.
Dhareshwar, Vivek. “The Trial of Pagans.” Cultural Dynamics 8:2 (1996): 119–36.
Dilworth, David A. Philosophy in World Perspective: A Comparative Hermeneutic of the Major
Theories. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1989.
Doniger, Wendy. Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts. Chicago, IL: University
of Chicago Press, 1980.
——. Dreams, Illusions and other Realities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
——. The Implied Spider: Politics and Theology in Myth. New York, NY: Columbia
——. “Hinduism by Any Other Name.” The Wilson Quarterly 15:3 (Summer 1991):
35–41.
Doniger, Wendy, ed. Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of World Religions. Springfield, MA:
Merriam-Webster, 1999.
Douglas, Mary. Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology. New York, NY: Random
House, 1972.
——. Implicit Meanings: Essays in Anthropology. New York, NY: Methuen, 1978.
Dover, Kenneth J. Symposium/Plato, Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1980.
Droge, Arthur J. “Justin Martyr and the Restoration of Philosophy.” Church History 56
(1987): 303–19.
Ducey, Michael H. Sunday Morning. Aspects of Urban Ritual. New York, NY: Free
Press, 1977.
Dunn, James D. G. The Partings of the Ways: Between Christianity and Judaism and Their
Significance for the Character of Christianity. London and New York: SCM Press and
Trinity Press International, 1991.
Durkheim, Émile. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, translated by Joseph Ward
Swain. New York, NY: The Free Press [1915] 1965.
——. “Concerning the Definition of Religious Phenomena,” in Durkheim on Religion.
A Selection of Readings with Bibliographies, edited by W. S. F. Pickering, 74–99.
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975.
——. The Rules of Sociological Method and Selected Texts on Sociology and its Method, trans-
lated by W. D. Halls. London: Macmillan, 1982.
——. The Division of Labour in Society, translated by W. D. Halls. London: Macmillan,
1984.
Eck, Diana L. “Dialogue and Method: Reconstructing the Study of Religion,” in
A Magic Still Dwells: Comparative Religion in a Postmodern Age, edited by Kimberley
Patton and Benjamin Ray, 131–49. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
2000.
——, et al. On Common Ground. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1997.
Eckel, Malcolm David. To See the Buddha: A Philosopher’s Quest for the Meaning of
Emptiness. San Francisco, CA: Harper and Row, 1992.
298 bibliography
Eggan, Fred. “Social Anthropology and the Method of Controlled Comparison.”

American Anthropologist 56 (1954): 743–63.
Ehrman, Bart D. Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. Oxford: Oxford
Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Irenäus. Human Ethology. New York, NY: Aldine de Gruyter, 1989.
Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard. The Savage in Judaism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University
Press, 1990.
Eliade, Mircea. Myth of the Eternal Return or, Cosmos and History, Bollingen Series 46,
translated by Willard R. Trask. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1954.
——. Patterns in Comparative Religion: A Study of the Element of the Sacred in the History
of Religious Phenomena, translated by Rosemary Sheed. New York, NY: Sheed and
Ward, 1958.
——. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, translated by Willard R. Trask.
New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace, 1959.
——. Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries. New York, NJ: Harper, 1960.
——. Images and Symbols. New York, NY: Sheed and Ward, 1961.
——. A History of Religious Ideas, 3 Vols., translated by Alf Hiltebeitel and Diane
Apostolos-Cappadona. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978, 1982, 1985.
——, ed. The Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: Macmillan, 1987.
Ellwood, Robert S. “Buddhism in the West,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 2,
edited by Mircea Eliade, 437. New York, NY: Macmillan, 1987.
Erikson, Erik H. Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History. New York,
NY: W. W. Norton, 1958.
Ernst, Carl W. Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World. Chapel
Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 2003.
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. A History of Anthropological Thought. New York, NY: Basic
Books, 1981.
Feyerabend, Paul K. Against Method, 3d ed. London, New York: Verso, [1978] 1993.
Fine, Steven, ed. Jews, Christians, and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue: Cultural Interaction
During the Greco-Roman Period. London: Routledge, 1999.
Fitzgerald, Timothy. The Ideology of Religious Studies. New York, NY: Oxford University
Press, 2000.
Forbes, Christopher. “Early Christian Inspired Speech and Hellenistic Popular Religion.”
Novum Testamentum 28 (1986): 257–70.
——. Prophecy and Inspired Speech in Early Christianity and its Hellenistic Environment.
Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1997.
Ford, Josephine Massyngberde. “Towards a Theology of Speaking in Tongues.”
Theological Studies 32 (1971): 3–29.
Fox, Robin. The Search for Society: Quest for a Biosocial Science and Morality. New Brunswick,
NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1989.
Frankfort, Henri. Kingship and the Gods. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1948.
——. The Problem of Similarity in Ancient Near Eastern Religions. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1951.
Frazer, James G. Folk-lore in the Old Testament. London: Macmillan, 1918.
——. “The Scope and Method of Mental Anthropology.” Science Progress 16 (1922):
580–94.
——. Creation and Evolution in Primitive Cosmogonies and Other Pieces. New York, NY:
Ayer, 1935.
——. The Golden Bough. New York, NY: Macmillan, 1985.
Freud, Sigmund. The Future of an Illusion. New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 1975.
——. Civilization and Its Discontents. New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 1984.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. New York, NY: Crossroad, 1982.
Gagarin, Michael. “Socrates’ hybris and Alcibiades’ Failures.” Phoenix 31 (1977):
22–37.
bibliography 299
Gager, John G. Reinventing Paul. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Gay, Peter. The Enlightenment: An Introduction. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967.
Geertz, Clifford. Islam Observed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1968.
——. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1973.
——. “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight,” in Interpretive Social Science: A
Reader, edited by William M. Sullivan and Paul Rabinow, 181–223. Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 1979.
——. Explaining and Interpreting Religion. New York, NY: Lang, 1992.
——. After the Fact. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.
——. “Weber and Geertz on the Meaning of Religion.” Religion 29 (1999): 61–71.
——. “Clifford Geertz’s Interpretive Approach to Religion,” in Selected Readings in
the Anthropology of Religion, edited by Stephen D. Glazier and Charles A. Flowerday,
17–34. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003.
Gibbs, Lee W., and W. Taylor Stevenson, eds. Myth and the Crisis of Historical Consciousness.
Atlanta GA: Scholars Press, 1975.
Gieryn, T. F. “Durkheim’s Sociology of Scientific Knowledge.” Journal of the History
of the Behavioral Sciences 18 (1982): 107–29.
Gilovich, Thomas. How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Reason in Everyday
Life. New York, NY: Free Press, 1993.
Girardot, N. J. “Max Müller’s Sacred Books and the Nineteenth-Century Production
of the Comparative Science of Religions.” History of Religions 41:3 (2002): 213–50.
Glaser, Barney G., and Anselm L. Strauss. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies
for Qualitative Research. New York, NY: Aldine de Gruyter, 1967.
Godlove, Terry F. “Religious Discourse and First Person Authority.” Method &
Theory in the Study of Religion 6 (1994): 147–61.
Gooch, Paul W. Reflections of Jesus and Socrates: Word and Silence. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1996.
Goodman, Felicitas D. Speaking in Tongues: A Cross-Cultural Study of Glossolalia. Chicago,
IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1972.
Goodman, Nelson. Ways of Worldmaking. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 1978.
Goody, Esther N., ed. Social Intelligence and Interaction: Expressions and Implications of the
Social Bias in Human Intelligence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Gothoni, Rene. Attitudes and Interpretations in Comparative Religion. Helsinki: Academia
Scientiarum Fennica, 2000.
Graham, William A. “The Earliest Meaning of Qur’an,” in The Qur’an, Style and
Contents, edited by Andrew Rippin, 159–76. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing,
2001.
Gundry, Robert. “‘Ecstatic Utterance’ (NEB): 1 Cor 12–14.” Journal of Theological
Studies 17 (1966): 299–307.
Guthrie, Stewart. Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion. New York, NY: Oxford
Halbfass, Wilhelm. India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding. Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press, 1988.
Hallisey, Charles. “Roads Taken and Not Taken in the Study of Theravada
Buddhism,” in Curators of the Buddha, edited by Donald S. Lopez, 31–61. Chicago,
IL: Chicago University Press, 1995.
Harding, Mark. “Church and Gentile Cults at Corinth,” Grace Theological Journal 10
(1989): 203–23.
Hare, Douglas R. A. “How Jewish is the Gospel of Matthew?” Catholic Biblical
Quarterly 62:2 (2000): 264–77.
Hatch, Edwin. The Influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity, The Library of Religion and
Culture. New York, NY: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1957.
Hawley, J. S. “Pilgrimage Out West,” in Tracing Common Themes, edited by John Braisted
Carman and Stephen P. Hopkins, 65–79. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1991.
300 bibliography
——. “Naming Hinduism.” The Wilson Quarterly 15:3 (Summer 1991), pp. 20–34.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, 3 Vols., edited
by Peter C. Hodgson. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
Heisig, James W. “Psychology of Religion,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 12,
edited by Mircea Eliade, 57–66. New York, NY: Macmillan, 1987.
Hempel, Carl G. Aspects of Scientific Explanation And Other Essays in the Philosophy of
Science. New York: Free Press, 1965.
Hick, John. An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1989.
Holdrege, Barbara. “The Bride of Israel: The Ontological Status of Scripture in
the Rabbinic and Kabbalistic Traditions,” in Rethinking Scripture: Essays from a
Comparative Perspective, edited by Miriam Levering, 180–61. Albany, NY: State
——. Veda and Torah, Transcending the Textuality of Scripture. Albany, NY: State University
of New York Press, 1996.
Hooke, S. H. “The Myth and Ritual Pattern of the Ancient East,” in Myth and
Ritual, 1–14. London: Oxford University Press, 1933.
Horton, Wade H. The Glossolalia Phenomenon. Cleveland, TN: Pathway Press, 1966.
Hubert, H. “Introduction á la traduction française,” in Pierre Daniel Chantepie de la
Saussaye, Manuel de l’histoire des religions, edited by H. Hubert and I. Lévy, v–xlviii.
Paris: Colin, 1904.
Hummel, Reinhart. Die Auseinadersetzung Zwischen Kirche und Judentum Im Matthäusevangelium,
Beiträge Zur Evangelischen Theologie 33. München: Chr. Kaiser, 1966.
Husserl, Edmund. Ideas: A General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, translated by W. R.
Boyce Gibson. New York, NY: Collier Books, [1913] 1962.
——. The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to
Phenomenological Philosophy, translated by David Carr. Evanston, IL: Northwestern
University Press, [1934–1937] 1970.
Huxley, Aldous. The Perennial Philosophy. New York, NY: Harper and Brothers, 1945.
Idinopulos Thomas A., and Roy Bowen Ward. “Is Christology Inherently Anti-Semitic?:
A Critical Review of Rosemary Ruether’s Faith and Fratricide.” Journal of the American
Academy of Religion 45:2 (1977): 193–214.
Inden, Ronald B. Imagining India. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press and
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990.
Ivy, Marilyn. Discourses of the Vanishing: Modernity, Phantasm, Japan. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Jaeger, Werner. Early Christianity and Greek Paideia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1961.
James, E. O. The Ancient Gods. New York, NY: Capricorn Books, 1960.
James, William. Pragmatism, edited by Bruce Kuklick. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1981.
Jaspers, Karl. The Great Philosophers, 4 Vols. New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace and
World, 1962–1995.
Jastrow, Morris. The Study of Religion. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, [1902] 1981.
Jaynes, Julian. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Boston,
MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976.
Jefferson, Thomas. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Albert E. Bergh.
Washington, DC: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1907.
Jensen, Jeppe Sinding. The Study of Religion in a New Key: Theoretical and Philosophical
Soundings in the Comparative and General Study of Religion. Aarhus: Aarhus University
Press, 2003.
Jensen, Lionel M. Manufacturing Confucianism: Chinese Traditions and Universal Civilization.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997.
Johnson, Luke Timothy. “Glossolalia and the Embarrassments of Experience.” The
Princeton Seminary Bulletin 18:2 (1997): 116–17.
bibliography 301
Jones, Robert Alun. “Robertson Smith and James Frazer on Religion: Two Traditions
in British Social Anthropology,” in Functionalism Historicized, edited by George
Stocking, 31–58. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.
Kaplan, Abraham. The Conduct of Inquiry. Methodology for Behavioral Science. Scranton,
PN: Chandler Publishing, 1964.
Karady, V. Marcel Mauss: Oeuvres 2. Représentations collectives et diversité des civilizations.
Paris: Minuit, 1970.
Kelsey, Morton T. Speaking with Tongues: An Experiment in Spiritual Experience. London:
Epworth, 1964.
Kertzer, David. Ritual, Politics, and Power. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988.
Kierkegaard, Søren. Fear and Trembling. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983.
——. Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Kildahl, John P. The Psychology of Speaking in Tongues. New York, NY: Harper and
Row, 1972.
Kimball, Charles. When Religion Becomes Evil. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002.
King, Richard. Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India, and ‘The Mystic East.’
New York, NY: Routledge, 1999.
Kirsch, Jonathan. The Woman Who Laughed at God: The Untold History of the Jewish
People. New York, NY: Viking, 2001.
Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. “Exhibiting Jews,” in Destination Culture, edited by
Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara, 79–128. Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 1998.
Klausner, Joseph. Jesus of Nazareth, translated by Herbert Danby. New York, NY:
Menorah Publishing, 1925.
——. From Jesus to Paul, translated by William F. Stinespring. London: Allen and
Unwin, 1946.
Kloppenborg, John S. The Formation of Q: Trajectories in Ancient Wisdom Collections,
Studies in Antiquity and Christianity. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1987.
——. Excavating Q: the History and Setting of the Sayings Gospel. Minneapolis, MN:
Klostermaier, Klaus K. A Survey of Hinduism, 2d ed. Albany, NY: New York: State
Köbben, A. J. F. “Comparativists and Non-Comparativists in Anthropology,” in A
Handbook of Method in Cultural Anthropology, edited by R. Narroll and R. Cohen,
581–96. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1970.
Koester, Helmut. Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development. Philadelphia,
PA: Trinity Press International and London: SCM Press Ltd., 1990.
Kornicki, Peter. The Book in Japan: A Cultural History from the Beginnings to the Nineteenth
Century. Leiden: Brill, 1998.
Kreeft, Peter. Socrates Meets Jesus: History’s Great Questioner Confronts the Claims of Christ.
Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1987.
Kretzmann, Norman, “The Culmination of the Old Logic of Peter Abelard,” Robert
L. Benson and Giles Constable, with Carol D. Lanham, eds. Renaissance and Renewal
in the Twelfth Century, 488–511. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1982.
Kristensen, W. Brede. The Meaning of Religion: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Religion,
translated by John B. Carman. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, [1960] 1968.
Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2d ed. Chicago, IL: University
Lakatos, Imre. “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes,”
in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, edited by Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave,
91–195. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
Lederle, Henry I. “Be Filled with the Spirit of Love: An Update on the State of the
Charismatic Renewal and Some Reflections on Its Central Experiential Teaching.”
Theologica Evangelica 15.3 (1982): 33–48.
302 bibliography
Levering, Miriam. “Scripture and its Reception: A Buddhist Case,” in Rethinking

