Christianity and Religious Plurality: (Studies in Church History)

This, the fifty-first volume of Studies in Church History, takes as its theme 'Christianity and Religious Plurality'. The focus is on exploring the practical experience of Christians, who have often existed in a world of manifold belief systems and religious practices. Under the Presidency of Professor John Wolffe, the summer conference and winter volume brought together a fascinating series of lectures and communications, a selection of which arecollected in this peer-reviewed volume. Three main areas of engagement emerge: contexts where Christianity was a minority faith, whether in the earliest years of the church, in the Mongol empire of the thirteenth century or under Ottoman rule in the fifteenth, or in contemporary Iraq, Egypt and Indonesia; responses to religious minorities in predominantly Christian societies, such as early-modern Malta or nineteenth- and twentieth-century London; and finally, Christian encounters with other religions in situations where no single tradition was obviously dominant. Offering an unusual perspective on Christian encounters with other faiths, this volume will appeal to students of religious studies and those interested in the cultural contexts in which Christianity has existed - and indeed continues to exist. CHARLOTTE METHUEN is Senior Lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Glasgow. ANDREW SPICER is Professor of Early Modern European History at Oxford Brookes University. JOHN WOLFFE is Professor of Religious History at The Open University. Contributors: GARETH ATKINS, ANGELABERLIS, CLYDE BINFIELD, MARION BOWMAN, FRANS CIAPPARA, KRISTIAN GIRLING, BERNARD HAMILTON, A. D. R. HAYES, W. M. JACOB, JOHN MAIDEN, JAMES T. PALMER, KONSTANTINOS PAPASTATHIS, NABIL MATAR, CHARLOTTE METHUEN, STUART MEWS, ARIANA PATEY, JONATHAN PHILLIPS, AMANDA POWER, MONA SIDDIQUI, BRIAN STANLEY, GUY STROUMSA, TODD M. THOMPSON, CHRISTINE WALSH, PETER WEBSTER, MARTIN WELLINGS, JOHN WOLFFE, ANGELIKI ZIAKA

Table of Contents:
JOHN WOLFFE: Introduction - John Wolffe GUY STROUMSA: From Qumran to Qur'an: the Religious Worlds of Ancient Christianity - Guy Stroumsa A. D. R. HAYES: Justin's Christian Philosophy: New Possibilities for Relations between Jews, Graeco-Romans and Christians - Andrew Hayes JAMES T. PALMER: The Otherness of Non-Christians in the early Middle Ages - James Palmer ARIANA PATEY: Asserting Difference in Plurality: The Case of the Martyrs of Córdoba - Ariana Patey CHRISTINE WALSH: Baptized but not Converted: The Vikings in Tenth-Century Francia - Christine Walsh BERNARD HAMILTON: Western Christian Contacts with Buddhism, c.1050-1350 - Bernard Hamilton JONATHAN PHILLIPS: The Third Crusade in Context: Contradiction, Curiosity and Survival - Jonathan Phillips AMANDA POWER: Encounters in the Ruins: Latin Captives, Franciscan Friars and the Dangers of Religious Plurality in the early Mongol Empire - Amanda Power KONSTANTINOS PAPASTATHIS: Christian-Muslim Encounters: George of Trebizond and the 'Inversion' of Eastern Discourse regarding Islam in the Fifteenth Century - Konstantinos Papastathis ANGELIKI ZIAKA: Rearticulating a Christian-Muslim Understanding: Gennadius Scholarios and George Amiroutzes on Islam - Angeliki Ziaka CHARLOTTE METHUEN: 'And our Mohammed goes with the Archangel Gabriel to Choir': Sixteenth-Century German Accounts of Life under the Turks - Charlotte Methuen NABIL MATAR: England and Religious Plurality: Henry Stubbe, John Locke and Islam - Nabil Matar FRANS CIAPPARA: Christians and Muslims on Malta in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries - Frans Ciappara GARETH ATKINS: William Jowett's Christian Researches: British Protestants and Religious Plurality in the Mediterranean, Syria and the Holy Land, 1815-30 - Gareth Atkins JOHN WOLFFE: Plurality in the Capital: The Christian Response to London's Religious Minorities since 1800 (Presidential Address) - John Wolffe W. M. JACOB: Anglican Clergy Responses to Jewish Migration in late Nineteenth-Century London - W. M. Jacob STUART MEWS: Rama or ahimsa? Terror or Passive Resistance? Revolutionary Methods of Hindu Students from London University and the Christian Response, 1909-17 - Stuart Mews ANGELA BERLIS: Sympathy for Mussulmans, Love for Jews: Emily Loyson-Meriman (1833-1909), Hyacinthe Loyson (1827-1912) and their Efforts towards Interreligious Encounter - Angela Berlis MARION BOWMAN: Christianity, Plurality and Vernacular Religion in early Twentieth-Century Glastonbury: A Sign of Things to Come? - Marion Bowman MARTIN WELLINGS: 'An extremely dangerous book'? James Hope Moulton's Religions and Religion (1913) - Martin Wellings CLYDE BINFIELD: Jerusalem's Empire State? The Context and Symbolism of a Twentieth-Century Building - TODD M. THOMPSON: Charles Malik and the Origins of a Christian Critique of Orientalism in Lebanon and Britain - Todd M. Thompson KRISTIAN GIRLING: 'To live within Islam': The Chaldean Catholic Church in modern Iraq, 1958-2003 - Kristian Girling PETER WEBSTER: Race, Religion and National Identity in Sixties Britain: Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his Encounter with other Faiths - Peter Webster JOHN MAIDEN: 'What could be more Christian than to allow the Sikhs to use it?' Church Redundancy and Minority Religion in Bedford, 1977-8 - John Maiden BRIAN STANLEY: Christians, Muslims and the State in Twentieth-Century Egypt and Indonesia - Brian Stanley MONA SIDDIQUI: Diatribe, Discourse and Dialogue: Reflections on Jesus in the History of Christian-Muslim Encounters - Mona Siddiqui

About the Author :
Martin Wellings is Superintendent of the Barnet and Queensbury Circuit of the Methodist Church and former Minister of Wesley Memorial Church, Oxford. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Society of Antiquaries.

Review :
An excellent contribution to a significant series and to the discipline as a whole, with plenty of sparkle for the inquisitive and thoughtful. Precisely because this stimulating collection of essays continues with more than a dozen papers covering the sixteenth to twenty-first centuries, it allows the reader to discern the persistence, adaptation, and recurrence of some medieval perceptions and misperceptions as well as the waning of others.