The Pluralism Project at Harvard University

Source

Information obtained in part from the Boston Theological Institute website.

Activities

The Boston Theological Institute (BTI), a consortium of nine theological schools in the Boston area, offers the year-long Religious Neighbors program. The program, which explores a particular theme each year, promotes inter-religious dialogue by enabling people to visit various religious communities in the greater Boston area. According to the BTI's website, the program is "designed to enrich the education of seminarians and other graduate students through a voluntary year-long series of visits to a variety of religious communities."

In addition to the Religious Neighbors program, the dialogue program sponsors a variety of events at the member schools, including "student programs, faculty colloquia, special lectures, and university-based research centers."

Another section of the inter-religious dialogue program is the Society for Comparative Theology, which was founded in 1988 by Frank Clooney. The group is primarily for professors and graduate students interested in cross-cultural scholarship. Most of the participants have Christian theological commitments. The group meets three times a year (fall, winter, spring). Meetings may involve presentations of papers, but not exclusively. Often the group takes up various issues across religious and cultural boundaries. Members are typically people with a strong sense of their own background who share a conviction that it is important to think responsibly across religious and cultural boundaries. The discussion focuses on how to take other traditions seriously.

Brief History

The BTI came together in the early 1970s. There was a push for Jewish-Christian dialogue during the mid-1980s, with a new progressive program within the BTI. In the late 1980s, the program became more broad and interreligious. Krister Stendahl, then dean at Harvard Divinity School, pushed hard for the Inter-Religious Dialogue Program. It was formed in 1982, as a part of the BTI. The program later was inactive for several years and then returned in 1989.

Membership

Religious Neighbors program: approximately 25 students yearly
Society for Comparative Theology: approximately 25 people (professors and graduate students)