Everyday Wisdom: Interreligious Studies in a Pluralistic World: A Conversation with Hans Gustafson

Our guest on this episode of What Matters Most, the seventh episode of our second season, is Dr. Hans Gustafson, Director of the Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, where he also teaches courses in the study of religion and theology for the Theology Department.  Today we are going to discuss his book published by Fortress Press in 2023 Everyday Wisdom: Interreligious Studies in a Pluralistic World, but also we discuss more generally the field of interreligious studies and interfaith studies, including interreligious dialogue and interfaith dialogue.

Hans is current President of the Association for Interreligious / Interfaith Studies (AIIS), serves on the steering committee for the Interreligious and Interfaith Studies Unit at the American Academy of Religion, and has published numerous articles and a few books in the field. His current project is a short book on the theory and practice of humanizing dialogue across difference.

Interreligious and Interfaith Studies is a field that in our increasingly diverse and pluralistic world is essential for all of us. One of the surprising pieces of data that I learned in Hans’ book is that the world is getting increasingly religious not less religious as we might think. The number of people in the world who identify as religious has now reached 86%. This might seem off to those of us who live in the North America or Western Europe, especially those of us who live in Vancouver or Cascadia more generally, where more people identify as spiritual than religious, but religion matters to more people than not. And, frankly, I wouldn’t want to suggest that those who do not identify as religious do not have rich spiritual lives or are not in their own way religious, even if not associated with a formal or traditional religious tradition.

This means that Hans’ call for interreligious phronesis – that is “practical wisdom” – is more important than ever. As Hans says in the podcast, “we all orient around religion in some way and everyone exists in some state between and among religious spaces, and so it seems to me that the more predominant view is that interreligious and interfaith encounter includes everyone, because we all have a religious identity..."  Another great piece of data: American "Nones" are more religious than European Christians. This is precisely why I invite you all to participate in this podcast and to engage with these issues. We are open and welcoming to all people and to all religious and spiritual questions.

Hans mentioned a number of other authors and thinkers and I want to link to some of those writers here. Apart from Hans' book, he mentioned Rabbi Rachel Mikva and her new book Interreligious Studies: An Introduction,  Krister Stendahl, Eboo Patel, Stephen Prothero, God is Not One, and Raimon Pannikar.

What Matters Most is produced by the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC. The CCE is a centre at St. Mark’s College that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, members of other religious traditions, and from those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation.

Since St. Mark’s Centre for Christian Engagement seeks to enable the creation of a culture of encounter and dialogue, let me invite you into that discussion. Send me questions, send me ideas for guests, send me comments. Please follow me on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter @biblejunkies, or on Facebook at Biblejunkies, or on Instagram @stmarkscce. Or email me at jmartens@stmarkscollege.ca. Let me know what you think.

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John W. Martens