Professor Frank Whaling, who was appointed to the staff of New College in the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh in 1973 to coordinate the new BA and MA (Honours) degrees in Religious Studies, died on 26th November 2022. He retired in 1999, but maintained a keen interest in the activities of Edinburgh’s Religious Studies Subject Area and more widely continued an ambitious record of research and publishing. The first decade of Religious Studies at Edinburgh began slowly with just eight new students enrolling in the 1981-82 academic year. The 1980s, however, saw a rapid growth in undergraduate students entering the degree programme and an even higher number of students from outside Divinity attending first and second year classes in religion. By 1988, Frank reported that over 50 students were regularly attending the first-year survey of religion class; by 1993, it had jumped to 120. In 1996, 40 students accepted a place on the Religious Studies course, most pursuing the MA (Hons) degree. So dramatic had interest in Religious Studies at Edinburgh grown that, Frank claimed, ‘Edinburgh had the widest course in Religious Studies in the United Kingdom’ (Whaling 1996: 162). He described the composition of students as varied culturally and religiously:
A small but continuing number of students were Jews, Muslims and Buddhists who offered to the New College community contact with people outside the Christian tradition. Others had an academic and often existential interest in religion that was not necessarily linked to an identifiable institution (Whaling 1996: 158).
Frank Whaling’s approach to the study of religion was influenced strongly by his study at Harvard University under the Canadian scholar of comparative religion Wilfred Cantwell Smith (1916-2000), where he earned a Doctorate of Theology in 1971. Frank acknowledged his debt to Smith in his introductory chapter to a book he edited in Smith’s honour, The World’s Religious Traditions: Current Perspectives in Religious Studies, where he described Smith as a scholar who possessed an ‘academic and humane vision of the truth’ which he pursued ‘with the utmost scholarly rigour and personal integrity’ (Whaling 1984c: 5). This same attitude can be attributed to Frank Whaling, whose influence on the development of Religious Studies as a field in its own right is substantial. His contribution can be summarised in a number of significant ways.
Initially, it is important to note that Frank anticipated the critique of what is now called the ‘World Religions Paradigm’, which historically limited (and continues to limit) the study of religion/s to reified, self-contained, non-contextualised entities defined in terms generally consistent with Christian theological categories (see the critiques by Owen 2011 and Cotter and Robertson 2016, all Edinburgh alumni). Frank argued that Religious Studies should not be confined to the study of the so-called ‘major religious traditions’ but should include ‘primal religions, archaic religions, and world-views such as Marxism’ (Whaling 1984c: 22). This implicitly ‘world-view’ modelling of the teaching of ‘religion’, previously a lynchpin in the Religious Studies programme developed by Ninian Smart (1927-2001) at Lancaster from 1967, is now again being debated (Taves 2020, Davies 2022). In this light, Frank’s double solo edited volume, Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion: Vol 1, The Humanities; Vol 2, The Social Sciences (Whaling 1984-5), looks remarkably prescient, including as it does Frank’s substantial chapters ‘Comparative Approaches’ (Whaling 1984a) and ‘The Study of Religion in a Global Context’ (Whaling 1984b) plus ‘The Scientific Study of Religions in its Plurality’ by Ninian Smart with Frank’s ‘An Additional Note on the Philosophy of Science and the Study of Religion’ (Smart and Whaling 1984).
Frank believed that the Study of Religion/s as an academic field had been restricted too narrowly to those trained exclusively in (theology and) religious studies. He argued that ‘there has been an increasingly complex involvement of the humane and social sciences in the study of religion to the extent that virtually any theory or method of investigation in any of the humane and social sciences can be and often is applied to specific sets of religious data’ (Whaling 1984c: 22). Scholars of religion/s therefore need not be limited to pioneers associated with the founding of the field, such as Gerardus van der Leeuw, Rudolf Otto or Mircea Eliade, but could include social scientists like ‘Lévi-Strauss, Berger and Bellah’ (Whaling 1984c: 22). Finally, Frank anticipated new methods in response to advances in science and technology which he claimed would create new ‘shoots’ in the study of religion.
These insights were incorporated into the highly successful Religious Studies programme in the University of Edinburgh. The Combined Studies branch of the degree allowed students to integrate other disciplines into their MA (Hons) course in Religious Studies, as wide-ranging as anthropology, sociology, classics, philosophy, literature, politics and history. The programme was further adapted to include Area Studies such as Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, Asian Studies and African Studies. During the 1990s, final year religion students enrolled in courses in Edinburgh that challenged the tendency to limit the subject matter to traditional ‘religious’ categories, such as beliefs, myths and rituals. Instead, they were encouraged to apply insights gained from their studies in religion to issues related to, for example, ecology or war and peace. This is illustrated in the mid-1990s by the fourth year Religious Studies course required of all MA (RS) students, ‘The Greening of Religion’.
Under Frank’s leadership, the programme’s focus on religions (plural) was expressed not only on an international scale but in the immediate Scottish context. For example, Frank contributed a paper on the Brahma Kumaris to the innovative conference ‘Contemporary Religions in Scotland’ at the University of Stirling in January 1998. Organised by the social anthropologist Malory Nye, who had himself recently published a monograph on Hindus in Edinburgh, the conference’s sub-headings announced a new, radical research agenda in a context dominated by studies of Scottish mainstream Christianity: ‘Islam’, ‘Innovations in Christianity’, ‘New Age and neo-Paganism’, and ‘Hinduism and New Religions’. Extending this approach, Frank pointed out that the Scottish Christian field included Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Orthodox, Baptist, Methodist and Pentecostal iterations. It also contained rich internal ethnic-cultural diversity: Orthodox Christianity alone, for example, could be sub-divided into Greek, Bulgarian, Russian, Ukrainian, Syrian, Ancient, British, Celtic and Coptic expressions (Whaling 1999: 18-21). Frank’s careful empirical cataloguing anticipates the ethnographic granularity of the practice of religion/s in local and global contexts which has been pioneered in the Study of Religion/s.