Scripture, edited by Miriam Levering, 58–101. Albany, NY: State University of
New York Press, 1989.
Lévi-Straus, Claude. Totemism, translated by Rodney Needham. Boston, MA: Beacon
Press, 1963.
——. Structural Anthropology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1976.
Lewis, Ioan M. Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession, 2d ed.
London: Routledge, 1989.
Lewis, Bernard. Islam and the West. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Liebman, Charles S., and Steven M. Cohen. Two Worlds of Judaism. The Israeli and
American Experiences. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990.
Lienesch, Michael. Redeeming America: Piety and Politics in the New Christian Right. Chapel
Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.
Lightstone, Jack N. The Commerce of the Sacred: Mediation of the Divine among Jews in
the Graeco-Roman Diaspora, Brown Judaic Studies 59. Chico, CA: Scholars Press,
1989.
Lincoln, Bruce. Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual,
and Classification. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1989.
——. Authority: Construction and Corrosion. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press,
1994.
——. “Theses on Method.” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 8:3 (1996): 225–27.
——. Holy Terrors: Thinking About Religion After September 11. Chicago, IL: University
Lippmann, Walter. A Preface to Morals. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, [1929] 1960.
Long, Charles H. Significations. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1986.
Lopez, Donald S., Jr., ed. Curators of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Lopreato, Joseph. Human Nature and Biocultural Evolution. Boston, MA: Allen and
Unwin, 1984.
Lorenzen, David. “Who Invented Hinduism?” Comparative Studies in Society and History
41:4 (1999): 630–59.
Lukes, S. Emile Durkheim. New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1972.
Luscombe, D. E. The School of Abelard: The Influence of Abelard’s Thought in the Early
Scholastic Period. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, New Series
14. London: Cambridge University Press, 1969.
MacArthur, John F. Charismatic Chaos. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992.
MacDonald, William G. Glossolalia in the New Testament. Springfield, MO: Gospel
Publishing House, 1964.
Mack, Burton L. A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins. Philadelphia, PA:
Magnani, Giovanni. Religione e religioni. Dalla monolatria al monoteismo profetico. Roma:
Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 2001.
——. Religione e religioni. Il monoteismo. Roma: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana,
2001.
Mannheim, K. Ideology and Utopia. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1974.
Marshall, P. J. The British Discovery of Hinduism in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge:
Martin, Dale B. “Tongues of Angels and Other Status Indicators.” Journal of the
American Academy of Religion 59:3 (1991): 547–89.
Marty Martin E., and R. Scott Appleby, eds. Fundamentalisms Observed. Chicago:
——. The Glory and the Power: The Fundamentalist Challenge to the Modern World. Boston,
MA: Beacon Press, 1992.
Marty, Martin E. The One and the Many: America’s Struggle for the Common Good.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.
bibliography 303
Masuzawa, Tomoko. In Search of Dreamtime. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press,

