Epigraph

The [Muslim] believers, the Jews, the Christians, and the Sabians –– all those who believe in God and the Last Day and do good –– will have their rewards with their Lord. No fear for them, nor will they grieve. (Al Quran 2:62)

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Biographical Overview: From Missionary’s Son to Interfaith Scholar

Huston Cummings Smith (1919–2016) was one of the 20th century’s foremost scholars of world religions, known for both his academic rigor and his personal spiritual explorations parliamentofreligions.org. He was born in Suzhou, China on May 31, 1919, to American Methodist missionary parents and spent his first 17 years in China latimes.com newworldencyclopedia.org. Growing up in what he called “a cauldron of different faiths,” Smith lived “in a home saturated in religion,” crediting his devout parents with instilling in him “a Christianity that was able to withstand the dominating secular culture of modernity” newworldencyclopedia.org. In 1936, he left China for the United States to pursue higher education, initially intending to become a missionary like his father. He studied at Central Methodist University in Missouri and was ordained a Methodist minister, but ultimately chose academics over the pulpit newworldencyclopedia.org, enrolling in the University of Chicago Divinity School where he completed a doctorate in 1945 latimes.com.

Smith’s academic career blossomed in the ensuing decades. He began teaching philosophy and religion in 1945 at the University of Denver, then moved to Washington University in St. Louis in 1947 latimes.comlatimes.com. In 1958, he was appointed professor of philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught for 15 years latimes.com. He later held positions at Syracuse University (1973–1983) and, in semi-retirement, at the University of California, Berkeley latimes.com news.syr.edu. Alongside his academic posts, Smith emerged as a public educator about religion. As early as 1955, he hosted an educational television series on world religions (“The Religions of Man”) and, decades later, was featured in the acclaimed five-part PBS special The Wisdom of Faith (1996) with Bill Moyers latimes.com news.syr.edu. His ability to communicate the profundity of each faith to a broad audience made him, as one colleague noted, “perhaps the most important American scholar of religions for five decades”parliamentofreligions.org.

Crucial to Smith’s approach was his own spiritual journey, which unfolded alongside his academic work. In his 20s, Smith found himself drawn from the confines of his Methodist upbringing into the wider world of mysticism and contemplative practice newworldencyclopedia.org. A pivotal meeting in 1948 with the novelist Aldous Huxley – a proponent of the Perennial Philosophy – set Smith on a new course latimes.com. Huxley introduced him to a Hindu swami in St. Louis, and Smith soon immersed himself in Vedanta (Hindu philosophy), undertaking regular meditation and study under Swami Satprakashananda of the Ramakrishna Order latimes.com newworldencyclopedia.org. Smith’s quest for firsthand understanding of the world’s religions led him further afield: he traveled to Japan to train with a Zen Buddhist master, journeyed to Burma to study Theravada Buddhism, and spent time in northern India among Tibetan Buddhist refugees. In the 1960s, Smith even engaged in experiments with psychedelics (under the guidance of figures like Timothy Leary) as a means of exploring altered states of consciousness. On New Year’s Day 1961 he ingested mescaline, an experience that he said gave him a vivid, if overwhelming, glimpse of the mystical – “like plugging a toaster into a power line,” he quipped, echoing the biblical idea that “no one can see God and live.” Though he published an influential essay, “Do Drugs Have Religious Import?” (1965), and acknowledged that psychedelics had briefly opened a door to mystical insight, Smith soon “hung up” the telephone of chemical experimentation, preferring more sustained spiritual disciplines.

