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Journal of the American Academy of Religion Advance Access originally published online on July 19, 2009
Journal of the American Academy of Religion 2009 77(3):609-646; doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfp036
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the American Academy of Religion. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

The Reunification of Theology and Comparison in the New Comparative Theology

Hugh Nicholson

Hugh Nicholson, Department of Theology, Loyola University Chicago, 6525 N. Sheridan Road, Chicago, IL 60625

E-mail: hnicholson{at}luc.edu


  Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between the new comparative theology and the theology of religions in light of their common genealogy in the comparative theology of the late nineteenth century. Noting that the latter's blindness to its considerable biases was sustained by its oppositional relationship with the exclusionary apologetic theology of the day, the paper argues that the new comparative theology risks repeating the same pattern of self-deception when it dichotomizes its relationship with the theology of religions. At the same time, however, the new comparative theology, by openly acknowledging its theological commitments, strips the comparative method of the aura of "science" which has often functioned ideologically to mask bias. In this way, the new comparative theology exemplifies the recent shift in the understanding of comparison from a method of discovery to a critical method for the testing and revision of the categories through which scholars interpret their data.


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