1993.
——. “From Theology to World Religions: Ernst Troeltsch and the Making of
Religionsgeschichte,” in Secular Theories on Religion, edited by Tim Jensen and Mikael
Rothstein, 149–66. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2000.
May, Carlyle L. “A Survey of Glossolalia and Related Phenomena in Non-Christian
Religions.” American Anthropologist 58 (1956): 75–96
Mayr, Ernst and Peter D. Ashlock. Principles of Systematic Zoology, 2d ed. New York,
NY: McGraw-Hill, [1969] 1991.
McCutcheon, Russell T. The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion: A Reader.
London, UK: Continuum, 1999.
——. ‘Religion’ and the Domestication of Dissent, or How to Live in a Less than Perfect Nation.
London, UK: Equinox Publishers, 2004.
——. “The Ideology of Closure and the Problem of the Insider/Outsider Problem
in the Study of Religion.” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses (2004): 337–52.
McDonnell, Kilian, ed. Presence, Power, Praise: Documents on the Charismatic Renewal.
Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1980.
McPharren, Mark L. The Religion of Socrates. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State
Mills, Watson E. “Glossolalia as a Sociopsychological Experience,” in Speaking in
Tongues: A Guide to Research on Glossolalia, edited by Watson A. Mills, 425–38.
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1986.
Mitchell, Robert Lloyd. The Hymn to Eros: A Reading of Plato’s Symposium. Lanham,
MD: University Press of America, 1993.
Montgomery, Robert L. The Lopsided Spread of Christianity. Toward an Understanding of
the Diffusion of Religions. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002.
Moore, Deborah Dash. “Jewish GIs and the Creation of the Judeo-Christian
Tradition,” Religion and American Culture 8 (Winter 1998). pp. 31–53.
Moore, George Foot. History of Religions. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1914.
Mowinckel, Sigmund. He That Cometh, translated by G. W. Anderson. Nashville:
Abingdon, 1954.
——. The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, 2 Vols., translated by D. R. Ap-Thomas. New
York, NY: Abingdon, 1962.
Müller, F. Max. “Preface to the Sacred Books of the East” in Sacred Books of the
East, Vol. 1, edited by F. Max Müller. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879.
——. Chips from a German Workshop, Vol. 1: Essays on the Science of Religion. Chico,
CA: Scholars Press, [1869] 1985).
Murphy, Nancey. Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1989.
Murty, K. Satchidananda. Vedic Hermeneutics. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993.
Nagel, Ernest. “Some Issues in the Logic of Historical Analysis.” Scientific Monthly
74 (1952): 162–69.
Neville, Robert Cummings, ed. Religious Truth. Albany, NY: State University of New
York Press, 2001.
——, ed. The Human Condition. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press,
2001.
——. Ultimate Realities. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001.
Newman, John Henry. An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent. Notre Dame: University
of Notre Dame, [1870] 1979.
Nicholson, Reynold A. The Mystics of Islam. London: Penguin Books, [1914] 1975.
Niebuhr, Richard R. “Pilgrimage as a Thematic Introduction to the Comparative
Study of Religion” in Tracing Common Themes: Comparative Courses in the Study of
Religion, edited by John B. Carman and Steven J. Hopkins, 51–63. Atlanta:
Scholars Press, 1991.
304 bibliography
Nielsen, Donald A. “Civilizational Encounters in the Development of Early Christianity”

in Handbook of Early Christianity. Social Science Approaches, edited by Anthony J. Blasi,
Jean Duhaime, and Paul-André Turcotte, 267–90. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira
Press, 2002.
Noss, John B. Man’s Religions. New York, NY: Macmillan, 1955.
Nussbaum, Martha. “The Speech of Alcibiades: a Reading of the Symposium” in The
Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, 165–99. Cambridge:
Oates, Wayne E. “A Socio-Psychological Study of Glossolalia,” in Glossolalia: Tongue
Speaking in Biblical, Historical, and Psychological Perspective, edited by Wayne E. Oates,
Frank Stagg, and E. Glenn Hinson, 76–99. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1967.
Oates, Wayne E., Frank Stagg and E. Glenn Hinson, eds. Glossolalia: Tongue Speaking
in Biblical, Historical, and Psychological Perspective. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press,
1967.
Oldmeadow, Harry. Journey’s East: 20th Century Western Encounters with Eastern Religious
Traditions. Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, Inc., 2004.
Ostrander, Gilman M. Republic of Letters: The American Intellectual Community, 1776–1865.
Madison, WI: Madison House Publishers, 1999.
Otto, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-rational Factor in the Idea of
the Divine and its Relation to the Rational, 3d ed, translated and edited by John W.
Harvey. London: Oxford University Press, [1917] 1925.
Oxtoby, Willard G., ed., World Religions: Eastern Traditions. Toronto: Oxford University
Press, 1996.
Paden, William E. “Before ‘The Sacred’ Became Theological: Durkheim and
Reductionism” in Religion and Reductionism: Essays on Eliade, Segal, and the Challenge
of the Social Sciences for the Study of Religion, edited by Thomas A. Idinopulos and
Edward A. Yonan, 198–210. Leiden: Brill, 1994.
——. “A New Comparativism: Reply to the Panelists.” Method and Theory in the Study
of Religion 8 (1996): 37–49.
——. “Elements of a New Comparativism.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion
8 (1996): 5–14.
——. “Sacrality as Integrity: ‘Sacred Order’ as a Model for Describing Religious
Worlds” in The Sacred and its Scholars: Comparative Methodologies for the Study of Primary
Religious Data, edited by Thomas A. Idinopulos and Edward A. Yonan, 3–18.
Leiden: Brill, 1996.
——. “Universals Revisited: Human Behaviors and Cultural Variations.” Numen, 18
(2001): 276–89.
——. “The Creation of Human Behavior: Reconciling Durkheim and the Study of
Religion,” in Reappraising Durkheim for the Study and Teaching of Religion Today, edited
by Thomas A. Idinopulos and Brian C. Wilson, 15–26. Leiden: Brill, 2002.
Pailin, David A. “ ‘I Cannot Tell How All the Lands Shall Worship . . .’: A Response
to S. N. Balagangadhara’s Study of the Understanding of ‘Religion’.” Cultural
Dynamics 8:2 (1996): 171–87.
Panikkar, K. M. The Foundations of New India. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1963.
Pannenberg, Wolfhart. “Toward a Theology of the History of Religions,” Basic
Questions in Theology, Vol. 2, translated by George H. Kehm, 65–118. Philadelphia,
PA: Westminster, 1971.
Pantelia, Maria C., project manager. Thesaurus Linguage Graecae: CD Rom E. Irvine,
CA.: University of California, 1999.
Pattison, E. Mansell. “Behavioral Science Research on the Nature of Glossolalia.”
Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation 20 (1968): 75–85.
Patton, Kimberley C., and Benjamin C. Ray, A Magic Still Dwells: Comparative Religion
in the Postmodern Age. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 2000.
bibliography 305
Peden, William. “Some Notes Concerning Thomas Jefferson’s Libraries.” William

