Ninian Smart (1927-2001) held several positions as a professor at the University
of Birmingham and University of Lancaster in England, and at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the U.S. But in spite of these stellar academic achievements Professor Smart made it possible for religious studies to become accessible to a wider audience. Published in 1989, his book The World Religions was widely read. He was also the editorial consultant to BBC’s The Long Search, a documentary television series that covered different world religions. Professor Smart’s lasting influence is in defining religious studies as a non-confessional and secular field of inquiry. In his time, the academic study of religion primarily took place within theology, a discipline with interest in apologetics and evaluating truth claims. In fact, Professor Smart himself was the head of the Department of Theology at the University of Birmingham. When he was offered a place to head the newly established Department of Religious Studies at Lancaster University in the 1960s, Smart accepted it so he could push for his academic vision of religious studies. To him, religious studies can approach various religions as phenomena embedded in human experience. The task then of the student id to ask what people believe and do, and why. This approach was revolutionary in those days. Smart later on moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara. During an interview a few years before he passed away, Smart articulated his enduring theological vision when he was asked to describe his faith: I like to annoy people who think that a religion can contain the whole truth. No religion, it seems to me, contains the whole truth. I think it’s mad to think that there is nothing to learn from other traditions and civilizations. If you accept that other religions have something to offer and you learn from them, that is what you become: a Buddhist-Episcopalian or a Hindu-Muslim or whatever. Not only was Professor Smart a forerunner in crafting a secular vision for religious studies, but also his theological vision, or his understanding of himself as a religious person, clearly colored the appreciation he has of the religions in the world (London, 2015)
Source: Calano, Mark Joseph Tumada, Cornelio, Jayeel Serrano, and Sapitula, Manuel Victor Jamias. (2016). Introduction to World Religions and Belief Systems. Rex Book Store, Inc. Manila, Philippines.
https://www.lancs.ac.uk/Web/News/Pages/1DFBA93D45CF9A6E802569E5004FF8E4.aspx. Retrieved on May
(Supplements To Vigiliae Christianae 112) Panayiotis Tzamalikos-The Real Cassian Revisited - Monastic Life, Greek Paideia, and Origenism in The Sixth Century-Brill Academic Pub (2012) PDF