Throughout his life, Smith continued to “immerse himself in religious practice” across traditions news.syr.edunews.syr.edu. He became, in the words of a colleague, “a practitioner of at least six religions,” striving to experience each faith “from the inside” rather than remain a detached observer news.syr.edu. For over a decade each, he practiced Hindu yoga, Zen meditation, and Sufi Islamic devotions newworldencyclopedia.org. During the 1970s, while teaching in upstate New York, Smith developed a deep respect for indigenous spirituality; he learned from the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) tradition of the Onondaga Nation near Syracuse, which led him to add a chapter on Native American religion in the later edition of his book on world religions news.syr.eduen.wikipedia.org. In that same period, Smith adopted certain Muslim practices – he recounts that “Asia-wise, that decade brought Islam into my lived world,” and he even took up the discipline of praying five times daily in the Islamic manner. All the while, he remained an active Christian in the Methodist Church, describing himself as a Christian with a “Vedantic understanding” of faith en.wikipedia.org. As he famously put it, “I never canceled my subscription to Christianity,” even as he enriched it with the wisdom of other traditions newworldencyclopedia.org. This unique combination of commitment and openness was a hallmark of Smith’s life. He passed away at the age of 97 in 2016, at home in Berkeley, California, leaving behind a legacy as a gentle, humble teacher who lived the interfaith harmony he championed.

Major Works: The World’s Religions and an Empathetic Approach to Faith

Huston Smith’s scholarship was not only groundbreaking in content but also widely accessible in form. He authored over a dozen books over his long careernews.syr.edu, but none is more influential than The World’s Religions (originally published in 1958 as The Religions of Man). This book, still a staple in college religion courses, has sold millions of copies worldwidenews.syr.edunews.syr.edu. In it, Smith presents the major faith traditions – Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity (and in the revised edition, indigenous traditions) – with both scholarly rigor and deep empathy. Bill Moyers observed that Smith wrote about each religion as if “he has been to the place he is describing,” bringing an insider’s warmth to an outsider’s perspectivelatimes.com. Indeed, Smith’s methodology was to listen attentively to each tradition’s own voice and to portray it at “its best,” highlighting its noblest teachings and practicesnews.syr.edugoodreads.com. As Smith famously said, “If we take the world’s enduring religions at their best, we discover the distilled wisdom of the human race.”news.syr.edu This conviction guided his hand as he elucidated each faith’s vision of reality, from the Hindu concept of the eternal Atman to the Christian message of divine love, in a way that a general reader could appreciate. Fellow scholars have noted that this universalist approach – treating all religions as containing profound truth – was novel in the mid-20th century and helped awaken American curiosity toward non-Christian traditionslatimes.comlatimes.com.

In The World’s Religions, Smith combined lucid explanation with reverence for the subject matter. He often incorporated myths, scriptures, and personal anecdotes to bring each tradition to life. For example, when describing the mystical Upanishadic idea of the God-within, he would quote directly from the Hindu texts and then translate their meaning for a modern audiencegoodreads.com. Throughout the book runs an undercurrent of wonder. “What a strange fellowship this is,” he writes in the conclusion, “the God-seekers in every land, lifting their voices in the most disparate ways imaginable to the God of all life. How does it sound from above? Like bedlam, or … ethereal harmony? … We cannot know. All we can do is listen carefully and with full attention to each voice in turn as it addresses the divine.”goodreads.com. These lines capture Smith’s posture of respectful listening and suspension of judgment. By inviting readers to appreciate each religion on its own terms, he challenged the chauvinism that ranked other faiths as inferior. It was an approach both empathetic and academically informed, and it set The World’s Religions apart as “the most important study of comparative religions” of its timenews.syr.edunews.syr.edu.

Smith’s other major works reinforced and expanded his interfaith philosophy. In Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World’s Religions (1976), he explicitly explored the Perennial Philosophy – the idea that a shared metaphysical truth underlies the world’s spiritual traditions. That book, influenced by thinkers like René Guénon and Ananda Coomaraswamy, argued that the cosmos has multiple levels of reality (material, mental, spiritual) and that the great religions converge on affirming a transcendent Ground of Being. Decades later, in Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief (2001), Smith turned his attention to the modern spiritual crisis, vigorously critiquing the pervasive scientific materialism of contemporary culture. He lamented that many modern people see science and technology as replacements for religion, “writing science a blank check” to define reality while neglecting the human need for meaningarchive.orgarchive.org. In this work, Smith defends the continued relevance of religious worldviews. He contrasts the hopeful visions offered by religious cosmologies with the bleak outlook of a purely materialist science: “As for the scientific worldview, there is no way that a happy ending can be worked into it. Death is the grim reaper of individual lives,” he observes, noting that in a cosmos without transcendence “ultimate meaning in life is nonexistent”archive.orgarchive.org. Such prose exemplified Smith’s talent for communicating complex ideas in relatable terms. Even as he engaged in debates about modernity, his writing remained accessible to lay readers. Late in life, Smith also penned two memoirs: Tales of Wonder: Chasing the Divine (2009) and And Live Rejoicing: Chapters from a Charmed Life (2012). These works recount personal stories from his “remarkable pilgrimage” across religions, offering intimate glimpses of encounters with figures like the Dalai Lama (whom Smith helped introduce to American audiences in 1979) and Mother Teresa, as well as reflections on lessons learned from a lifetime of faith-seekingnews.syr.edunews.syr.edu. In all his writings, Huston Smith’s voice is consistently reverent, wise, and imbued with a gentle humor – qualities that made his scholarship on religion resonate far beyond the academy.

