At an address in December 1989, to the 5th Caodaist Convention in Australia, Eric Sharpe stated “We are at our best when we try to show accuracy in observation, sympathy in judgment and courtesy in dialogue. Behind all three is the conviction that it is necessary first of all to take religion seriously.”(1) They were principles that guided his life not only as professor of religious studies, but also as a historian, biographer, missiologist, and member of IAMS.
There is more in this than may at first appear. Debates whether objectivity in religious studies is best served by agnosticism or commitment, and whether witness, never mind dialogue, requires accuracy, sympathy and courtesy, are far from over. In the worlds of religious studies and missiology that he bridged, he was an outstanding model both of scholarship and of faith.
Eric Sharpe was born in Manchester, saw service in the Korean War, and spent from 1958 to 1965 in Uppsala where he completed his doctorate. His work on John Nicol Farquhar, missionary to India and professor of comparative religion at the University of Manchester, provided an intellectual framework for the rest of his life. He married Birgitta Johannesson in 1962, and translated 9 books from Swedish, including a novel.
Eric taught with Ninian Smart at Lancaster and then took over from his mentor, S. G. F. Brandon at the University of Manchester. In 1975 he published Comparative Religion: A History,(2) and two years later was appointed to the first chair of religious studies in Australia, at the University of Sydney, a position he held until his retirement in 1996.
Eric was a gifted linguist with a graceful English style that disguised a depth of critical reflection that was never satisfied with easy answers. The personalities he honored in the “Legacy” series of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Bengt Sundkler,(3) J. N. Farquhar, Lars Peter Larsen, C. F. Andrews, and A. G. Hogg,(4) as well as those he wrote about in longer biographies, Nathan Söderblom(5) and Karl Ludwig Reichelt,(6) often highlighted values and qualities apparent in his own work: clarity and precision in writing, a joyous curiosity, an ability to be fair, a religious sensibility and a capacity for surprise.
He combined a commitment to understanding with acute awareness that inter-religious dialogue could be a deceptive exercise and that good will should not be taken as implying that people were necessarily talking about the same sorts of reality at all.(7 ) His analysis of missionary attitudes to the Gita,(8) is a telling account of superficial rhetoric in the cause of apologetics, and of missionary failure to comprehend how the major religion and culture it was addressing actually functioned.
Eric is remembered also as a broadcaster and musician, and a gifted conversationalist. He was a pedantic examiner of doctoral theses, who picked up failings of detail, typography, and argument that his colleagues overlooked, but who was also a sensitive encourager of research students struggling through the long haul.
In religious studies he was criticised for concentrating more on ideas than on sociology, but he never forgot that religious culture was embedded in real people with real beliefs, and that the interaction of those beliefs with personal histories was as important for understanding what religion is about as the larger forces and movements of society. Eric’s own story is also a legacy, an important demonstration of what mission studies at its best can achieve.
John Roxborogh
References
Anderson, Gerald H., ed. Mission Legacies : Biographical Studies of Leaders of the Modern Missionary Movement, American Society of Missiology Series; No. 19. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1994.
Sharpe, Eric J. Address Given by Professor Eric J. Sharpe to the 5th Caodaist Convention in Australia, Held at Women's College, University of Sydney, 28th December 1989. [cited 19 February 2003]. Available from http://www-personal.usyd.edu.au/~cdao/sharpe.htm
———. Comparative Religion : A History. London: Duckworth, 1975.
———. Karl Ludvig Reichelt, Missionary, Scholar and Pilgrim. Hong Kong: Tao Fong Shan Ecumenical Centre, 1984.
———. "The Legacy of Bengt Sundkler." International Bulletin of Missionary Research 25, no. 2 (2001): 58-63.
———. "The Limits of Interreligious Dialogue." Mission Studies IX-2, no. 18 (1992): 228-35.
———. Nathan Söderblom and the Study of Religion. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990.
———. "Protestant Missionaries and the Study of the Bhagavad Gita." International Bulletin of Missionary Research 6, no. 4 (1982): 155-59.
Footnotes
1 Eric J. Sharpe, Address Given by Professor Eric J. Sharpe to the 5th Caodaist Convention in Australia, Held at Women's College, University of Sydney, 28th December 1989 ([cited 19 February 2003]); available from http://www-personal.usyd.edu.au/~cdao/sharpe.htm .
2 Eric J. Sharpe, Comparative Religion : A History (London: Duckworth, 1975).
3 Eric J. Sharpe, "The Legacy of Bengt Sundkler," International Bulletin of Missionary Research 25, no. 2 (2001).
4 In Gerald H. Anderson, ed., Mission Legacies : Biographical Studies of Leaders of the Modern Missionary Movement, American Society of Missiology Series; No. 19 (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1994).
5 Eric J. Sharpe, Nathan Söderblom and the Study of Religion (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990).
6 Eric J. Sharpe, Karl Ludvig Reichelt, Missionary, Scholar and Pilgrim (Hong Kong: Tao Fong Shan Ecumenical Centre, 1984).
7 Eric J. Sharpe, "The Limits of Interreligious Dialogue," Mission Studies IX-2, no. 18 (1992).
8 Eric J. Sharpe, "Protestant Missionaries and the Study of the Bhagavad Gita," International Bulletin of Missionary Research 6, no. 4 (1982).