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Faith and History: Wilfred Cantwell Smith’s Theory of

Religion for the Twenty-First Century

Article in Toronto Journal of Theology · January 2019

DOI: 10.3138/tjt.2018-0126

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A DIFFERENT TENOR

Faith and History:

Wilfred Cantwell Smith’s
Theory of Religion for the
Twenty-First Century
Vincent F. Biondo, iii*
Vincent F. Biondo, iii, is associate professor and chair of the Department of Religious
Studies at Humboldt State University in Arcata, ca.

Abstract: Wilfred Cantwell Smith is perhaps the most important Canadian scholar of
Religious Studies. At the seventh Parliament of the World’s Religions in 2018, former stu-
dents acknowledged his influence. This article emphasizes three contributions that have
proven prophetic following increased rates of migration and technological development:
(1) Smith’s definition of religion as faith and history, or personal piety and cumulative
tradition; (2) the interconnectedness of religions; and (3) science or secularism as a reli-
gious world view.

Keywords: education, Harvard, Islam, secularism, Wilfred Cantwell Smith

Once when Wilfred Cantwell Smith was hiking in the mountains of India,
tired and hungry, he stumbled upon a monastic Christian sanctuary. He was
thrilled until he saw a sign that read, “Christians only,” so he turned around
and headed back down the mountain.1 Wilfred’s father Victor was management
for an office supply manufacturer in Toronto at the dawn of the twentieth cen-
tury. His two sons would go on to become world travellers, writers, and diplo-
mats: the elder brother Arnold as Canada’s ambassador to Egypt, ambassador
to the USSR during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and as the first Commonwealth
secretary-general; and Wilfred as director of the Center for the Study of World
Religions in the Harvard Divinity School and chair of the Committee on the
Study of Religion in Harvard College. His preferred title was Professor of the
Comparative Study of Religion.2
Like Ninian Smart and other religious thinkers of his generation, Smith
witnessed the horrors of Auschwitz and Hiroshima in 1945, and his life’s work
was influenced by the destruction of Lahore and the million souls who per-
ished during the partition of India in 1947, as well as the millions more who
were displaced. Apparently, our technological advances in communications,
health care, and space tourism have surpassed our ability to influence culture

Toronto Journal of Theology 34/2, 2018, pp. 287–292 DOI: 10.3138/tjt.2018-0126

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288 Vincent F. Biondo, iii

or shape consciousness. Meanwhile, ethnic nationalism is spreading precisely

as existential threats of machine learning, genetic engineering, and climate
chaos require multinational co-operation.
The leaders and followers of ethnic nationalist movements are influenced
by nationalist history and literature curricula, or they are emboldened by their
­removal from schools. Rather than dividing humans to increase human suf-
fering, Smith’s intellectual framework makes it possible for diverse human
beings to recognize our shared purpose and improve collaborative efforts.
He envisioned a new World History curriculum that allows for pride in one’s
own achievements while also recognizing that cultures and their fates are
intertwined.
­During his career, Wilfred published thirteen books with footnotes in thir-
teen languages, which led to thirteen honorary degrees.3 His students and
colleagues edited helpful compilations describing his contributions.4 I will
highlight three that I think are key to his twenty-first century legacy, including
his definition or theory of religion.

Three Contributions of Note

Frank Whaling listed eight contributions from Smith in 1984: an empha-

sis on persons, or “lived religion”; the dynamism, internal diversity, and
interconnectedness of historical religions; religion as faith (or piety) inter-
secting with social history, rather than static belief or doctrine; one human
community; the non-positivist reality of transcendent or aspirational ideals
such as truth, beauty, justice, and goodness; “colloquy” as more construc-
tive than “dialogue”; that the humanities have value; and that so do Eastern
traditions.5
I’ll emphasize three of these here—(1) a definition of “religion” as faith
rather than belief, (2) our global interconnectedness, and (3) an opposition to
secular materialism as an egoistic, historical aberration—before describing the
implications for reaching a new generation of young people. These can help to
inform an effective civic and religious literacy framework to reduce crime and
create support for democracy, law, and human rights.

