Religion Past & Present

Four words that begin the entry on “Catholicism: Missions in Catholicism: Africa” may almost stand as a phrase that describes all of Religion Past and Present (RPP): “From the European perspective” (vol. 2, p. 448). Other phrases would be even more apt: “From the German perspective,” “From the German Protestant perspective,” or better yet, “From the liberal German Protestant perspective.” Certainly not everyone involved with the project is a liberal German Protestant. Depending upon what meaning one gives to the word, one or two of the four general editors are not German: Hans-Dieter Betz and Don Browning are both emeritus professors at the University of Chicago. Contributors from outside Germany include, to name just a few, William Graham from Harvard, Joseph Dan from Jerusalem, Frank Whaling from Edinburgh, and Garry Trompf from Sydney. Nevertheless, the vast majority of the contributors work in German-speaking parts of Europe. (I quickly counted 507 out of 817 contributors in volume 1; that is probably inaccurate, and it does not include scholars like Remi Brague of Paris, who also teaches in Munich, or Frank Usarski, a German working in Brazil.) In any case, the publisher states up front, literally, that the encyclopedia intentionally stands in the tradition of liberal German Protestant scholarship in theology and religion.

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