Thirteenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

A number of recent commentaries have asserted a connection between the practice of reading stories and the development of empathy. Parallel connections exist in accounts of the study of theology and religious studies, wherein the act of reading scriptural narratives belonging to different traditions is framed as enabling students to empathetically imagine a worldview apart from their own. In this paper, I first probe what is meant by ‘empathy’ in such accounts; second, I suggest a number of troubling implications contained in the affirmation of ‘empathy’; and, third, I propose, as an alternative, an aspiration to wonder as an experience to be pursued by educators in the classroom. My argument is formed through theological reflection and textual and conceptual analysis, in dialogue with theologians and literary critics, among them: Rowan Williams; Terry Eagleton; and Maria C. Scott. In its interrogation of ‘empathy’ and ‘wonder’ as contrasting aspirations, this research reckons with questions pertaining to how we may know and not know the ‘other’; how we may know and not know ourselves; and how distance and proximity can be negotiated in the practice of reading.