What Is the Difference between Faith and Belief?

Without getting overly linguistic—and he was apparently meticulous in re-

jecting every punctuation revision suggested by editors—Smith argued for
religion as an adjective rather than a noun. He believed that secular materi-
alism reduces human beings, our highest ideals, human relationships, and in-
terpretations of history into objects. Smith’s “protégé in pluralism” Diana Eck
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Faith and History: Wilfred Cantwell Smith for the Twenty-First Century 289

agrees that we are better off thinking of religions as “rivers, not monuments.”6
William Graham further carried on Smith’s heritage of being an Islamicist who
also cares about Islam’s relevance for, and linkages with, non-Muslims to im-
prove human understanding.7
According to Smith, reducing humans, texts, and traditions into objects to
conquer and control has resulted from a recent secular world view that deval-
ues religion. In response to this secularism, he defined religion as transcendent
ideals intersecting with both historical narratives and community feeling. In
both history and society, individual humans construct themselves from others,
as in the expression, “no man is an island.” Smith preferred the terms “faith”
or “piety” to describe how humans transcend atomism via nature, history, and
community.8 Each of these living relationships makes religion an adjective, or
ongoing narrative, rather than a noun, or static doctrine.
Smith’s transcendent ideals, as he described them in his 1983 presidential
address for the American Academy of Religion (AAR), seem similar to Plato’s
“Forms.” In aspiring to beauty, truth, justice, humanity, and reason,9 we draw
upon historical narratives for our motivations and telos, courage and joy, or
meaning and hope.

Interdependent World Views in Towards a World Theology

At the beginning of Towards a World Theology, Smith gives three examples

of religions as internally diverse, dynamic, and interdependent. The current
tradition of exchanging Christmas cards seems to have been modelled upon
an older tradition of giving Ramadan cards. Also, many religions have shared
prayer bead traditions. Perhaps most persuasive is the story of the hermit
­Barlaam converting prince Josaphat, as popularized in Butler’s Lives of the
Saints and Tolstoy’s Confession. Here, Tolstoy was moved by a universal story
of how our pending mortality is the impetus for the first philosophical, theo-
logical, or religious thought:
A man who, fleeing from a furious beast, falls into a well and is held from dropping
into the jaws of a devouring dragon below only by clinging to a bush that will, he sees,
presently inevitably give way, since it is being nibbled at by two mice, one white and
one black, that go round and round slowly but relentlessly gnaw at its roots. The two
mice are day and night; the bush, which tastes sweet at first but soon loses its savour, is
one’s worldly position; man knows that he or she must in due course die.10
Smith traces this story from nineteenth-century Russian, and other European,
languages, back to Latin and Greek. Whereas the Christian version is ascribed
to St. John of Damascus, Smith traces it linguistically to a Muslim story of
Buddha adapted from an even older story in pre-Sanskrit India, as it is also told
in Jainism. So, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was inspired by Gandhi’s reading
of Tolstoy, who was invoking a Muslim-Buddhist story from ancient India.11 In
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290 Vincent F. Biondo, iii

effect, the world’s religions have always borrowed from one another, proving
we have shared values and common ground upon which to build a peaceful,
sustainable world.