Religious Pluralism and the Perennial Philosophy

At the heart of Huston Smith’s thought is a profound commitment to religious pluralism – the belief that no single tradition has a monopoly on truth, and that each of the great faiths can be appreciated as a valid path to the sacred. Smith approached each religion “as one who has lived them,” seeking to understand a faith on its own terms rather than through the lens of anothernewworldencyclopedia.org. This empathetic stance was coupled with his conviction that the world’s religions share an underlying unity. Smith was an advocate of the Perennial Philosophy, the idea that, as the saying goes, there are “many paths up the same mountain.” He frequently pointed out the essential commonalities among religions: an ultimate Reality (be it called God, Brahman, Allah, Tao, etc.), the presence of the human soul or eternal spirit, and an emphasis on compassion, justice, and love as cardinal virtueslatimes.comnewworldencyclopedia.org. “However different,” Smith noted, “all [religions] advocate the rediscovery of the wisdom traditions of the past,” and at their core each tradition “express[es] the Absolute” in its own idiomnews.syr.edunewworldencyclopedia.org. It was in this spirit that Smith could draw parallels across traditions – for example, likening the Hindu understanding of moksha (spiritual liberation) to the Christian understanding of salvation – without blurring the distinctive beauty of each faith.

Importantly, Smith’s pluralism did not mean an uncritical blending of religions or a shallow “anything goes” attitude. In fact, he was wary of the relativism and selective cafeteria-style spirituality that became popular in the New Age milieu. “I don’t think the cafeteria approach to religion works,” he flatly stated in one interviewphilarchive.orgphilarchive.org. He remained a champion of authentic traditions and encouraged people to delve deeply into a single faith tradition, even as they respect and learn from others. In his public lectures Smith often emphasized the importance of commitment. “Religion gives traction to spirituality,” he explained – one needs the grounding of an established path to truly develop spirituallylatimes.comlatimes.com. Using a vivid image, he advised seekers that, “If you are looking for water, it is better to drill one 60-foot well than ten six-foot wells.”latimes.com In other words, true wisdom comes from plumbing the depths of a tradition, rather than skimming the surface of many. Smith himself followed this principle by remaining rooted in his Christian heritage even as he enriched that faith through his study of others. He admired the devotional dedication he saw in Hindu monks, Buddhist meditators, and Muslim Sufis, and believed that encountering other faiths had “made me a better Christian”parliamentofreligions.org. But he maintained that a sincere believer of any faith should ultimately aim for depth over breadth – a stance that distinguishes perennial wisdom from more dilettantish forms of modern spiritualityphilarchive.orgphilarchive.org.

