The Journal of Interreligious Studies (JIRS) is a forum for academic, social, and timely issues affecting religious communities around the world. Published online, it is designed to increase both the quality and frequency of interchanges among religious groups and their leaders and scholars. By fostering conversation, the Journal hopes to increase religious and interreligious literacy, contribute to the field of interreligious hermeneutics, and address the issues surrounding interreligious relations, dialogue, theology, and communication. The JIRS solicits articles of an interdisciplinary nature and with the aim of producing resources for interreligious education, pedagogy, and cooperation.  It is a publication of the Boston University School of Theology, Hebrew College and Hartford International University for Religion and Peace. For regular updates, we invite you to follow the Journal on Facebook and Twitter. You may also subscribe to our mailing list to receive the following updates: new issues, book review requests, events, podcast episode releases, CFPs, and other related content. Newsletters are sent out 8-10 times a year.

As a premier electronic publication, The Journal of Interreligious Studies is poised substantially to impact interreligious dialogue and work. With the understanding that clergy and lay leaders greatly affect the dynamics within their congregations and religious movements, the JIRS offers a novel way to establish long-term dialogue and collaboration among religious communities.

The primary purview is interreligious studies, which is best defined by Kate McCarthy in Interreligious/Interfaith Studies (Patel, Peace, & Silverman 2018): it is "a subdiscipline of religious studies that engages in the scholarly and religiously neutral description, multidisciplinary analysis, and theoretical framing of the interactions of religiously different people and groups, including the intersections of religion and secularity. It examines these interactions in historical and contemporary contexts, and in relation to other social systems and forces. Like other disciplines with applied dimensions, it serves the public good by bringing its analysis to bear on practical approaches to issues in religiously diverse societies" (12).

The Journal also encourages submissions from the related fields of interreligious, intercultural, and comparative theology. 

Finally, the Journal seeks articles that feature careful and critical engagement with how race, gender, class, sexuality, nationality, and dis/ability intersect with religious identities and communities in the public sphere or secular domain.

More specifically, the Journal seeks to:

• Feature articles on cutting-edge research and scholarship taking place at theological seminaries and universities concerning the field of interreligious studies and comparative religion and theology, as well as interreligious/intercultural theology
  
• Promote innovative ideas, methodologies, pedagogies, and hermeneutics for interreligious work to ensure that best practices are shared and replicated.
• Express challenges facing religious communities and openly discuss interreligious disputes and their possible solutions.
• Provide a means for religious leaders to engage in interreligious work and learn about traditions other than their own.
• Utilize the increasingly "global" nature of religious communities to promote religious literacy and appreciation both within and beyond the United States.
• Attend to the intersectional nature of interreligious studies, dialogue, and community engagement that illuminates how race, gender, class, sexuality, dis/ability, nationality, and more impact the relationship among religious communities and the secular domain

ISSN 2380-8187

It remains an open-access journal and is also indexed in the ATLA Religion Database.

Review Process
At the Journal of Interreligious Studies, all submissions undergo a three-step review process. First, submissions are reviewed by our editorial staff to check for appropriateness and rigor, and to ensure that the material is a good fit with the mission and aims of the Journal. Then, submissions go through a double-blind peer review process. Our reviewers are experts in the field of interreligious and interfaith dialogue and studies, as well as comparative religion and theology, area studies, and history of religion.

Articles that are accepted through peer review are shared with our publishing editors, who examine each issue as a whole and with an eye to overall balance, quality, and the furthering of the Journal's mission. It is our intention that each issue share the best voices of scholars and practitioners, represent the diversity of voices of those in the wider field, and model dialogue, interfaith leadership, and careful, critical scholarship.

Finally, editors work with authors throughout the time leading up to publication to respond to any feedback from reviewers and to do any necessary copyediting. If an article fails to meet the standards of publication, or is not ready by internal publication dates, we reserve the right not to publish the article, though it may be resubmitted for future consideration. Since 2008, the Journal has sought to build an interreligious community of scholars in which people of different traditions learn from one another and work together for the common good. We welcome submissions and collaboration, and are thankful for the contributions of our authors.

The views, opinions, and positions expressed in all articles published by the Journal of Interreligious Studies are the authors’ own and do not reflect or represent those of the JIRS staff, JIRS Board of Advisors, JIRS Board of Reviewers, Boston University, Hebrew College, or Hartford Seminary.