How Do We Help the Next Generation to Overcome Their

Fears of Science and Religion?
Today, Wilfred Smith is respected by scholars in Islamic Studies, Religious
Studies, and Theology. He moved across all three areas in an ambitious way
and leaves a legacy where his personal ethics and teaching appear to accord
with this theoretical contributions and scholarly arguments. In some sense,
Smith anticipated globalization and religious pluralism and theorized how peo-
ple of diverse faiths can coexist. Additionally, he encouraged scholars not to be
like “flies on a goldfish bowl,” but to get involved by helping local religious
communities to co-operate more with one another.
Smith’s definition of religion as faith and history can be helpful for explain-
ing Religious Studies to students in the classroom and to general audiences.
Teaching the histories of religions as interconnected can increase peace and
coexistence. Recognizing science or technology as modern ideologies or world
views can help in valuing human life and the natural world. In addition to these
three theoretical or theological contributions with salience in the twenty-first
century, Smith bequeathed an ethical legacy for Christians as well.
Smith showed us in 1963 how to do Religious Studies in a way that spreads
peace, and by all accounts, he and Muriel embodied this for fifty years, impact-
ing students at McGill, Dalhousie, Harvard, and beyond, passing down wisdom
to graduate students and to readers through his books. Smith insisted that half
of McGill’s Institute for Islamic Studies’ students and faculty be Muslim—an
innovation that seems distinctly anti-orientalist, which Syed Adnan Hussain
discusses in greater depth in his Toronto dissertation.12 Smith also preferred
the group listening experience of “colloquy” to the head-to-head debate per-
formance inferred by the Latin term “dia-logue.” Adnan Hussain quotes Smith:
“An intellectual is a participant in his own society, listening to people.”13
When asked about his own religion, Smith replied, “I am a modified Chris-
tian.” He emphasized humility and empathy in ways earnest comparative reli-
gionists may appreciate. When asked about his Christian faith, he responded,
“[I felt pious] last week, at lunch, for about an hour. But if you really want to
know, ask my neighbor.”14 Amir Hussain highlighted this quote in 2000, when
he inaugurated the Smith Collection at the Oviatt Library of California State
University, Northridge, in Los Angeles.
As a theologian and comparative religionist, Smith wore his faith on his
sleeve. Kenneth Cracknell describes him as having a generous interpretation
of grace.15 As Smith wrote, “many Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs, and Buddhists
and the rest, richly participate in the grace of God and his bounty, and they like
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Faith and History: Wilfred Cantwell Smith for the Twenty-First Century 291

us have inherited formulations from an earlier age articulating this fact in the-
oretical patterns.”16 Such an approach may benefit Christians in more global
cities where migration and intermarriage have increased.
Wilfred grew up in the Presbyterian Church where his father was an elder,
which may have had stricter criteria for salvation. He referred to himself as
proud of this “Calvinist Puritan” heritage. His mother was a Methodist who
had applied to be a missionary in Syria. Between his attendance at high school
and the University of Toronto, she took him abroad to Egypt and the Middle
East for a year, which must have influenced his decision to major in Arabic and
Hebrew as an undergraduate. Cracknell suggests that the Arminian Wesleyan-
ism of his mother involved a broader definition of grace, wherein the love of
Jesus Christ is universal irrespective of denomination or doctrine.
For Smith, faith and scholarship were not at odds. In his 1983 AAR address,
Smith spoke out strongly against northern European secular materialism, or
Anglo-American positivism, as a recent aberration in world history that has
created a misleading secular concept of religion, wherein religion is an ad-
dendum. Secularism is a comprehensive Weltanschauung, which, like others,
Smith writes, misunderstands and distorts its neighbours’ world views.17
Science and faith are not opposites, but we can become incapacitated by
the fear that they benefit a few select communities disproportionately. Their
co-operation may be mandatory to overcome the selfish appeals of fascism,
nihilism, or ecological crisis. Some critics at Harvard referred to the Center for
the Study of World Religions in the Harvard Divinity School as “Slater’s Zoo”
or “God’s Motel,” but many scientists realize the need to communicate with
diverse global audiences and to take ethics into consideration.
Sixty years or two generations ago, Smith posited the bold thesis that earth
now has a shared humanity. He wrote, “We have yet to learn our new task of
living together as partners in a world of religious and cultural plurality.”18 “We
are all in this together, and can all learn from each other ... and [we] ought to
learn how to get along well together in a crowded world.”19 Smith’s definition
of religion, his inclusive theology, and his understanding of science as a world
view can help us educate children and navigate our increased diversity and
globalization in the twenty-first century.

