Religion, Redemption, and Revolution closely examines the intertwined intellectual development of one of the most important Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century, Franz Rosenzweig, and his friend and teacher, Christian sociologist Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy. The first major English work on Rosenstock-Huessy, it also provides a significant reinterpretation of Rosenzweig's writings based on the thinkers' shared insights — including their critique of modern Western philosophy, and their novel conception of speech. This groundbreaking bookprovides a detailed examination of their ‘new speech thinking’ paradigm, a model grounded in the faith traditions of Judaism and Christianity. Wayne Cristaudo contrasts this paradigm against the radical liberalism that has dominated social theory for the last fifty years. Religion, Redemption, and Revolution provides powerful arguments for the continued relevance of Rosenzweig and Rosenstock-Huessy's work in navigating the religious, social, and political conflicts we now face.

Philosophically Thinking about World Religions is different from other works in the discipline today. It deviates from the typical approaches used for the study of world religions. Its goal is to engage readers in thinking hard about world religions, not about the data surrounding those traditions. By focusing on philosophical questions, each reader should be challenged to do their own investigations that may reveal the heart of these traditions. Another stance that this project takes that distinguishes it from other texts in the discipline is that it advocates an inclusivist perspective regarding the world religions. Pluralism, which is the predominate assumption today, ends either in contradiction or in the development of a metatheory that dismisses crucial distinctions between the various traditions or eliminates some ancient religions because they do not fit the metatheory. By taking an open inclusivist approach, all religious traditions may engage at the table of dialogue. The final essay is about justice and social affairs. While that discussion is couched within the context of a particular tradition, each religious tradition must have the discussion. But it must be more than an intrareligious dialogue; it must become an interreligious dialogue.

One of the most influential theorists of religion, Jonathan Z. Smith is best known for his analyses of religious studies as a discipline and for his advocacy and refinement of comparison as the basis for the history of religions. Relating Religion gathers seventeen essays—four of them never before published—that together provide the first broad overview of Smith's thinking since his seminal 1982 book, Imagining Religion. Smith first explains how he was drawn to the study of religion, outlines his own theoretical commitments, and draws the connections between his thinking and his concerns for general education. He then engages several figures and traditions that serve to define his interests within the larger setting of the discipline. The essays that follow consider the role of taxonomy and classification in the study of religion, the construction of difference, and the procedures of generalization and redescription that Smith takes to be key to the comparative enterprise. The final essays deploy features of Smith's most recent work, especially the notion of translation. Heady, original, and provocative, Relating Religion is certain to be hailed as a landmark in the academic study and critical theory of religion.

What are religious studies? What is theology? And what is their relationship to each other? In the light of such theoretical and methodological questions this historical inquiry asks what characterizes the study of Christianity within comparative religion—as distinguished from that of Christian theology? In the three main sections of the book representative texts from the history of comparative religion—including Schleiermacher and some other theological forerunners in the 19th century—are analyzed from a methodological and a material point of view. On this basis an answer is sought to the following questions: What has been the place of the study of Christianity within this discipline? On which methodological principles has it been based? And what kind of picture of Christianity has it presented?