roots of some of the main protagonists of the post-World War II study of
religion in Britain (Cox 2006: 141–159). The Dutch scholar, Jan G. Platvoet,
started his career as a Catholic missionary in Ghana (Platvoet 1982: 20–23).
According to the testimony of his son, Michael Pye, president of the IAHR
1995–2000, became interested in the religions of Japan as he ran Bible classes
while working as an English teacher in Tokyo during the early 1960s. Both
his predecessor and successor as president of the IAHR, the Italian Ugo Bianchi
and the German Peter Antes, came from Roman-Catholic backgrounds.
Such Christian commitment is no longer the rule. In this respect, Western
European scholars of religion are not much different from the rest of the
population. It may be anecdotal, but I know of very few colleagues born since
the 1960s with a clearly recognizable or even public Christian profile. Some
colleagues are known to be pagans, witches, shamans, esotericists, or atheists.
Others are religiously indifferent or ‘unmusical’; their intellectual curiosity is
neither nourished nor paralleled by a personal religious commitment or quest.
Developments in scholarship
Since the non-confessional study of religion as approached in this volume is
to a large extent a Western European creation, Western European scholars
have an important place in its history. For more extensive information, see
Michaels (ed.) (1997), Capps (1995), and Pals (2006).
Post-World War II scholarly journals and reference works
Among the international journals started after World War II the following
are to a large extent specifically European: Zeitschrift für Religions- und
Geistesgeschichte (1948– ), Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religion-
swissenschaft(restarted in 1950– ),Temenos: Nordic Journal of Comparative
Religion (1965– ), and the Archiv für Religionsgeschichte(1999– ). Several
journals cater to national readerships or are promoted by national associations.
These include the Scottish Journal of Religious Studies (1980–1999 [from
2000 Culture and Religion]), the Danish Religionsvidenskabeligt tidsskrift
(1982– ), the Danish/Norwegian co-production CHAOS(1982– ), the Swedish
Svensk religionshistorisk årsskrift(1985– ), the German Zeitschrift für
Religionswissenschaft(1993– ), and the Spanish ‘Ilû(1995– ) and Bandue
(2007– ), all published predominantly if not exclusively in the respective
national languages (cf. Benavides 2005).
While there is no single specific European reference work in the study of
religion, such works have been published at the national level, mostly in the
form of one-volume comprehensive ‘dictionaries of religion’. An important
example is the Italian (6 vols, 1970–1976). The largest European reference
works to date are Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart(4th edition, 8 vols,
1111
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1011
1
2
3111
4 5 6 7 8 9
20111
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
30111
1
2
3
4
35
6
7
8
9
40111
42222
3
411
WESTERN EUROPE
27