and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser. 1 (1944): 270–71.
Peirce, Charles Saunders. Essays in the Philosophy of Science, edited with introduction
by Vincent Thomas. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957.
——. “The Fixation of Belief,” in Strands of System: The Philosophy of Charles Peirce,
edited by Douglas R. Anderson, 68–117. West Lafayette, IN.: Purdue University
Press, 1995.
Percy, Martyn. “The City on a Beach: Future Prospects for Charismatic Movements
at the End of the Twentieth Century” in Charismatic Christianity: Sociological Perspectives,
edited by Stephen Hunt, Malcolm Hamilton, and Tony Walter, 205–28. New
York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1997.
Perrin, C.-E. “L’Oeuvre historique de Marc Bloch,” Revue historique 99 (1948): 161–88.
Phillips, Kevin. American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House
of Bush. New York, NY: Viking, 2004.
Piatelli-Palmarini, Massimo. Inevitable Illusions: How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds.
New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons, 1996.
Plous, Scott. The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making. New York, NY: McGraw-
Hill, 1993.
Poole, Fitz John Porter. “Metaphors and Maps: Towards Comparison in the
Anthropology of Religion.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 54 (1986):
411–57.
Popper, Karl R. The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 3d ed. New York, NY: Basic Books
[1959] 1968.
Preus, Klemet. “Tongues: An Evaluation from a Scientific Perspective.” Concordia
Theological Quarterly 46 (1982): 277–93.
Priestly, Joseph. Jesus and Socrates Compared. Kila, MT: Kessinger Publishing Co.,
[1803] 1994.
Puckett, David L. John Calvin’s Exegesis of the Old Testament, Columbia Series in
Reformed Theology. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995.
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. Method in Social Anthropology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press, 1958.
Rahner, Karl. “Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions,” in Theological Investigations,
Vol. 5, 115–34. Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1966.
Rahula, Walpola. What the Buddha Taught. New York, NY: Grove Press, Inc., 1974.
Räisänen, Heikki. The ‘Messianic Secret’ in Mark, Studies of the New Testament and
its World, translated by Christopher Tuckett. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1990.
Ralston, Helen. Christian Ashrams. A New Religious Movement in Contemporary India.
Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1987.
Randi, James. Flim Flam: Psychics, ESP, Unicorns and Other Delusions. Amherst, NY:
Prometheus Books, 1982.
Rappaport, Roy A. Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge
Renou, Louis. Hinduism. New York, NY: George Braziller, 1961.
Rhodes, C. “Emile Durkheim and the Historical Thought of Marc Bloch.” Theory
and Society 5 (1978): 45–74.
Ricoeur, Paul. The Symbolism of Evil, translated by Emerson Buchanan. Boston, MA:
Beacon Press, 1969.
——. The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics, edited by Don Ihde. Evanston,
IL.: Northwestern University Press, 1974.
Ringgren, Helmer. “Comparative Mythology” in Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by
Mircea Eliade, 3: 574–78. New York, NY: Macmillan, 1987.
Rizzuto, Ana-Maria. The Birth of the Living God: A Psychoanalytic Study. Chicago, IL:
306 bibliography
Rosen, Stanley. Plato’s Symposium, 2d ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987.
Rosenau, Pauline Marie. Post-Modernism and the Social Sciences. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Runchock, Rita, and Kathleen Droste, eds. Library of Congress Classification Schedules:
Class B, Subclasses BL, BM, BP, BQ. Religion: Religions, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam,
Buddhism. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, Processing Services, Subject
Cataloguing Division, 1992.
Saake, Helmut. “Paulus als Ekstatiker: Pneumatologische Beobachtungen zu 2 Kor
12:1–10.” Novum Testamentum 15.2 (1973): 153–60.
Sagan, Carl. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. New York, NY:
Random House, 1996.
Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, [1978] 1994.
——. “Traveling Theory,” in The Edward Said Reader, edited by Moustafa Bayoumi
and Andrew Rubin, 195–217. New York, NY: Vintage Book, 2000.
Saler, Benson. Conceptualizing Religion: Immanent Anthropologists, Transcendent Natives, and
Unbounded Categories. Leiden: Brill, 1993.
Salmon, Wesley C. “Determinism and Indeterminism in Modern Science,” in Reason
and Responsibility, 2d ed., edited by Joel Fineberg, 321–26. Belmont, CA: Dickenson,
[1965] 1971.
Samarin, William J. Tongues of Men and Angels. New York, NY: Macmillan, 1970.
Sanders, E. P. Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE–66 CE. Philadelphia, PA: Trinity
Press International, 1992.
——. The Historical Figure of Jesus. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin
Books, Ltd., 1993.
Sandmel, Samuel. We Jews and Jesus. New York: Oxford University Press, [1965]
1973.
Sanford, Charles B. Thomas Jefferson and His Library: A Study of His Literary Interests
and of the Religious Attitudes Revealed by Relevant Titles in His Library. Hamden, CN:
Archon Books, 1977.
Sarana, G. The Methodology of Anthropological Comparisons: An Analysis of Comparative
Methods in Social and Cultural Anthropology. Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology.
Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1975.
Schenkel, Albert Frederick. “New Wine and Baptist Wineskins: American and
Southern Baptist Denominational Responses to the Charismatic Renewal,
1960–1980,” in Pentecostal Currents in American Protestantism, edited by Edith L.
Blumhofer, Russell P. Spittler, and Grant A. Wacker, 152–67. Urbana, IL:
University of Illinois Press, 1999.
Schofield, Robert E. The Enlightenment of Joseph Priestley: A Study of his Life and Work
from 1733 to 1773. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997.
Schuon, Frithjof. The Transcendent Unity of Religions. Wheaton, IL: The Theosophical
Publishing House, 1984.
Schutz, Alfred. “Common-sense and Scientific Interpretation of Human Action,” in
Alfred Schutz. Collected Papers. I. The Problem of Social Reality, edited by Maurice
Natanson, 3–47. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973.
Schutz, Alfred, and Thomas Luckmann. The Structure of the Life-World, translated by
Richard M. Zaner and H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. Evanston, IL: Northwestern
Scott, Dominic. “Socrates and Alcibiades in the Symposium.” Hermathena 168 (2000):
25–37.
Scott, Gary Alan. Plato’s Socrates as Educator, SUNY Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy.
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2000.
Segal, Alan F. “Matthew’s Jewish Voice,” in Social History of the Matthean Community:
Cross-Disciplinary Approaches, edited by David L. Balch, 3–37. Minneapolis, MN:
bibliography 307
Segal, Robert A. Myth and Ritual Theory. Oxford, MA: Blackwell, 1998.
——. “Categorizing Religion” in Perspectives on Method and Theory in the Study of Religion:
Adjunct Proceedings of the XVIIth Congress of the International Association for the History of
Religions, Mexico City, 1995, edited by Armin W. Geertz and Russell T. McCutcheon,
187–94. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
——. “In Defense of the Comparative Method.” Numen 48 (2001): 339–74.
Sewell, J. William H. “Marc Bloch and the Logic of Comparative History.” History
and Theory 6 (1967): 208–18.
Shapiro, Faydra. “Autobiography and Ethnography: Falling in Love with the Inner
Other.” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 15 (2003): 187–202.
Sharma, Arvind. “What is Reductionism?” in Religion and Reductionism: Essays on Eliade,
Segal, and the Challenge of the Social Sciences for the Study of Religion, edited by Thomas
A. Idinopulos and Edward Yonan, 127–42. Leiden: Brill, 1994.
Sharma, Arvind, ed. The Sum of our Choices: Essays in Honour of Eric J. Sharpe. Atlanta,
GA: Georgia: Scholars Press, 1996.
——. To the Things Themselves: Essays on the Discourse and Practice of the Phenomenology
of Religion. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2001.
Sharpe, Eric J. Understanding Religion. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1984.
——. Comparative Religion, A History, 2d ed. La Salle, IL: Open Court, [1975] 1986.
Sheffield, Frisbee C. C. “Alcibiades’ Speech: A Satyric Drama.” Greece and Rome
48.2 (2001): 193–209.
Shermer, Michael. Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other
Confusions of Our Time. New York, NY: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1997.
Silk, Mark. Spiritual Politics. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1988.
Sim, David C., “Matthew and the Gentiles: A Response to Brendan Byrn.” Australian
Biblical Review 50 (2002): 74–79.
Smart, Ninian. The Religious Experience of Mankind. New York, NY: Scribner, 1969.
——. The Phenomenon of Religion. London: Macmillan, 1973.
——. The Long Search. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1977.
——. “Comparative-Historical Method,” in Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by Mircea
Eliade, 3:571–74. New York: Macmillan, 1987.
——, ed. Atlas of the World’s Religions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
——. Worldviews: Crosscultural Explorations of Human Beliefs, 3d ed. Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2000.
——. Worldviews: Crosscultural Explorations of Human Beliefs, 2d Edition. NJ: Prentice
Hall, 1994.
Smelser, N. Comparative Methods in the Social Sciences. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-
Hall, 1976.
Smith, Charles. Tongues in Biblical Perspective. Winona Lake, IN: BMH Books, 1973.
Smith, David. Hinduism and Modernity. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.
Smith, Huston. The Religions of Man. New York, NY: Harper, 1958.
——. The World’s Religions. San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991.
——. Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World’s Religions, 2d ed. San Francisco,
CA: HarperSanFrancisco, [1965] 1992.
Smith, Jonathan Z. Map is Not Territory. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1978.
——. Imagining Religion. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
——. “In Comparison a Magic Dwells,” in Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown,
Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism, 19–35. Chicago and London: University
——. “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” in “To See Ourselves as Others See
Us”: Christians, Jews, “Others” in Late Antiquity, Scholars Press Studies in the
Humanities, edited by Jacob Neusner and Ernest S. Frerichs, 3–48. Chico, CA:
——. To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual, Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism.
308 bibliography
——. Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late
Antiquity, Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press, 1990.
Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. Islam in Modern History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1957.
——. “Comparative Religion: Wither—and Why?” in The History of Religions, Essays
in Methodology, edited by Mircea Eliade and Joseph Kitagawa, 31–58. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press, 1959.
——. Religious Diversity, edited by Willard G. Oxtoby. New York, NY: Crossroad,
1976.
——. The Meaning and End of Religion. New York, NY: Mentor Books, 1964.
——. “A Human View of Truth.” SR: Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 1 (1971):
6–24.
——. Faith and Belief. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979.
——. Towards a World Theology: Faith and the Comparative History of Religion. Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis, [1981] 1989.
Sohm, Rudolf, Kirchenrecht, vol. 1 Die geschichtlichen Grundlagen. Systematisches Handbuch
der deutschen Rechtswisssenchaft. München and Leipzig: Duncker & Humboldt,
1923.
Speer, Albert. Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs, translated by Richard and Clara Winston,
introduction by Eugene Davidson. New York: Macmillan [1969] 1970.
——. Spandau: The Secret Diaries, translated by Richard and Clara Winston. New
York, NY: Macmillan, 1976.
Spence, Jonathan. Mao Zedong. New York, NY: Viking, 1999.
Spencer, Herbert, and Frederic Harrison. The Nature and Reality of Religion: A Controversy
between Frederick Harrison and Herbert Spencer. New York, NY: D. Appleton, 1885.
Spiro, Melford E. Buddhism and Society: A Great Tradition and its Burmese Vicissitudes.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1982.
Spittler, R. P. “Are Pentecostals and Charismatics Fundamentalists?: A Review of
American Uses of These Categories,” in Charismatic Christianity as a Global Culture,
Studies in Comparative Religion, edited by Karla Poewe, 103–16. Columbia, SC:
University of South Carolina Press, 1994.
Staples, Peter. “Structuralism and Symbolic Universe: Second Temple Judaism and
the Early Christian Movement,” in Handbook of Early Christianity. Social Science
Approaches, edited by Anthony J. Blasi, Jean Duhaime, and Paul-André Turcotte,
197–221. Walnut Creek, California: Alta Mira, 2002.
Stendahl, Krister. “Religion in the University.” Daedalus: Proceedings of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences 92 (1963): 521–28.
Stern, Jessica. Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill. New York, NY:
HarperCollins, 2003.
Stietencron, Heinrich von. “Religious Configurations in Pre-Muslim India and the
Modern Concept of Hinduism,” in Representing Hinduism: The Construction of Religious
Traditions and National Identity, edited by Vasudha Dalmia and H. von Stietencron,
51–81. New Delhi: Sage, 1995.
Stimpson, Catherine R. “General Education for Graduate Education.” The Chronicle
of Higher Education, November 1, 2002: B7–10.
Stocking, G. W. Victorian Anthropology. New York, NY: Free Press, 1987.
Strawser, Michael J. “How Did Socrates Become a Christian?: Irony and a Postmodern
Christian (Non)-Ethic.” Philosophy Today 36:3/4 (1992): 256–65.
Strenski, Ivan. Four Theories of Myth in Twentieth-Century. London: Macmillan and
Iowa City: Iowa University Press, 1987.
——. “The Ironies of Fin-de-Siécle Rebellions against Historicism and Empiricism
in the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Fifth Section,” in Religion in the Making.
The Emergence of the Sciences of Religion, edited P. Pels and A. L. Molendijk, 159–80.
Leiden: Brill, 1998.
bibliography 309
——. Theology and the First Theory of Sacrifice. Leiden: Brill, 2003.
Sugirtharajah, Sharada. Imagining Hinduism: A Postcolonial Perspective. London: Routledge,
2003.
Sullivan, Lawrence. “Seeking an End to the Primary Text or Putting an End to
the Text as Primary,” in Beyond the Classics? Essays in Religious Studies and Liberal
Education, edited by Frank Reynolds and Sheryl Burkhalter, 41–50. Atlanta, GA:
Suzuki, D. T. Essays in Zen Buddhism, 2d ed. London: Rider and Company, [1953]
1972.
Sweek, Joel. “Biology of Religion.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, 14:2
(2002), 196–218.
Taylor, Mark C. “Introduction,” in Critical Terms for Religious Studies, edited by Mark
C. Taylor, 41–50. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Thomas, Edward J. The Life of the Buddha in Legend and History. New York, NY:
Barnes and Noble Inc., 1956.
Thompson, C. Bradley. John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty, American Political Thought.
Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1998.
Thorndike, Lynn. University Records and Life in the Middle Ages. New York: Columbia
Tiele, Cornelius Petrus. “Religions,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th ed., 381–82. Philadelphia,
PA: J. M. Stodart, 1886.
Tillich, Paul. Systematic Theology, Vol. 1. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press,
1951.
——. Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions. New York, NY: Columbia
Tonkin, Elizabeth. Narrating Our Pasts: The Social Construction of Oral History. Cambridge:
Toynbee, Arnold. An Historian’s Approach to Religion, 2d ed. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, [1956] 1979.
Tracy, David. “Theology: Comparative Theology,” in Encyclopedia of Religion, edited
by Mircea Eliade, 14:446–55. New York: Macmillan, 1987.
Trollinger, William Vance. God’s Empire: William Bell Riley and Midwestern Fundamentalism,
History of American Thought and Culture. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1991.
Tylor, Edward Burnett. Primitive Cultures: Researches into the Development of Mythology,
Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom, 2 Vols. London: Murray, 1873–1874.
Urban, Hugh B. “Making a Place to Take a Stand: Jonathan Z. Smith and the
Politics and Poetics of Comparison.” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 12:3
(2000): 339–78.
Van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation, 2d ed. with a foreword by Ninian
Smart. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, [1938] 1964.
Van Steenberghan, Fernard. Aristotle in ther West: The Origin of Latin Aristotelianism.
Leonard Johnston, Trans. New York: Humanities Press, 1970.
Vander Waerdt, Paul A., ed. The Socratic Movement. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1994.
Vlastos, Gregory. Platonic Studies, 2d ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1981.
——. Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher, Cornell Studies in Classical Philology 50.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991.
Wach, Joachim. Sociology of Religion. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1944.
——. The Comparative Study of Religions. New York, NY: Columbia University Press,
1958.
Walker, L. D. “Review Essay: Marc Bloch’s Feudal Society.” History and Theory 3
(1963–4): 247–55.
310 bibliography
——. “A Note on Historical Linguistics and Marc Bloch’s Comparative Method.”

