Westminster College Religion Professor Presents Paper

Dr. Bryan Rennie, associate professor of religion and philosophy, recently presented a paper at the Eastern International Regional Meeting of the American Academy of Religion held at Mercyhurst College.

The paper, "Compassion as Evidence of Understanding: A Response to Carl Olson's Indian Philosophers and Postmodern Thinkers," argues that while Olson, a professor of history of religion at Allegheny College, does an excellent job of presenting the thought of a collection of classical and contemporary Indian thinkers, his understanding of those contemporary Western authors dubbed postmodern is less than satisfactory.

"Olson fails to show the compassion that is evidence of true insight according to the Indian, especially the Buddhist, tradition itself," said Rennie.  "It is admirable, but an inaccurate attempt to lend support to the Indian tradition as more positive and more relevant than contemporary postmodernism.  Olson fails to demonstrate any sympathy for the latter."

Rennie's conclusion is that the sympathetic understanding that is required of all historians of religions in considering traditions other than their own is often harder to achieve in respect of traditions of thought that are geographically, chronologically, and culturally close than in respect of those traditions of thought that are geographically, chronologically, and culturally close than in respect of those traditions that are more distant.

Rennie's paper will be published in the August issues of The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory at the request of the editor.

Rennie, who has been with Westminster College since 1994, is the Vira I. Heinz Endowed Chair of Religion, an endowed chair funded by the Heinz Foundation.  He earned his undergraduate, master's and Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

For more information, contact Rennie at (724) 946-7151 or e-mail brennie@westminster.edu.