Geaves, Ronald (Ron Geaves, Ronald Allan Geaves)

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Geaves, Ronald (Ron Geaves, Ronald Allan Geaves)

PERSONAL:

Male.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Theology and Religious Studies, Liverpool Hope University, Hope Park, Liverpool L16 9JD, England.

CAREER:

Writer, educator, and religious advisor. University of Chester, Chester, England, professor of the comparative study of religion; interfaith advisor to the Bishop of Chester.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Theodore Gabriel, Yvonne Haddad, and Jane Idleman Smith) Islam and the West Post-9/11, Ashgate (Burlington, VT), 2004.

(With Theodore Gabriel) Isms: Understanding Religion, Allen & Unwin (Crows Nest, New South Wales, Australia), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Ronald Geaves is a professor of theology and religious studies at the Liverpool Hope University in England. A frequent author of academic works on religion and related issues, Geaves has contributed articles to a variety of scholarly journals and books on a wide variety of religious subjects.

Geaves has twice collaborated with Theodore Gabriel, an honorary research fellow and emeritus lecturer at the University of Gloucestershire in England. In Islam and the West Post-9/11, edited with Gabriel, Yvonne Haddad, and Jane Idleman Smith, Geaves and his coeditors present essays that "discuss how Muslims and Christians can reach a better understanding" between themselves and their faiths, commented reviewer Benet Exton on the Curled Up with a Good Book Web site. The editors present material in two general categories: theoretical issues and case studies. Gabriel opens the book with an essay that asks the controversial but vitally important question: Is Islam against the West? Contributor John J. Shepherd considers the roots of violence and extremism in the three major religions of Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism, while Geaves contributes a piece discussing the definition of moderate Islam in the post-9/11 world. In the second section, Marcia Hermasen looks at how Muslim response to 9/11 has evolved. Lamin Sanneh explores the nature and applications of Shari'ah sanctions in Nigeria, and Colin Chapman investigates how Israel has become the focus of anger for Muslims against the West. Exton concluded that the volume is a "great source for all for a better understanding of the Muslim world and the West."

Geaves and Gabriel also collaborated Isms: Understanding Religion. This book is a "colourful and accessible reference work that lays out the differences between religious dogmas in straightforward terms," observed Tim Roberts on the M/C Reviews Web site. Geaves and Gabriel devote a separate section to each of the major religions, wherein the "authors explain each the intellectual history, major figures, historic buildings (usually accompanied by photographs), and competing factions of each religion," Roberts noted. The major faiths are covered, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and more. Geaves and Gabriel also cover a number of religious systems that have often been misrepresented throughout history and in the popular press, including Voodoo and Satanism. Their evenhanded approach and detailed explanation of these sorts of "vernacular religions" can help, in some way, to rehabilitate their bad reputations with fact. In the end, Roberts concluded, "Gabriel and Geaves have delivered a compact, colorful and surprisingly engaging text which outlines the salient differences between the world's major and minor faiths."