History and Theory 19 (1980): 154–62.
Ward, Keith. Religion and Revelation: A Theology of Revelation in the World’s Religions.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.
Warner, R. Stephen. “The Place of the Congregation in the Contemporary American
Religious Configuration,” in American Congregations, Vol. 2, edited by James P.
Wind and James W. Lewis, 54–99. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press,
1994.
Watson, Walter. The Architectonics of Meaning: Foundations of the New Pluralism. Albany,
Weber, Max. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, edited and translated by H. H.
Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1946.
——. The Religion of China, edited and translated by Hans H. Gerth. New York,
NY: Free Press, 1951.
——. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 2d ed., translated by Talcott
Parsons. New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, [1904–1905] 1958.
——. Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, Vol. 1, edited by Guenther
Roth and Claus Wittich. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press 1978.
——. The Sociology of Religion, translated by Ephraim Fischoff. Boston, MA: Beacon
Press, 1993.
——. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 2d Roxbury ed., translated by
Hans H. Gerth, C. Wright Mills and Talcott Parsons. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury,
1998.
Wedderburn, A. J. M. Baptism and Resurrection: Studies in Pauline Theology Against its
Graeco-Roman Background, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament
44. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1987.
Wiebe, Donald. Beyond Legitimation: Essays on the Problem of Religious Knowledge. New
York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.
——. Religion and Truth: Towards an Alternative Paradigm for the Study of Religion. The
Hague; New York: Mouton, 1981.
——. The Politics of Religious Studies: The Continuing Conflict with Theology in the Academy.
New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1999.
Wildman, Wesley J. Fidelity with Plausibility: Modest Christologies in the Twentieth Century.
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1998.
Wildman, Wesley J., and Leslie A. Brothers, “A Neuropsychological-Semiotic Model
of Religious Experiences,” in Neuroscience and the Person: Scientific Perspectives on Divine
Action, edited by Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy, Theo Meyering, and
Michael Arbib, 347–416. Vatican City State and Berkeley, CA: Vatican Observatory
and Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 2000.
Wildman, Wesley J. “The Resilience of Religion in Secular Social Environments:
A Pragmatic Analysis,” in Scientific Explanation and Religious Belief: Science and Religion
in Philosophical and Public Discourse. Michael G. Parker and Thomas M. Schmidt,
eds., 58–80. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005.
Williams, Cyril G. “Glossolalia in the New Testament,” in Tongues of the Spirit: A
Study of Pentecostal Glossolalia and Related Phenomena, edited by Cyril G. Williams,
25–45. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1981.
Wilson, David Sloan. Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society.
Winternitz, M. A General Index to the Names and Subject-Matter of the Sacred Books of the
East. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910.
Wrede, William. Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien: zugleich ein Beitrag zum Verständnis
des Markusevangeliums, 2d ed. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1913.
Wright, G. Ernest. The Old Testament Against its Environment. London: SCM Press,
1950.
bibliography 311
Young, Katherine K. “World Religions: A Category in the Making?” in Religion in

History: The Word, the Idea, the Reality, edited by Michel Despland and Gerard
Vallee, 111–30. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1992.
Yunis, Harvey. A New Creed: Fundamental Religious Beliefs in the Athenian Polis and
Euripidean Drama. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1988.
Zaehner, R. C. “Conclusion,” in The Concise Encyclopedia of Living Faiths, edited by
R. C. Zaehner, 415–16. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1959.
Zander, Alvin Frederick. The Purposes of Groups and Organizations, The Jossey-Bass
Social and Behavioral Science Series. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1985.
Zerubavel, Eviatar. Time Maps: Collective Memory and the Social Shape of the Past. Chicago,
IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Ziolkowski, Eric J., ed. A Museum of Faiths: Histories and Legacies of the 1893 World’s
Parliament of Religions. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1993.
¥i≥ek, Slavoj. “The Matrix, or the Two Sides of Perversion,” in Slavoj ¥i≥ek, Enjoy
Your Symptom: Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out, 2d ed., 213–33. New York, NY:
Routledge, 2001.
INDEX OF NAMES
Abelard 184, n. 9 Braudel, Ferdinand 289