Notes
* This article was first presented at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Toronto, ­November
4, 2018. It was revised for publication in the Toronto Journal of Theology on ­December 14,
2018, and revised again following the feedback from two anonymous reviewers, ­December
17, 2018.
1 This oral tale was passed on to me by Bruce B. Lawrence in Herndon, Virginia, on July 11,
2018.
2 I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers for Smith’s preferred title, other helpful points of
clarification, and a reminder of the relevance of Smith’s Royal Society of Canada presiden-
tial address, “Objectivity and the Humane Sciences: A New Proposal,” Transactions of the
Royal Society of Canada, 4th ser., 12 (1974), 81–102 (reprinted in Willard G. Oxtoby, ed.,
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292 Vincent F. Biondo, iii

Religious Diversity: Essays by Wilfred Cantwell Smith [New York: Harper & Row, 1976]). As
of December 2018, readers can learn more about the history of the Harvard Divinity School
with images of Smith, Bob Slater, and others at their online bicentennial exhibit: https://hds.
harvard.edu/about/hds-bicentennial/faces-of-divinity-exhibit.
3 Kenneth Cracknell, ed., Wilfred Cantwell Smith: A Reader (London: Oneworld, 2001), 9;
Amir Hussain, “Some Thoughts on Wilfred and Muriel Smith: Remarks at the Opening of
the Wilfred and Muriel Smith Collection at the Oviatt Library, California State University,
Northridge” (April 14, 2000).
4 For example, Frank Whaling, ed., The World’s Religious Traditions: Current Perspectives
in Religious Studies: Essays in Honour of Wilfred Cantwell Smith (Edinburgh: T&T Clark,
1984); Ellen Bradshaw Aitken and Arvind Sharma, eds., The Legacy of Wilfred Cantwell
Smith (Albany: SUNY Press, 2017).
5 Whaling, World’s Religious Traditions, 6; Aitken and Sharma, Legacy of Wilfred Cantwell
Smith, 12–13.
6 Diana L. Eck, “Religious Studies—The Academic and Moral Challenge: Personal Reflections
on the Legacy of Wilfred Cantwell Smith,” in Aitken and Sharma, Legacy of Wilfred Cantwell
Smith, 21–36, at 27.
7 William A. Graham, Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of
Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
8 Wilfred Cantwell Smith, “American Academy of Religion, Annual Meeting 1983: The Presi-
dential Address. The Modern West in the History of Religion,” Journal of the American Acad-
emy of Religion 52, no. 1 (1984): 3–18; see especially p. 10.
9 Smith, “American Academy of Religion,” 12.
10 Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Towards a World Theology: Faith and the Comparative Study of
Religion (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981), 7.
11 Smith, Towards a World Theology, 11.
12 Syed Adnan Hussain, “Negotiating Pakistan: A Genealogy of a Post-Colonial Islamic State”
(PhD thesis, Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto, 2015).
13 Hussain, “Negotiating Pakistan,” 35.
14 Amir Hussain, “Muslims, Pluralism, and Interfaith Dialogue,” in Progressive Muslims: On
Justice, Gender and Pluralism, ed. Omid Safi (London: Oneworld, 2003), 251–269, at 261.
15 Cracknell, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, 3.
16 Cracknell, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, 21. Originally from Wilfred Cantwell Smith, “Mission,
Dialogue and God’s Will for Us,” International Review of Mission 77, no. 307 (July 1988):
360–374, at 372.
17 Smith, “American Academy of Religion,” 9, 6.
18 Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1962; rpt.
Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1991), 9.
19 Wilfred Cantwell Smith, “Shall Next Century be Secular or Religious?” in Modern ­Culture
from a Comparative Perspective, ed. John W. Burbidge (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1997), 65–84, at 83.

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