Journal of Interreligious Studies

From the Editor-in-Chief

Axel Marc Oaks Takács — 2026-10-11

Issue 51 is a rolling submissions issue comprising six articles, two scholarly reflections, and one book view.

Rethinking Space and Place as Loci for Polyphonic Consciousness

SimonMary Asese Aihiokhai — 2026-10-11

The need to rethink space and place is relevant for the flourishing of all persons, especially as it pertains to markers defining both religious and secular persons. This work argues for the place of a spirituality of inclusivity that allows for the instantiation of identities that are open to otherness, whether religious or secular. For such a spirituality to take hold on the imagination of all, especially of those who embrace a religious tradition, a deliberate probing of the politics of space and place cannot be avoided. Such probing calls for an embrace of identities that are always open to otherness. In other words, self-understanding calls always for other-understanding. This work centers insights from Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty to argue its conclusions.

Independent Churches and Black Liberation Theology in Africa

Rodrick KAPWA — 2026-10-11

This article demonstrates that the emergence of the African Independent Churches (AIC) has a strong link with Black liberation theology. The AICs have provided a decisive contextual framework for the development of this theology in Africa, while this, in turn, has legitimized the claims and aspirations of these churches. This study sheds new light on the intertwined history of these two major dynamics of African Christianity. In this way, it contributes to a better understanding of the evolution of Christianity on the continent and its intersections with social and political struggles for liberation. Building on this intertwined history, the article further argues that the AICs and Black liberation theology together constitute a privileged site for interreligious and intercultural dialogue in contemporary Africa. Situated on the border between missionary Christianity and traditional African religions, and attentive to the lived experience of African peoples, they offer a hermeneutical framework in which dialogue functions not as an intellectual luxury but as a historical, social, and theological necessity.

University Chaplaincy in Global Context

Gregory McGonigle — 2026-10-11

Since the year 2000, university and college chaplains from several nations have been gathering for global conferences of chaplains in higher education nearly every four years. After an initial global conference in Vancouver, Canada in 2000 and a second in Brisbane, Australia in 2004, several continental and national associations of university chaplains constituted an International Association of Chaplains in Higher Education (IACHE) to build bridges among universities, chaplains, and campus ministers worldwide. IACHE has since gathered for seven global conferences in total. This article traces the history of IACHE and describes its leadership efforts and its global conferences to date. It also describes some of the changes currently taking place in continental and national university chaplains’ associations and discusses current efforts to broaden the scope of IACHE to include more university chaplains from Africa, Asia, and South America.

Two Spiritual Masters

James Wiseman — 2026-10-12

The Second Vatican Council’s declaration Nostra Aetate spoke of the Catholic Church’s “high regard” for other religions and sought to promote dialogue among them. The following article seeks to further this goal by reflecting on the work of two highly regarded spiritual masters within two of these religions. Within the Christian tradition was St. John of the Cross, a sixteenth-century Carmelite who is widely recognized as a preeminent Christian spiritual master, while a counterpart from the Buddhist tradition was Nyoshul Khenpo, a twentieth-century exponent of Dzogchen, which he considered the heart of his own lineage within Tibetan Buddhism. The article begins with a brief account of the life of each man, followed by what they taught about the ultimate goal within their respective traditions, as well as the practices or virtues needed to attain that goal.

Interfaith Transposed

Kristen Tobey — 2026-10-12

This article examines so-called interfaithless initiatives in the United States, in which exes from different high-demand religious groups participate together as they navigate the difficult process of religious exit. Sustained attention is focused on an Interfaithless Beach Party held regularly between 2014 and 2022. I argue that associating interfaithlessness with interfaith becomes legible by thinking of interfaithlessness not as peripheral to but rather as a transposition of interfaith. Indeed, these are examples of interfaith encounter at its best, showing not just proximity between exes from different religions, but meaningful interreligious exchange that complicates assumptions about the growing nonreligious population in the United States.

“Creating Commonplaces”

Benedict Coleridge — 2026-10-12

This article sets out to illustrate how democratic theory can draw inspiration from interfaith dialogue to envision anew the conduct of intercultural dialogues at a transnational level and within pluralistic societies. Against Jürgen Habermas’ neo-Kantian conception of normative universality supplied by a latent, shared, “normative grammar,” this article emphasizes the importance of a critical dialogical encounter between conceptions of the good and the value traditions from which they arise. Specifically, the article shows how the hermeneutical process of question and answer (as theorized by Hans-Georg Gadamer), when joined to an attendant process of value generalization (set out by Hans Joas), allows for the clarification of ethical meanings in their “articulating-constitutive” dimension and the development of new, shared, values across traditions. To illustrate how a hermeneutically rich process of value generalization works to cultivate an appealing form of critical ethical commonality, the article explores the example of the A Common Word dialogue between Islam and Christianity, which, it posits, has worked as a “conceptual laboratory” within which ethical meanings grow.

The Compassion of Rowan Williams

Frankie Martin — 2026-10-12

For decades, Rowan Williams has been a leading intellectual and spiritual authority in the Anglican Church, with his influence extending beyond his denomination to include Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christianity. Among Williams’ core concerns is reaching out to non-Christians and pursuing interfaith dialogue. In this article, the authors draw on their interviews with Williams and his body of work to examine the lessons he offers concerning the “Other”—or people from communities different from one’s own—and interfaith dialogue. These include the need to frame interfaith dialogue within a cognizance of a larger unity, an openness to the idea that each tradition has received partial understanding of the divine, and the importance of possessing inclusive social and political ideals concerning intercultural relations. Williams’ steps for practically conducting interfaith dialogue are also presented. The authors argue that Williams provides a valuable approach towards the “Other” and interfaith dialogue applicable beyond Christianity to all of humanity in a world stricken by religious, ethnic, and national conflict.

Toumliline’s Experiment—Benedictine Monasticism and Interfaith Dialogue in Postcolonial Morocco (1952–1968)

MOHAMMED LAZRAK — 2026-10-12

The Benedictine Monastery of Toumliline, founded in 1952 in the Middle Atlas mountains of Morocco, represents one of the most remarkable yet understudied episodes of Christian-Muslim encounter in the twentieth century. Operating at the intersection of decolonization, religious reform, and civilizational dialogue, the monastery rapidly evolved from a conventional monastic institution into a pioneering intercultural space. This reflection examines Toumliline through the lens of the sociology of religion, arguing that its famous Rencontres Internationales—launched in 1956 under royal patronage and drawing intellectuals such as Louis Massignon and Emmanuel Levinas—anticipated the ecumenical spirit of Vatican II by nearly a decade. Anchored by Quranic verse 49:13 (Surah al-Ḥujurāt), which the site’s contemporary preservation project has placed at its entrance as a threshold inscription, the article develops the concept of incarnational dialogue: religious encounter grounded in material solidarity rather than theological abstraction. Evidence is drawn from eight photographs taken at the site in 2025 documenting multilingual plaques, the boarding school, the monastery cemetery, and USAID-funded preservation infrastructure. This article contributes to the comparative sociology of religion by offering a historically grounded model for rethinking interreligious coexistence in the postcolonial Maghreb.

The Habits of Race and Faith in a Religiously Diverse World

Paul Hedges — 2026-10-12

Review of Mara Brecht, The Habits of Race and Faith in a Religiously Diverse World, Lanham, MA: Lexington Books, 2026, ISBN: 978-1-4985-5905-8, pp. 223 + xi.