Alongside his huge contribution to the establishment of Religious Studies in the School of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh and to the wider Study of Religion/s, Frank also made a very considerable contribution to the inter-faith scene in Edinburgh, and Scotland more widely, as founder, along with others, of the Edinburgh Interfaith Association. Set up in 1988, EIFA continues to flourish, under its Executive Director, Iain Stewart (see Interfaith Dialogue | Edinburgh Interfaith Association | Edinburgh), and to make a substantial contribution to the development of better relations and understanding between the city’s different religious communities, especially in the field of education. An Obituary by Prof Joe Goldblatt, the current Chair of the Board of EIFA, in The Scotsman on 14th December 2022, provides fuller details of Frank’s contribution in this area (see Scotsman Obituaries: Frank Whaling, founder of Edinburgh Interfaith Association | The Scotsman).
As a student of Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Frank worked hard to promote a better understanding of the full range of the religious traditions of the world, for example, through the volume mentioned above which he edited in honour of Smith. After his own substantial introductory essay, this volume looks at Faith and Tradition in five of the world’s major religious traditions: the Hindu, the Confucian, the Jewish, the Christian, and the Muslim, before outlining seven current approaches to the Study of Religion, including chapters by John Hick, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Raimundo Panikkar, and Ninian Smart.
In his latter years he served as the editor of the invaluable ‘Understanding Faith’ series which was published by Dunedin Academic Press in Edinburgh and aimed at making understanding of religious traditions clear for a wide audience and highly accessible to the general public. In addition to the six traditions which are usually included in this kind of venture in the UK – Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism – this series was notable for also including Jainism, Chinese Religions, Baha’ism, and the Brahma Kumaris – and its convenient 120-page format means that the series continues to be useful for anyone who is looking for an accessible introduction to each of the faith traditions included within it.
A good example of how Frank applied methodological insights derived from his approach to Religious Studies is found in his book, Understanding Hinduism (2009), in which he describes Hinduism not only as a world religious tradition, but also as a world view. In addition to explaining the place of sacred scriptures, rituals and beliefs in Hindu traditions, he introduces new topics, such as aesthetics and spirituality. In line with his multi-disciplinary approach, he relates contemporary forms of Indian religions to political movements such as Hindutva. To his credit, he avoids restricting Hinduism to its ‘higher’ or philosophical elaborations, as was done in many classical textbooks on world religions, but includes explanations of ‘village Hinduism’ and describes the Hindu diaspora in Western societies, such as is found in Britain.
As a scholar of religion and religions, as a teacher and a colleague, Frank Whaling had an infectious excitement for his subject which he conveyed to those among whom he worked and transmitted to his students, who recall his kindness, generosity and clear Yorkshire voice. Near the conclusion of his introductory essay in the book he edited in honour of Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Frank aptly demonstrated his enthusiasm for our discipline, which lends encouragement to those committed to a sometimes beleaguered and misunderstood field of study: ‘Religious Studies is exciting, expanding, academically vibrant, pregnant with new seeds, and an integrally important part of contemporary scholarship’ (Whaling 1984, 23). Not only does the School of Divinity in Edinburgh owe lasting gratitude for the quarter of a century Frank Whaling devoted to developing the academic programme there but, more widely, scholars and students in many contexts have benefited and continue to benefit from Frank’s global vision for the scope, influence and significance of the academic Study of Religions.
Professor James L. Cox
Professor Hugh Goddard
Dr. Steven J. Sutcliffe
University of Edinburgh
Primary Source References
Smart, Ninian and Frank Whaling 1984. ‘The Scientific Study of Religion in its Plurality’ (Smart) with ‘An Additional Note on the Philosophy of Science and the Study of Religion’ (Whaling), pp. 365-390 in Frank Whaling (ed.) 1984. Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion: Vol 1, The Humanities. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Whaling, Frank (ed.) 1984-85. Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion: Vol 1, The Humanities; Vol 2, The Social Sciences. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Whaling, Frank 1984a. ‘Comparative Approaches’. In Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion: Vol 1, The Humanities, pp. 165-296.
Whaling, Frank 1984b. ‘The Study of Religion in a Global Context’. In Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion: Vol 1, The Humanities, pp. 391-443
Whaling, Frank 1984c. ‘Introductory Essay’. In F. Whaling (ed.), The World’s Religious Traditions: Current Perspectives in Religious Studies, pp. 3-29. London and New York: Bloomsbury.
Whaling, Frank 1996. ‘Religious Studies’. In D.F. Wright, D.F. and G.D. Badcock (eds), Disruption to Diversity: Edinburgh Divinity, 1846-1996, pp. 151-65. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.
Whaling, Frank 1999. ‘Religious Diversity in Scotland’, pp. 10-45 in Soundings II: Proceedings of a Day Conference for the Methodist Church in Scotland. Edinburgh: Heriot-Watt University.
Whaling, Frank 2009. Understanding Hinduism. Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press.
Secondary source references
Owen, Suzanne 2011. ‘The World Religions Paradigm: Time for a Change’. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 10/3: 253-268.
Cotter, Christopher R. and David G. Robertson 2016. After World Religions: Reconstructing Religious Studies. London and New York: Routledge.
Davies, Douglas 2022. Worldview Religious Studies. London: Routledge.
Taves, Ann 2020. ‘From religious studies to worldview studies’. Religion 50/1: 137-147.