Journal of the Council for Research on Religion

Editorial Address & Advisory Board

2024-02-07T16:49:57-05:00

The second issue of volume four of the Journal of the Council for Research on Religion (JCREOR) came out of a colloquium entitled “Who is My Neighbour? Interfaith Dialogue and Theological Education in the Global Village of the 21st Century.”
The event was held at the McGill School of Religious Studies on October 19–20, 2022. Each day included two keynote addresses with their respective panel responses. On October 19, 2022, Amy-Jill Levine and Ingrid Mattson offered two keynote papers on different topics related to Interfaith Dialogue. On October 20, 2022, Robert Hill and Chukwuemeka Anthony Atansi offered two keynote papers on different topics related to Theological Formation in the twenty-first century.
The School of Religious Studies was awarded a grant by the Lily Foundation, which was initially designated during the Covid 19 epidemic in 2020–2021. However, the School was granted an extension to use the funds in 2022–2023 for in-person symposiums and a preliminary study of student needs in the university’s theological programs.

McGill School of Religious Studies Bachelor of Theology Survey

2024-03-13T11:34:56-04:00

This paper offers a brief analysis of a survey created with the intent of better understanding the student experience of those enrolled in McGill University’s Bachelor of Theology. The questions were crafted with the objective of understanding how certain demographic features – education, age, ethnicity, and origin of province or country – have affected the experience of students in the Bachelor of Theology program during their first semester. The paper reviews the survey data with the aim of offering some tangible ways to better meet the changing needs of current and future students in McGill’s Bachelor of Theology program.

Preface and Introduction - Who is My Neighbour? Interfaith Dialogue and Theological Education in the Global Village Vol. 4 No. 2

2024-01-25T08:41:55-05:00

Interfaith Engagement and the Public Square: A Self-Critical Review and Suggestions for the Way Forward (Keynote Address)

2024-01-23T10:00:57-05:00

A personal and critical essay written by a Muslim religious leader and scholar about the changes they have experienced and witnessed in the ways interfaith dialogue intersects with the public square. The author draws upon twenty-five years of experience, highlighting specific examples affecting the Muslim community, mostly in the United States. The author argues that interfaith dialogue can create space for engagement on issues of public policy and common concern, but that no encounter is ever naïve, and since digital and social media have facilitated the spread of misinformation, such encounters are more complex than before. Further, research on the disproportionate attention negative displays of emotion attract puts minority groups, typically stereotyped as angry and irrational, in a difficult position to express themselves authentically as they try to defend their rights and dignity. Principled interfaith engagement can achieve effective policy results and provide vital moral support to a beleaguered faith community and may create a principled foundation for engagement on other issues. However, this is not always the case, and various parties might express disappointment, even betrayal when “the other side” does not show up for their cause. Nevertheless, continued engagement that allows politically misaligned interfaith partners to express their views according to terms they consider authentic helps avoid greater polarization that is corrosive to social cohesion. At the same time, conveners of interfaith dialogue should be attentive to the structures of power embedded in the programs they create to avoid reinforcing patterns of hierarchy and exclusion.

“Who is my Neighbour? Interfaith Dialogue and Theological Formation” (Responses)

2024-01-23T10:28:31-05:00

The following are three response papers that were presented at the “Who is My Neighbour? Interfaith Dialogue and Theological Formation Conference,” held on October 19, 2022, and are indirectly responding to Ingrid Mattson's discussion of interfaith engagement and the public square.

The first response paper by Cory Andrew Labrecque, entitled "Theological Bioethics and Interfaith-Interdisciplinary Dialogue," uses Mattson's discussion of the challenges and rewards of principled interfaith engagement in the public square as a starting place for his own reflections on the challenges and rewards of interfaith-interdiscplinary dialogue in healthcare. While interdisciplinary discussions around healthcare often take place in secular terms – and indeed, we are often told that this is the way things ought to be – Labrecque offers a powerful account, not only of what is lost when we allow the theological perspective to become muted in such discussions, but also of what can be gained when we insist upon including it.

