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This publication assumes that the modern context of plurality requires universities and higher education to support studying plural religious traditions in depth, giving due consideration to plural religious and secular perspectives, and providing opportunities for interaction between them. There are various ways to realise these aims. Success may be supported (or hindered) by various structures and concepts prevalent in universities or by different schools of thought on the nature of religions, on their relation to each other, and on their place in society. Religions and theologies can be studied in parallel, in cooperation, in dialogue, or through integrative approaches. The differing theoretical positions and contextual conditions (institutional, social, political) within which (inter)religious learning takes place are an important focus of this publication, both for the possibilities they open up and the limitations they pose.This publication builds on the presentations and discussions of scholars participating at a conference at the University of Hamburg in December 2018, with some additional contributions from others in the field who were unable to attend in person.

Responding to plurality is a demanding task. Nonetheless it is one of the challenges that European countries are facing today. Over the past decades, the social and religious make-up of Central Europe has changed, and this has led to resentment and fears of mass immigration, social disintegration and the emergence of parallel societies. However, we also find empirical proof that prejudice is lowest where there is direct contact. Therefore, there appears to be an increasing need for more dialogue in order to make the stranger less strange, the unknown known, the other no longer entirely other. This is equally true in academic research: There is a definite need, yet research on questions of interreligious dialogue remains in its infancy throughout the various disciplines engaged in it. The project 'Religion and Dialogue in Modern Societies' (ReDi) that started at the Academy of World Religions at the Hamburg University in 2011 seeks to contribute to remedying this deficit. Like the ReDi-Project, this book looks at dialogue from different perspectives. It includes both theoretical and empirical approaches as well as a variety of theological viewpoints on a theology of plurality and dialogue from the perspective of different religions.

There is no doubt about the particular importance of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) in public life during the apartheid era in South Africa. A question of a more complex nature relates to the role the DRC played in the transition-process from Apartheid to Democracy. The contributions of this book offer sharp and differentiated analyses of the church-state-relationship in the last phase of Apartheid, considering mainstream developments as well as efforts of individuals or groups less centrally placed, though not necessarily less significantly involved.