Smith also engaged robustly with modern secularism, offering a critique of what he saw as a one-sided worldview in contemporary intellectual life. While he deeply appreciated science, he argued that scientism – the belief that the scientific method is the sole path to knowledge – had constricted modern humanity’s understanding of reality. In Why Religion Matters, Smith wrote that the West had become “so obsessed with life’s material underpinnings that we have written science a blank check” to define trutharchive.org. This “misreading” of science, he believed, resulted in a spiritually impoverished “tunnel” worldview, devoid of the higher dimensions that religions have long affirmedarchive.orgarchive.org. He contrasted the meaning-rich universe of traditional societies – in which the cosmos is infused with divine presence and life has an ultimate purpose – with the meaning-empty cosmos of strict materialism. In a stark passage, Smith noted that in the scientific cosmology as popularly understood, “Death is the grim reaper” and human history ultimately ends “with a whimper” in cosmic extinction, whereas in the religious outlook “individual souls and history as a whole end happily” (whether in Nirvana, Heaven, or a new divine age)archive.orgarchive.org. By highlighting these differences, Smith was not attacking science itself (which he saw as compatible with faith), but rather advocating for a balanced worldview that makes room for science and spiritual truth latimes.comlatimes.com. He felt that modern society’s exclusive focus on empirical facts had caused an existential void – a loss of meaning and “alienation” – that only a recovery of spiritual insight could fillarchive.orgarchive.org. In this respect, Huston Smith can be seen as a bridge between worlds: he upheld the perennial teachings of the ages as an antidote to the cynical nihilism he detected in contemporary culture. His pluralism was thus not only about appreciating multiple religions, but also about affirming the reality of the sacred against the disenchantment of the modern world.

Not all scholars in the field of religious studies agreed with Smith’s universalist perspective, especially as the discipline grew more focused on particular historical and cultural contexts. Some critics noted that Smith tended to emphasize similarities and downplay irreconcilable differences between traditionslatimes.comlatimes.com. Scholar of religion Wendy Doniger, for instance, commented that Smith “was a universalist, who made generalizations about all religions”, whereas many modern academics avoid searching for a “common core”latimes.comlatimes.com. Smith himself recognized the danger of glossing over complexity. He warned that extracting only the common denominators of religions can “lose the beauty and mystery of faith” that come with each religion’s unique practices and storiesnewworldencyclopedia.orgnewworldencyclopedia.org. In other words, reducing all faiths to, say, a few shared ethical principles would strip them of their rich particulars. To counter this, Smith always balanced his discussions of unity with a celebration of diversity. Each tradition, in his view, is a distinctive song to the divine, and the goal of pluralism is not to mash these into a monotone but to allow each to be heard clearly. His oft-cited insistence that we must “attend to others when they speak, as deeply and as alertly as we hope they will attend to us” underscores this commitment to dialogical pluralismnews.syr.edunews.syr.edu. Thus, Huston Smith’s religious philosophy was one of inclusion without dilution: every great faith deserves respect and understanding on its own terms, and at the same time, faith traditions can converse with one another because all ultimately point toward the “Ultimate Reality” that surpasses human namingnews.syr.edu.

Evolving Views on Death and the Afterlife

Given his broad engagement with the world’s religious teachings, Huston Smith’s perspective on death and the afterlife was rich and nuanced. He was ever mindful of the limits of human understanding in the face of life’s greatest mystery. “We are born in mystery, we live in mystery, and we die in mystery,” Smith wrote in his later years, emphasizing that no matter how much we learn, the ultimate questions retain a numinous uncertaintygoodreads.com. This sense of awe before the unknown did not, however, translate into cynicism or fear. Instead, Smith approached death with a kind of informed hope, drawing on insights from multiple traditions. As a young Christian seminarian, he struggled with the idea of eternal hellfire and was deeply attracted to the Hindu notion of universal salvation – the belief that “everyone makes it in the end” and no soul is condemned foreverarchive.orgarchive.org. In Why Religion Matters, he recounts a formative conversation with a Trappist monk (Father Lazarus) who believed that Saint Paul had been given a secret revelation that “ultimately everyone is saved,” a truth that must be kept esotericarchive.orgarchive.org. Smith found this idea both theologically satisfying and echoed quietly in other faiths (pointing, for instance, to the Quranic verse “Unto Him all things return” as a Sufi hint of universal return to God)archive.orgarchive.org. Thus, long before it was common, Smith embraced a universalist view of salvation: all souls, he believed, will eventually reunite with the Divine, however winding their paths and whatever their errors along the way.