The second response paper by Lisa J. Grushcow, entitled "Interfaith Dialogue and the Public Square: One Rabbi's Response," returns directly to the notion of the public square, using the memory and words of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel to do so. While Rabbi Heschel "affirm[ed] the princple of separation of church and state," he "reject[ed] the separation of religion and the human situation," a sentiment Rabbi Grushcow shares and uses as a starting point for her own critical reflections on what interfaith dialogue and engagement wants to build, and how it can be done together.

Onye Agbataobim (My Neighbour) – One Who Finds Refuge in My Heart: On the Significance of Igbo Theological Anthropology for Theological Education in our Time (Keynote Address)

2024-02-05T17:21:43-05:00

In fashioning a response to the question “Who is my neighbour?” – which informs the subject of the symposium on “Theological Education in the Global Village of the 21st Century” – this essay explores the contributions of the Igbo theological anthropology of the neighbour. Igbo theological anthropology considers the neighbour, not simply as one with whom my home shares a boundary, but as one who finds refuge in my heart (onye agbataobim), that is, one with whom there is mutual dependence, vulnerability, and support. This relational understanding of the neighbour in Igbo theological anthropology further derives from the Igbo conception of the human person as “the beauty of life” (mmadụ), and the corresponding attitude of love, “the act of beholding” (ịfunanya), which the sight of, or rather, the encounter with every human person, ought to evoke. The article will outline the significance of these insights for theological education in our time. Such education, the essay argues, ought to take seriously again the fact that there is something irreducibly astonishing about the human person – each and every human being – regardless of geographical boundaries, physical proximity, as well as social, political, and economic connections.

Who is my Neighbour? Theological Education in the Global Village of the 21st Century (Responses)

2024-02-05T18:25:17-05:00

Chukwuemeka Anthony Atansi’s keynote address offered a series of reflections on how the Igbo theological anthropology of the neighbour can enrich theological education in diverse contexts such as Montreal. The Igbo theological anthropology of the neighbour offers a relational understanding of the neighbour, a relationality which comprises a crucial component of Karen Finch’s response, one which argues that good pastoral education in today’s polarized world strongly resembles good ecumenical formation. For Finch, ecumenical formation is about relationality and the dialogues that this relationality provokes, and she argues that, when approached with openness and transparency, such dialogues can be truly generative for pastoral education.

Alyson Huntly’s response offers a series of reflections about the state of theological education in Quebec, reflections which also highlight relationality, or, more precisely, the need for Western institutions, hitherto predominantly white, to re-evaluate and re-envision how they relate to – and thereby dialogue with and learn from – the “Others” who now represent a majority demographic in Quebec’s theological colleges, many of whom come from the Global South or formerly colonized nations. This, she argues, represents the path to renewal for theological education in twenty-first century Quebec.

Who is My Neighbour: Interfaith Dialogue and Theological Formation (Keynote Address)

2024-01-15T12:09:03-05:00

“Who is my neighbour?” is a good question for both the Bible and today, but it is a complicated one. In this paper, I will focus on unpacking the idea of “love of neighbour,” first in its Levitical context, then in certain New Testament passages, and finally in contrast to its relationship with the concept of “stranger.” The term “neighbour” (רֵעַ) has multiple meanings in a Hebrew Bible context, and similarly, there are distinct meanings of “neighbour” within the New Testament – specifically between the gospels and the Pauline letters. I argue that the common understanding of the “Good Samaritan” passage, that Jesus promotes accepting everyone as neighbour, is incorrect; instead, I suggest that the literature demonstrates how a non-neighbour reveals how real neighbours should behave. The scope of the article is to demonstrate how discussions about “neighbour” and “stranger” can be used to segue into questions to dialogue between Christians and Jews.

“Who is my Neighbour? Interfaith Dialogue and Theological Formation” (Responses)

2024-01-15T13:10:35-05:00

The following are three response papers that were presented at the “Who is My Neighbour? Interfaith Dialogue and Theological Formation Conference,” held on October 19, 2022, and are indirectly responding to Amy-Jill Levine's discussion on Christian-Jewish dialogue.