Adams, James Luther 183 Brooks, Douglas 35, 37
Adams, John 183, 186–87, 187 n. 16 Brown, Daniel 23
Aeschines 187, n. 16 Browne, E. G. 228
Agathon 154–55 Bruce, Frederick F. 193
Ajax 157 Buddha 44, n. 44, 45, 144, 231
al Haq, Norman 77 Budnitz, Hannah 139
Albright, William Foxwell 254 Burns, Robert 19
Alexander 226 Bush, George W. 34, 140
Alkibiades 149–64 passim Byrne, Peter 125
Almond, Philip C. 123, 227
Akhenaten 254 n. 14 Caecus, Didymus 145, n. 6
Amida Buddha 32 Caeser, Julius 187, n. 17
Appian 187 n. 16 Cahen, Claude 228
Applebaum, Ralph 130 Calvin, Jean 13
Appleby, R. Scott 125 Canard, Marius 228
Aristophanes 152, 155–56, 161, 163 Cartledge, Mark J. 207–08, 211
passim Cato 194, n. 17
Aristotle 83–84, 184 n. 9, 256, 275 Cassius, Dio 187 n. 17
Arnold, Thomas 228 Charmides 155
Asad, Talal 117 Cheney, Dick 140
Athansius of Alexandria 145 n. 6 Cherry, Conrad 121, 124
Atta, Mohamed 65, n. 7 Chidester, David 121
Augustine 187 n. 16 Cicero 187 n. 16
Aurelius, Marcus 187 n. 16 Clarke, James Freeman 119 n. 6
Clement of Alexandria 145–146, 187
Balagangadhara, S. N. 123 n. 16
Balch, David L. 9 Cloony, Frank 77
Barrows, John Henry 119 n. 5, 120 Colas, Dominique 247
Barth, Karl 274 Collingwood, R. G. 263 n. 27
Barthold, V. 228 Confucius 127, 144 n. 3
Bellamy, Carla 133 Conzelmann, Hans 193
Bellow, Saul 47 Copernicus, Nicolas 287
Bender, Courtney 137 Corbin, Henri 228
Berger, Peter 77 Cornell, Vincent 246
Berr, Henri 289–90 Crawley, Edgar 271
Berthrong, John 77 Cunningham, Alexander 226
Betz, Hans Deiter 170–71 Cutten, George G. 204
Björkman, W. 228
Bloch, Marc 272, 279, 281, 289 Dalai Lama 232
passim Dalmia, Vasudha 122
Blumer, Herbert 10 Darrow, William R. 125
Boas, Franz 264 n. 29, 276 Darwin, Charles 284
Boethius 187 n. 16 David, King 267–68
Bothilingk, Princep 226 Day, Dorothy 13
Bourdieu, Pierre 244, 244 n. 9 de Gargnano, Giuseppi Maria 130
Bouwsma, Franklin G. 133 de la Saussaye, Chantepie 274
Boyarin, Daniel 214 deBary, William Theodore 127
314 index of names
Dennett, Daniel C. 102–03 Hallisey, Charles 123

Derrida, Jacques 259 Harding, Mark 193
Despland, Michel 124 Harmon, Steven 199
Dewey, John 106 Hawley, John Stratton 122
Dhareshwar, Vivek 123 Haydon, A. Eustace 116, n. 2
di Nobili, Roberto 130 Hempel, Carl G. 262 n. 26
Dilthey, Wilhelm 289 Herodotus 187 n. 16, 209 n. 83, 256
Dilworth, David A. 101 Hierocles 187 n. 16
Dionysos 152, 217 Hillel, Rabbi 177
Diotima 156–64 passim Hoenig, Susan B. 179–80
Doniger, Wendy 43, 122, 124–25 Holdrege, Barbara 42
Dray, William 263 n. 27 Holwell, John Zephaniah 123
Dumézil, Georges 281 Hooke, S. H. xv, 252–54
Dumont, Louis 281 Hsin Tao, Ven. Dharma Master 130
Dunn, James D. G. 215–16 Hubert, Henri 281, 288
Durkheim, Emile xi, 66–67, 222, 264 Hume, David 264 n. 28
n. 28, 271, 281–92 Humphries, Lev 199
Husayn 38
Eck, Diana 116, 126 Hussein, Saddam 242
Eckel, David 77 Husserl, Edmund 102–03
Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard 256 n. 18
Eliade, Mircea 55, 141, 257, 275 Ignatius 187 n. 16
Embree, Ainslee T. 127 Inden, Ronald 122, 230
Epictetus 187 n. 16 Ivy, Marilyn 137
Ernst, Carl W. 17
Euripides 217 n. 105 Jackson, Janet 246
Eusebius 145–46, 187 n. 16 Jakobson, Ramon 281
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 275 James, E. O. 57
James, William 9
Fanon, Franz 225 Jaspers, Karl 144 n. 3
Febvre, Lucien 272, 281, 289–90 Jastrow, Morris 51
Feyerabend, Paul 108 Jefferson, Thomas 13, 147 n. 9, 183,
Fitzgerald, Timothy 121 186–87
Forbes, Christopher 208, 211 Jensen, Lionel M. 127
Frazer, James George xvi, 23, 52, Jesus xiii, 9, 44, 70, 144–49, 151,
222, 229, 254, 256–57, 261, 266–71, 153, 159, 165–73, 175–80, 183–84,
275–77, 282, 285, 291 187–90, 194–05, 214–15
Frankfort, Henri 254 n. 12 Joab 267
Fredriksen, Paula 77 Job 32
Freud, Sigmund 222, 229 n. 29 Joel 191
John the Baptist 175
Gad 267–68 Johnson, Luke Timothy 209–10
Gagarin, Michael 158, 161 Jones, William 226
Gandhi 225, 230 Judas 148 n. 12
Geertz, Clifford 60 n. 2, 251–52, Jüng, Karl 222
258–59, 262 n. 26, 266 Justin Martyr 187 n. 16
Gentle, Virginia 129
Gieryn, Thomas 289 Kant, Immanuel 229–30
Glaser, Barney G. 10 Keith, A. B. 226
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 281 Kertzer, David 30
Goodman, Felicitas 204–06 Kierkegaard, Søren 51
Graham, William 116 King, Richard 123
Gregory of Nanzianzus 187 n. 16 Kirsch, Jonathan 243
index of names 315
Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara 124 Mill, John Stuart 264 n. 28

Kitagawa, Joseph 19, 120, 124–6 Miller, Dave 200–01
Klausner, Joseph xiii, 175–80 Minucius, Felix 187 n. 16
Kloppenborg, John S. 171 Moerman, Max 136
Klostermaier, Klaus 24 Montgomery, Robert L. 6
Köbben, André 281 Moore, Deborah Dash 124
Koester, Helmut 171 Moore, George Foot 116 n. 2
Kohn, Livia 77 Moses 152 n. 8, 175, 254 n. 14
Korybantes 157 Mowinckel, Sigmund 254 n. 14
Kramers, J. H. 228 Mubad Shah 130
Kreeft, Peter 146 Muhammed 17, 32, 40, 44, 144
Kuhn, Thomas 103 Müller, Frederich Max ix, 52, 119,
121–22, 221, 281
Laertes, Diogenes 147 n. 10, 187 Murphy, Anne 134
n. 16
Lakatos, Imre 103–06 Nagel, Ernest 265 n. 30
Laozi 118 Nazianzus, Gregory 145 n. 5
Le Strange, Guy 228 Neville, Robert Cummings xii, 34,
Levering, Miriam 43 39, 48, 77
Lévi-Provençal, E. 228 Newman, John Henry 104
Lévi-Strauss, Claude 229 n. 29 Nicholson, R. C. 228
Lewis, Bernard xiv, 227 Noss, John B. 128
Lightstone, Jack 248 Nussbaum, Martha 151–55, 158
Lincoln, Bruce x, 28–30, 32–33, 36,
38–39, 41, 244, 248 Oates, Wayne E. 204
Linnaeus, Carl 82 nn. 4–5 Olcott, Colonel Henry Steele 231
Lippmann, Walter 147 n. 9 Oldmeadow, Harry 224–25
Lopez, Jr., Donald S. 123 Origen 187 n. 16
Lorenzen, David 122 Orsi, Robert 131
Lucian of Samosata 146 Otto, Rudolf 100, 189 n. 22
Luke 176–77, 194, 209, 209 n. 82 Oxtoby, Willard 126
Luther, Martin 186 n. 13
Paden, William E. xv, 254–55, 261
Macdonell, A. A. 122 Pailin, David A. 123
Magnani, Giovanni 11–12 Panikkar, K. M. 226
Malinowski, Bronislaw 283 Parsons, Talcott 289
Marçais, Georges 228 Patel, Avani 138
Marçais, William 228 Patton, Kimberley 126
March, Augie 47 Paul xiii, 9, 146 n. 7, 169, 170, 175,
Marett, R. R. 222 177–80, 190 n. 26, 192–93, 195,
Marshall, P. J. 122 197, 200–201, 207, 208 n. 77, 213
Marsyas 156 n. 97, 209
Marty, Martin E. 125, 246 Peirce, Charles Saunders 106, 110
Masuzawa, Tomoko 121–22, 128, Pellat, Charles 228
248 Pelliot, Paul 226
Matthew 149, 154, 165–73, 176–77 Pentheus 217
Maurin, Peter 13 Peregrinus 146
Mauss, Marcel 281, 284, 288 Peter 153 n. 24, 191, 207
Maximus of Tyre 187 n. 16 Philo 187 n. 16
Meillet, Antoine 281–82, 289 Philostratus 187 n. 16
Memuni, Albert 225 Piaget, Jean 206 n. 72
Mermelstein, Rebecca 138 Pinkney, Andrea 133
Mez, Adam 228 Plato 83, 149–55, 158–66, 168–70,
316 index of names
172–73 passim, 187 n. 16, 209 n. 83, Stein, Aurel 226

