Clinton Bennett

Clinton Bennett (born 7 October 1955, Staffordshire, England) is a British-American scholar of Religious studies and participant in interfaith dialogue, specializing in Islamic studies and the relations between Islam and other religions.

He is also a published author.

Clinton Bennett has been an ordained Baptist Christian minister, a Christian missionary in Bangladesh, a professor in the UK and US, Director of Interfaith relations at the British Council of Churches and a writer.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, and the Royal Anthropological Institute.

He has also taken part in the dialogue activities of the World Council of Churches.

Bennett was born in 1955 in Tettenhall, which was then an urban district in Staffordshire, England.

He was raised in Australia and after gaining his School Certificate, he worked in Sydney as an officer in the civil service from 1972 to 1973.

He started training for the Baptist Ministry at Northern Baptist College, Manchester in 1974 and graduated with a BA in Theology from the University of Manchester in July 1978.

He was ordained on July 2, 1978.

He spent a year at the Selly Oak Colleges preparing to serve with the Baptist Missionary Society in Bangladesh and received a Certificate in the Study of Islam from University of Birmingham.

In Bangladesh, he studied the language, pastored a congregation and tutored for the Bangladesh College of Christian Theology.

Returning to Birmingham in 1983 he gained an MA in 1985 and PhD in 1990, both in Islamic Studies.

Between 1985 and 1992 he was associate minister of Highgate Baptist Church, Birmingham.

Between 1986 and 1987 he was also part time Free Church Chaplain at Aston University, Birmingham

Between 1987 and 1992 Bennett was executive secretary of the Committee for Relations with People of Other Faiths at the British Council of Churches' Conference for World Mission.

Bennett was a Consultant at the Baar Meeting of the WCC's Dialogue Sub Unit (1988) and a member of the Sub Unit's Working Party that drafted Issues in Christian Muslim Relations: Ecumenical Considerations (1991).

He joined the faculty of Westminster College, Oxford in 1992 and taught there until 1998 when he became an associate professor of religion at Baylor University, Texas.

From 1992 to 1998 he was a member of the World Council of Churches' Consultation on the Church and the Jewish People (CCJP) representing the Baptist Union of Great Britain, attending meetings in Geneva (1992) and Budapest (1994).

He currently represents the Alliance of Baptists on the Inter-religious Relations and Collaboration on Topics of Mutual Concern Convening Table of the National Council of Churches US and on several national dialogues.

Bennett has regularly researched and taught at summer schools in India mainly at the Henry Martyn Institute in Hyderabad, and for The Association for Theological Education by Extension based at Bangalore.

He has attended conferences in or traveled to six Muslim majority states.

Bennett has written a number of books on the history of Islam and Christian/Muslim relations.

Bennett's first book was published in 1992.

Victorian Images of Islam was well received and has been widely cited.

The book was described as an "illuminating study into an overlooked corner of Victorian religious history".

Bennett described contributors as confrontational or conciliatory, analysing the work of three scholars in each category.

The three conciliators were Charles Forster, Frederick Denison Maurice and Reginald Bosworth Smith and the three confrontationalists were William Muir, William St. Clair Tisdall and John Drew Bate.

Conciliators were those "Western writers who questioned the prevailing attitude of cultural and religious superiority that led to a belittling of everything non-European" Confrontationalists perpetuated traditional anti-Muslim polemic.

Bennett stressed that the story of Christian-Muslim encounter includes examples of harmonious co-existence as well as of hostility.

By remembering these experiences we can ensure that future relations are not solely defined by a negative historical memory.

Ahmad Gunney called the book "a valuable contribution to the debate on the important question of Islam and the West" and said that "the Baptist minister" had to a "certain extent" complemented "the work of three Muslim writers, M. A. Anees, Syed Zainul Abedin and Z. Sardar".

One Muslim reviewer suggested that the book's study by Muslim Imams-in-training might "go some way towards breaking down barriers and misconceptions".

In 1996 he received his MEd from the University of Oxford.

In 1996, Bennett published the first of five books with 'In Search of' in their title.

In Search of the Sacred: Anthropology and the Study of Religion called for a combination of historical, textual and participant observation research to shed light on how religion is lived, as well as on its history and official dogmas.

After a period working for an internet encyclopedia project he began teaching part-time at State University of New York at New Paltz in 2008 and has also taught at Marist College, Poughkeepsie.

On December 17, 2022 he was formally incardinated as a priest of the Old Catholic Apostolic Church by its Patriarch.

He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2012.

Ahmad Shafaat writes, "Bennett's approach allows him to treat Islamic traditions and their Muslim interpretations with sensitivity and respect, not often found among Christian writings on Islam."

From 2017 to 2022 he was a member of the pastoral team at a United Methodist Church.