Smith’s studies in Eastern religions had also acquainted him with beliefs in reincarnation and multiple realms of existence after death. While he understood and respected these views, his own thinking about the afterlife, especially in his later reflections, took a form that harmonized his Christian roots with a broader mystical outlook. In the concluding chapter of Why Religion Matters (aptly titled “Happy Ending”), Smith ventured an imaginative “extraordinarily explicit scenario” of what happens after death – not as a dogma, but as a “likely tale” consistent with his convictionsarchive.orgarchive.org. He wrote: “After I shed my body, I will continue to be conscious of the life I have lived and the people who remain on earth. Sooner or later, however, there will come a time when no one alive will have heard of Huston Smith, let alone have known him, whereupon there ceases to be any point in my hanging around.” At that moment, having expressed his gratitude for all that life had given – echoing the old Christian saint who said, “Thanks, thanks for everything; praise for it all” – “I will then turn my back on planet earth and attend to what is more interesting, the beatific vision.”philarchive.orgphilarchive.org In this poetic vignette, Smith envisions a post-mortem journey in two phases: first, a period of lingering awareness of earthly life (perhaps analogous to what spiritualists or some religious traditions describe as a transitional bardo or an intermediate state where one watches over loved ones), and second, a final homecoming to the infinite Divine – the “beatific vision” of God in eternal bliss, as described in Christian theology. Notably, he suggests that when our ties to the living world are finally gone, the soul naturally moves on to a greater reality. His choice of the beatific vision (seeing God face-to-face) rather than dissolution into an impersonal Absolute was in line with his personal preference to “taste sugar” rather than be sugar, to use Sri Ramakrishna’s famous metaphorarchive.orgarchive.org. In other words, Smith believed the soul could retain its identity in divine presence if it so chose – reflecting a synthesis of mystical and theistic perspectives.

Throughout his life, Smith maintained that speculation about the afterlife must be approached with humility and wonder. Even as he painted hopeful scenarios, he acknowledged that human language and imagination can barely fathom what lies beyond. In an interview, he underscored that the mystery of existence bookends our lives: we come out of an unfathomable mystery at birth and return to an unfathomable mystery at deathphilarchive.org. To him, this was not a cause for despair but for trust. In his 90s, Smith expressed a deep sense of gratitude as he neared the end of his earthly journey. He often quoted lines of farewell from spiritual figures – for instance, the “Thanks, thanks… praise for it all” of St. John Chrysostom, indicating that he intended to meet death in a spirit of thankfulnessphilarchive.orgphilarchive.org. His final memoir, And Live Rejoicing, reinforces this attitude: the very title suggests a life lived in joy and an expectation of continued joy. Indeed, friends who visited him in his last years reported that Smith greeted the prospect of death with equanimity and even eagerness for the “next adventure.” In one anecdote, he smilingly declared “The adventure continues! Alhamdulillah” (Arabic for “Praise be to God”), implying that death was not an end but a transition in the divine journeyphilarchive.orgphilarchive.org. Such anecdotes align with the way Smith described death in his writings: not as annihilation, but as a doorway to the Eternalphilarchive.org. Whether conceived in Christian, Hindu, or philosophical terms, the afterlife, for Huston Smith, meant the soul’s homecoming to a reality “more interesting” and expansive than anything on earth – a consummation of the truth and love he had sought all his life.

Legacy and Influence in Interfaith Dialogue and Comparative Theology

Huston Smith’s impact on both the academic study of religion and the broader interfaith movement is difficult to overstate. Over a career spanning nearly 60 years, he became a public ambassador of the world’s religions, introducing millions of readers and viewers to unfamiliar faiths in a spirit of respect. His classic The World’s Religions did more than just inform; it modeled a way of engaging religious diversity that was empathetic and open-hearted. Many people, after reading Smith’s work or watching his interviews, found their attitudes toward other faiths transformed from suspicion to curiosity. As Smith liked to say, “for [freedom of religion] to exist, people need to know about other religions”news.syr.edunews.syr.edu. By making knowledge of other traditions accessible, he helped reduce prejudice and increase dialogue. It is no surprise that the Parliament of the World’s Religions (a major interfaith organization) honored him as a key inspiration; Smith was often present at interfaith conferences and was close friends with leaders from many religions – from the Dalai Lama to Catholic monks, from Jewish rabbis to Sufi sheikhsparliamentofreligions.orgparliamentofreligions.org. Through both scholarship and personal encounter, he exemplified the idea that one could be deeply rooted in one’s own faith and yet enriched by the truth in others. “My encounters with serious followers of other faith traditions have made me a better Christian,” he once remarked, encapsulating his belief that dialogue across traditions can deepen one’s own faithparliamentofreligions.org.

