Broadening the Scope of Interreligious Studies: Interrituality

The second half of the twentieth century witnessed a radical shift in the relations between religions (Swidler, Death or Dialogue: From the Age of Monologue to the Age of Dialogue. London: SCM Press, 1990). As Catherine Cornille explains, “[r]ather than competing with one another over territories, converts or claims, religions have generally come to adopt a more conciliatory and constructive attitude toward one another, collaborating in social projects and exchanging views on common religious questions” (Cornille, Introduction. In The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Inter-religious Dialogue, ed. Catherine Cornille, xii. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013). Different sociopolitical factors such as globalization and various processes of secularization, pluralization, and decolonization, as well as the rise of religious extremism and the ecological crisis, help account for the so-called dialogical turn and the rapid proliferation of interfaith initiatives at local, national, and international levels (Halafoff, The Multifaith Movement: Global Risks and Cosmopolitan Solutions. Dordrecht/New York: Springer, 2013; Lamine, La cohabitation des Dieux: Pluralité et laïcité. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2004).