The first response paper by Jean Duhaime, entitled “Christian-Jewish Dialogue and Theological Formation,” discusses how Christian-Jewish dialogue has been viewed and theologically negotiated in the Catholic tradition since Vatican II. By also addressing various Jewish reactions to the shift in Catholic attitudes towards the Jewish tradition, Duhaime illustrates the work still needed to be done for the Catholic Church to clarify its understanding of the relationship between Christianity and Judaism while simultaneously highlighting the value of including Jewish-Christian dialogue in the formation and training of religious leaders.

The second response paper by Sherril Gilbert, entitled “Why Training in the Art of Interreligious Dialogue Is Necessary for Theological Education: Thinking About ‘Who Is My Neighbour?’ From a Jewish Perspective,” discusses her personal experience in the seminary and her work as a Rabbi in multifaith contexts. Rabbi Sherril Gilbert’s response shifts the focus from the dialogue of theological exchange to what interreligious dialogue theorists would call “the dialogue of life” – which is to say, she articulates the wholistic value of interfaith dialogue, and, in doing so, demonstrates why it is crucial to incorporate a concern for interfaith dialogue into modern theological education.

The last response paper by Hassan Guillet, entitled “La Table interreligieuse de concentration du Québec: A Case Study” examines his personal experiences with interfaith dialogue during the COVID-19 pandemic, as a founding member of the Table Interreligieuse de concertation du Québec. He explains how this experience opened his eyes to the power of interfaith dialogue and collaboration, and also to the need to expand interfaith dialogue initiatives to include as many faith communities as possible, including Indigenous faith communities that are not as clearly demarcated as, say, Christianity, Judaism, or Islam

An Exercise in Liberal Biblical Theology (Keynote Address)

2024-02-05T16:08:49-05:00

This essay was presented at the “Who is my Neighbour? Theological Education in the Global Villiage of the 21st Century” symposium hosted by the McGill School of Religious Studies in the Fall of 2022. It offers an accessible set of reflections on how a liberal biblical theology can help people connect with the content of the Bible in ways that speak to their lived experience, thereby allowing the heart of the Bible to become more familiar and more widely accessible. In modern society, where the letters G-O-D seem like antiquated fiction and where the church has often failed to adequately and meaningfully explicate the Bible in ways that people can connect with, such a sound, gracious liberal biblical theology can be a source of renewal for both Liberal Protestantism and Christian theological education. To demonstrate this I will undertake an exercise in liberal biblical theology, contrasting the traditional Trinitarian language used by G. B. Caird (1951) to explore the unity of the New Testament with more accessible theological language, language arrived at by drawing from the work of Ralph Harper, Samuel Terrien, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Eric Fromm, Howard Thurman, and Robert Frost.

Who is my Neighbour? Theological Education in the Global Village of the 21st Century (Responses)

2024-02-05T16:29:10-05:00

The following are three response papers that were presented at the “Who is My Neighbour? Interfaith Dialogue and Theological Formation Conference,” held on October 19, 2022, and are indirectly responding to Robert Hill's discussion of theological education in the global villiage of the 21st Century.

A running theme throughout the first panel of the second day is the struggle to retain the vitality of the presence of God in theological education today, in contexts that are, not only increasingly diverse, but are also – in some cases – increasingly dismissive or wary of the Christian tradition.

While Hill’s keynote address suggests that this vitality of presence can be retained by adopting a liberal biblical theology, the first respondent, Roland De Vries, considers what is lost when we allow “the myriad of demands placed on theological education” to obscure this vital presence, the very thing that gives theological education its coherence in the first place.

The second respondent, Heather McCance, argues that an important part of overcoming this struggle lies in training students to form a theological imagination – “the capacity to grasp the presence of the holy in and through all things.” Reminding us that this vital presence is what allows theology to reach into “the crevices (or, better, fractures) of life” that other disciplines tend to ignore, Cory Andrew Labrecque ends the panel by offering a series of reflections that highlight the ongoing value of theological education in the twenty-first century, even in spaces that might want to exclude it.