229 Stephen 140
Plutarch 187 n. 16 Strauss, Anselm L. 10
Polo, Marco 130 Strauss, Lehman 195–203, 205–206,
Popper, Karl 104, 263 n. 27 211–12
Presley, Elvis 73 Sugirtharajah, Sharada 224
Preus, Klemet 202–207, 211–12 Sullivan, Lawrence 44, 130
Priestley, Joseph 147 n. 9, 183
Pythagoras 146 n. 8 Tacitus 187 n. 16
Taylor, Mark 132, 250
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. 284–85 Tertullian 187 n. 16
Ray, Benjamin 126 Theophrastus 187 n. 16
Ricci, Mateo 130 Thieme, Paul 281
Rice, Condoleeza 140 Thucydides 187 n. 16
Rickert, Heinrich 289 Tiele, Cornelius Petrus 119
Rosen, Stanley 158–59 Tillich, Paul 87, 101, 126
Rosenau, Pauline Marie 249–50 Todd, Jesse T. 124, 129
Rosenberg, John D. 127 Troeltsch, Ernst 11 n. 20
Ruether, Rosemary Radford 213, 217 Turner, Victor 136
n. 104 Tylor, E. B. 222, 271, 275–76, 282
Rushdie, Salman 224
Vallee, Gerard 124
Said, Edward 45, 127, 225, 228 van der Leeuw, Gerardus 55
Saldarini, Anthony 77 van der Veer, Peter 133
Salmon, Wesley C. 265 n. 31 Vivekananda, Swami 119
Sanders, E. P. 167–69 Vlastos, Gregory 151
Sandmel, Samuel 52 von Stietencron, Heinrich 122
Sarana, Gopala 272
Schmidt, Leigh 131 Wach, Joachim x, 19–21, 55, 124,
Seager, Richard Hughes 120 180
Segal, Robert 237 Ward, Keith 47
Seneca 187 n. 16 Warner, Stephen 140
Shapiro, Adam 140 n. 24 Washington, George 23
Shapiro, Faydra 238 Watson, Walter 101
Sharma, Arvind 49 Weber, Max 7 n. 10, 12–3, 87, 144
Sharpe, Eric J. 121 n. 2, 222, 264, 281
Silenus 156–57 Weisenfeld, Judith 137
Silk, Mark 124 Wellhausen, Julius 175
Smart, Ninian xv, 18, 128–29, 255, Wiebe, Donald 122
276 Wildman, Wesley 39, 48, 77
Smith, Huston 95, 128, 135 Winternitz, M. 122
Smith, Jonathan Z. xiv, xv, 20, Wright, William 228
78–79, 109–10, 124, 131, 181, 183, Wundt, Wilhelm 289
186–87, 206, 212, 216, 248, 255–56,
271–72 Xenophon 148 n. 10, 160, 187 n. 16
Smith, Wilfrid Cantwell 87, 116–17,
125–26, 135 Young, Katherine K. 124
Smith, William Robertson 257, 272
Socrates xiii, 145–52, 154–66, 168, Zedong, Mao 31 n. 13
170, 172 Ziolkowski, Eric J. 120–21
Speer, Albert 239–40 Zito, Angela 118
Spittler, Russell 192 ¥i≥ek, Slavoj 243–44
Staples, Peter 15 Zoroaster 148
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
Aborigines, Australian 222, 282, 284 Christianity and the Encounter with World
Abrahamic traditions 24, 233 Religions (Tillich) 126
Acts of the Apostles 189, 195, 205 “Christianity Judging Itself ” (Tillich)
Advaita Vedanta xv, 231, 233 126
Afro-Caribbean religions 142 Colonialism 225, 251
Animal sacrifice 260–65 Comparative Religion (Sharpe) 121
Annales School 272, 289 “Comparative Religion” (W. C. Smith)
Anthropology 97, 275, 284 126
Anti-semitism 213–14 Comparative Study of Religions, The (Wach)
Apologia Socratis (Plato) 150 19, 124
Archaic religion (Eliade) 277 Concept, exclusive 6–9, 12
Asceticism, inner-worldy (Weber) 12 Concept, inclusive 6–1, 13
Asia in the Core Curriculum (deBary et al.) Confucianism 68, 118, 127, 221
127 Conservative Christianity 181, 189,
Assemblies of God 190, 195 191–93, 218
Authority (Lincoln) x, 28–33, 36, Controlled comparativism (Segal) 252,
38–39, 41, 47 n. 52, 257, 259–60, 270
Corinthians 201, 207
Bacchae (Euripides) 209 n. 83, 217 CRIP (Crosscultural Comparative
Baha’i 6 Religious Ideas Project) xi–xii,
Baptists 194–96, 199–201 77–79, 85–87, 89–93, 95, 102–03,
“Believing Myth as Myth” (Weckman) 106–13
19 Critical Terms for Religious Studies (Taylor,
Bhagavadgita 230 ed.) 132
Bhakti 24, 131–32 Cultural Studies 127
Bible ix, 31, 40–42, 44–45, 141, 186, Curators of the Buddha (Lopez) 123
191–92, 195, 199–201, 203, 267,
269–70 Daoism 87, 118
Book of Chronicles 267–68 De morte Peregrini (Lucian of Samosata)
Book of Job 32 146
Book of Samuel 267 Deism 186
British Discovery of Hinduism, The Dharma 24, 68
(Almond) 122 “Dialogue and Method” (Eck) 126
British Discovery of Hinduism . . ., The Discourse (Lincoln) 29, 33–34, 41
(Marshall) 122 Discourses of the Vanishing (Ivy) 137
Buddhism ix, xi, xiv–xv, 6, 44, Dissent from the Homeland (Cornell) 246
56–57, 92, 98, 118, 123, 129, 221, Division of Labor in Society, The
223, 225, 227–28, 231–33, 245 (Durkheim) 284
Drudgery Divine ( J. Z. Smith) xiv, 181,
Charisma 28, 63, 66 212
Chinese religions 34, 40, 118
Christianity xi, xiii–xiv, 9, 12, 15, 18, Elective affinity (Weber) 12–13
24, 34, 40, 41, 42, 46, 53, 55–57, Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, The
117, 119–20, 126, 138, 144, 147, (Durkheim) 284, 288, 291
166, 172, 175, 177–80, 183–89, Encyclopedia of Religion, The (Eliade, ed.)
193–95, 199, 204, 207, 210–11, 125
213–17, 221, 230–31, 254, 257, 260, Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, The
274, 276–78 (Berr and Febrve, eds.) 290
318 index of subjects
Epistemic authority (Lincoln) x, 28 133–34, 221, 223, 225–26, 228,

Epoche 15, 55, 180 230–31, 233
“Essays on the Science of Religion” “Hinduism by Any Other Name”
(Müller) 121 (Doniger) 126
Ethnography 238, 285 History of religions xii, 48, 112,
Ethology 73 119–26, 136–37, 142
Evolutionary sciences 61, 65 n. 8, 72, History of Religions, The (Eliade and
97, 230, 231, 222, 275–77, 289, 300 Kitagawa, eds.) 126
Executive authority (Lincoln) x, 28–9, Human Condition, The (Neville) 77
31 Human sciences 60, 74
“Exhibiting Jews” (Kirschenblatt- Humanities 60, 62, 74, 106, 122, 271
Gimblett) 124 Hurrying Towards Zion (Cherry) 121,
Explanation 238, 239, 262 n. 26, 124
263 n. 27, 265 n. 30, 288
“‘I Cannot Tell How All the Lands
Faith (W. C. Smith) 117 Shall Worship . . .’” (Pailin) 123
Family resemblance 135 Idea of the Holy, The (Otto) 100
Folk-Lore in the Old Testament (Frazer) Ideology of Religious Studies, The
266 (Fitzgerald) 121
Following Muhammad (Ernst) 17 Illative sense (Newman) 104
“Footprints of the Buddha” (film) Imagining India (Inden) 122
245 Implied Spider, The (Doniger) 125
Founders, religious xiii, 14, 57, In Search of Dreamtime (Masuzawa) 122
143–73 Indo-European Studies 279–82, 292
From Jesus to Paul (Klausner) 175 Insider/outsider problem xv, 236–41
Fundamentalism ix, 125, 192, 196, Interpretation 241–42, 248, 251
199, 206, 207, 225 n. 26
Fundamentalism Observed (Marty and Invention of World Religions, The
Appleby) 125 (Masuzawa) 138
Islam xi, xiv, xv, 17, 23, 34, 38, 40,
General Index . . . Sacred Books of the East, 42, 55, 57, 68, 117, 119, 141, 221,
A (Winternitz) 122 223–25, 228, 239, 245–46
Glory and the Power, The (Marty and Israel 167, 172, 175–77, 252, 254,
Appleby) 125 267–70, 274
Glossolalia xiv, 181–218
Gospel of Luke 171, 176–78, 194, 209 Jainism 137, 138
Gospel of Matthew 155, 173–79, Jesus of Nazareth (Klausner) 175, 179
182–83 “Jewish GIs . . . Judeo-Christian
Greco-Roman religions 9, 178,–79, Tradition” (Moore) 124
184–85, 188 Judaism ix, xi, xiii, 11 n. 20, 53, 55,
Guru Granth Sahib 31, 44 56–57, 138, 171, 175, 177–80, 188,
213–17, 221, 223, 243, 248
“Harvard Way in the Study of Judeo-Christian tradition 128, 134,
Religion” (Darrow) 125 230
“‘Heathen in his Blindness, The’” Jungian psychology 95
(Almond) 123
“‘Heathen in His Blindness . . ., The’” King James Bible 199
(Balagangadhara) 123 Kingdom of God xiii, 175
Hebrew (Israelite) religion 5, 12, 15,
186, 266 Lectures on the Religion of the Semites
Henotheism 10, 231 (W. R. Smith) 257
Hermeneutics 7, 90, 223, 229, 289–90 Leges (Plato) 162
Hierophany 72, 117 Liberal democracy 242, 244, 252
Hinduism xi, xiv–xv, 24–25, 32, 37, Linguistics 209, 279
40, 53, 56, 68, 98, 118, 122, 129, Long Search, The (Smart) 129
index of subjects 319
“Long Search, The” (video series) Paradigm, scientific (Khun) 103

129, 253 Patterns in Comparative Religion (Eliade)
Lotus Sutra 38, 46, 44, 48, 49 116, 125
Pauline letters 189, 209, 249
Magic 10, 23, 70, 267, 269, 288 Pedagogy 110, 112 181–82, 193, 218
Magic Still Dwells, A (Patton and Ray, Pentecostalism xiv, 194–98
eds.) 21, 126 Perennialism 35, n. 25, 95–97, 108,
Mahayana Buddhism 38, 92, 98 250
Manichaeism 52 Phenomenology 4, 37, 49, 53, 55,
Man’s Religions (Noss) 128 103, 107, 222
Manual of the History of Religions (de la Philosophy of religion 95, 108
Saussaye) 274 Philosophy of science 103, 104
Manufacturing Confucianism ( Jensen) 127 Pilgrimage 53, 67, 73, 134–35
“Matrix, The” (film) 251 Platonism 183
Meaning and End of Religion, The (W. C. Pluralism, religious 13, 98, 126
Smith) 116, 126 Politics of Religious Studies, The (Wiebe)
Midrash 177 122
Modernism xvi, 20–21, 257 Polytheism 12, 146, 231
Monolatry 12 Postcolonialism 219, 225
Monotheism 12, 55–56, 231 Postmodernism xv, xvi, 20–21, 59–60
“Mothering principle” (Idinopulos) 73, 257–78
51–57 Praeparatio evangelica (Eusebius) 146
Museum of Faiths, A (Ziolkowski, ed.) “Preface to the Sacred Books of the
120–21 East” (Müller) 122
Mysterium tremendum (Otto) 100 “Primitive” religion 253
Mystic Rose (Crawley) 271 Protestantism 31, 121, 133, 192, 232
Myth 22, 43, 59, 66, 67, 253, 276, Protrepicus (Clement of Alexandria) 146
282–83, 285 Psychology 100, 214, 230
Myth of the Eternal Return, The (Eliade) Pure Land Buddhism 32, 62
116
Q (Source) 176–77
“Naming Hinduism” (Hawley) 122 “Question of Universality, The”
Nationalism 32, 225, 230, 251, 266 (Masuzawa) 121
Natural sciences 60, 62, 89, 103–06, Qur’an xv, 32, 33, 38, 41–45, 48, 233
110, 290
Naturalism 74, 187 Reductionism 37, 49
New comparativism (Segal) 249–70 Reformation 187–88, 213, 217
“New Creed, A” (Silk) 124 Relativism xi, 20
New Introduction to Islam (Brown) 23 Religion, concept of 260, 282, 296
New Testament 44, 166, 183–216 Religion in History (Despland and Vallee,
passim, 224, 225 eds.) 124
Religions of Man, The (H. Smith) 128
Old comparativism (Segal) 255–70 “Religious Configurations . . .” (von
Old Testament Against its Environment, The Stietencron) 122
(Albright) 254 Religious Diversity (Oxtoby) 126
On Common Ground (Eck) 126 Religious Experience of Mankind, The
One and the Many, The (Marty) 246 (Smart) 128
Orientalism xiv, 127, 132, 223–25, Religious Truth (Neville) 77
228, 233 Representing Hinduism (Dalmia and von
Orientalism (Said) 1127 Stietencron, eds.) 122
Orientalism and Religion (King) 123 Respublica (Plato) 162
Ritual 10, 23, 40, 45, 46, 59, 64, 68,
Panentheism 12 71, 86, 178, 252, 266
Panhuman behavioral dispositions 60–61 “Roads Taken . . . Therevada
Pantheism 12 Buddhism” (Hallisey) 123
320 index of subjects
Roman Catholicism 31, 183–85, Theorizing Faith (Areck and Stringer) 241
187–88, 206 “Theory of Religion and Method . . .”
Rules of Sociological Method, The (Byrne) 125
(Durkheim) 291, 296 Therevada Buddhism 92–93, 123
“Theses on Method” (Lincoln) 248
Sacred and profane (Eliade) 112 Tibetan Buddhism 232
Sacred Books of the East, The (Müller, “To Find Our Lives” (film) 135
ed.) 122, 221 Torah (Hebrew Bible) ix, 32, 33, 44,
Sacred objects 66–67 167, 170, 177
Sacred space 63, 140 Totemism 282–83, 286–87
Sacred time 63, 140 “Trial of Pagans, The” (Dhareshwar)
Sacred tree xi, 53, 285 123
Sacred, the 67 Trinitarianism 12, 183–187
Sacrifice 40, 288
Sacrifice (Hubert and Mauss) 288 Ultimate Realities (Neville) 77
Savage Systems (Chidester) 121
Scripture 40, 64–65, 186, 190, Vedas 24, 32, 33, 44
199–200, 203, 206-07, 212
Sermon on the Mount 170–71 We Jews and Jesus (Sanmel) 52
Shi’ism 130 “What the New York World’s Fair . . .”
Shinto 118, 136 (Todd) 124
“Sick soul” (Wm. James) 205 “Who Invented Hinduism?” (Lorenzen)
Sikhism 31, 133–34 122
Social sciences 75, 97, 111, 251, 283 “Wizard of Oz, The” (film) 28, 135
Sociology 97, 206, 230, 283, 291 Woman Who Laughed at God (Kirsch) 243
Soteriology 24, 45 Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical
Spirit of capitalism (Weber) 7, n. 10, Beasts (Doniger) 125
12, 13 World Parliament of Religions
Spirit possession 207, 245 123–25, 136, 145
Stromata (Clement of Alexandria) 145 World religions 56–57, 117–18,
Student’s Guide to the Long Search 124–25, 127, 129–31, 246
(Bouwsma and Gentle) 129 World Religions in Boston (Eck, ed.) 126
Structuralism 229 “World Religions” (Young) 124
Symposium (Plato) 149–72 Worldmaking (Paden) xi, 59–75
Syncretism 5 World’s Parliament of Religions, The
Systema Naturae (Linnaeus) 84 (Barrows) 120
Worldview 47, 101, 246
“Taking Sides and Opening Doors” Worldviews (Smart) 18
(Brooks) 37
Talmud 177 Zen Buddhism 232

Rel. Com.

Transféré par

Informations du document

Titre original

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Rel. Com.

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Comparing Religions

Numen Book Series

Thomas Athanasius Idinopulos, Brian C. Wilson,

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Comparing religions : possibilities and perils? / edited by Thomas Athanasius

© Copyright 2006 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated,

Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal

printed in the netherlands

List of Contributors ...................................................................... vii

Part One: Theoretical Aspects of Comparison

Chapter One Comparison as a Theoretical Exercise .......... 3

Part Two: Theory into Method: Comparison of Religions in the

Chapter Six Comparing Religious Ideas: There’s Method

Chapter Eight Socrates and Jesus: Comparing

Part Three: Postcolonialism, Postmodernism, Modernism in the

Chapter Eleven Towards a Post-Colonial Comparative

Bibliography ................................................................................ 293

Anthony J. Blasi Department of Sociology, Tennessee State

The distinguished historian of religions, Max Müller, famously said

questions that frame comparative work. Anthony Blasi in “Comparison

rewarding where the comparison focuses on exclusively intellectual

scholars from 1995 to 1999. Wildman notes that categories of com-

raises questions fundamental to every student wishing to compare

Hanges begins with the contention that “exposing students to the

a religion than the “insider” participant. This western interpretive

adequate comparative religion analysis can be conducted without

granted by John Stratton Hawley for the republication of his essay,

THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF COMPARISON

COMPARISON AS A THEORETICAL EXERCISE

What makes comparison scientiﬁc? Speciﬁcally, in the study of reli-

actually happens in the environing world. The satisfaction of our

one cannot have an experience of someone else’s religion (or lack

into Baha’i. Alternatively, one could examine diﬀerent patterns of

II. Ends or Purposes of Comparison

It is important to ask what the purposes of comparison in science

There may or may not be indirect observables, comparable to elec-

ﬁrst contribution, this one pertains primarily to the conduct of inquiry

or places. The result of a discovery of a salient change is a nar-

III. Kinds of Comparison

Illuminating Inclusive Concepts

shaped in use.17 Herbert Blumer spoke of “sensitizing concepts” which

or less satisﬁed with a theory, but to develop the theoretical appa-

of the “Object” of religion. Thus his ﬁrst volume compares mono-

Narrowing the Generalization of Exclusive Concepts

what concepts to use for purposes of excluding cases after inspect-

Specifying the Boundaries Between Structures

Comparative studies may also sensitize one to the emergence of

endar and a secular one. Liturgically-minded Christians begin their

IV. Comparison and Everyday Life

There is a temptation to discuss scientiﬁc methodology in the abstract

which drives scientiﬁc inquiry, is the product of the habitual actions

QUESTIONS OF JUDGMENT IN COMPARATIVE

I propose here a practical approach to the comparison of religions

The Historical Factor

The term “comparative” as an adjective to describe and name a

There are a number of faults to avoid. One is using a category

Those of us who studied in the shadow of Joachim Wach (directly

Wach was suspicious of the presumption of a scholarly detachment,

has no convictions.”5 This raises the postmodernist objection that no

I like Wach’s rhetorical question, “Does a ruby or an emerald sparkle

Another kind of problematic judgment can be made in comparative

and a recognized shared heritage.10 If we think of our comparisons