In the field of religious studies, Smith stood as a gentle counterpoint to the trend of strict objectivity and secular analysis. Whereas many scholars insisted on bracketing out any normative judgments or spiritual involvement, Smith unabashedly wore his love for the subject on his sleeve. He believed that studying religion required not only intellect but also empathy and even participation. This approach – sometimes called “scholar-practitioner” – influenced subsequent generations of religion scholars who saw value in understanding religions “from within.” At the same time, Smith’s work sparked healthy debates. Critics from a more skeptical or particularist bent challenged his Perennialist assumptions, arguing that religions might be fundamentally different in their answers to life’s questions. In response to writers who asserted, for example, that the world’s religions have radically divergent goals (as Stephen Prothero did in his book God Is Not One), admirers of Smith would point to the profound common ethical teachings or mystical experiences that Smith illuminated. Indeed, even those who did not share Smith’s philosophical conclusions often praised his ability to draw out the “virtue and wisdom” in each tradition’s teachingslatimes.comlatimes.com. Scholar of religion James Wiggins noted that Smith’s style was “remarkably different” in that “Doctrine and dogma were not high on his list. Practice was what was to be studied and learned.”news.syr.edunews.syr.edu By focusing on how religion is lived – in prayer, meditation, compassion, and moral striving – Smith made the study of religion deeply human and relevant.

Huston Smith also left a mark through advocacy and example. In the early 1990s, when the Native American Church’s use of peyote was ruled illegal, Smith spoke out in defense of this indigenous religious practice. His expertise and moral authority contributed to the passage of legislation in 1994 protecting Native Americans’ right to use peyote in ceremoniesnews.syr.edunews.syr.edu. This episode is a telling example of Smith’s conviction that all religious communities deserve respect and legal protection, not just the dominant ones. Furthermore, Smith’s life itself became a case study in interfaith harmony: here was a man who could start the day with Methodist prayer, do yoga at noon, meditate in the afternoon, and join a Sufi dhikr in the evening – and do all of it authentically. Friends joked that he was a “spiritual surfer” for moving among so many traditionslatimes.comlatimes.com. Smith humorously accepted the label but with an important caveat: he always stressed having a surfboard (a solid tradition) under his feet. This balance of exploration and commitment won him students and admirers worldwide. By the end of his life, he had become a revered elder statesman in the interfaith world. In 2012, a documentary titled The Arc of Life featured Smith reflecting on “life, death & beyond,” and an anthology Huston Smith: Remembered by His Friends was published, filled with tributes from across religious linesen.wikipedia.orgphilarchive.org. Upon his passing in December 2016, religious leaders of many faiths offered praise. A Hindu tribute wished him a “Happy eternity”, and others celebrated the reunion of his soul with the divinenews.syr.edunews.syr.edu.

In sum, Huston Smith occupies a unique place in modern religious thought. He was, as one title bestowed on him, a “pilgrim of the Perennial Philosophy,” a man who journeyed through the terrain of many faiths and returned with treasures to sharephilarchive.orgphilarchive.org. His life story—from a religiously saturated childhood in China, to conversations with giants like Huxley and Campbell, to praying with monks and swamis around the globe—reads almost like a spiritual adventure novel. Yet he communicated that adventure in a down-to-earth, scholarly manner that invited everyone to learn. He championed the idea that religions, at their best, are not competing truth claims to be feared, but complementary “stories” and practices through which humanity seeks relationship with the Ultimate. As our world continues to wrestle with religious conflict on one hand and secular skepticism on the other, Huston Smith’s legacy offers a hopeful model: a combination of intellectual integrity, spiritual openness, and an emphasis on our shared human quest. As Smith himself said in his 90s, reflecting on the span of his experience, “The adventure continues!” – an affirmation that the pursuit of truth, love, and unity among religions is an ongoing journeyphilarchive.org. His work and life continue to inspire new travelers on that journey of interfaith understanding.

Sources: Huston Smith’s The World’s Religions and other writings; Los Angeles Times obituary latimes.com; Syracuse University tribute news.syr.edunews.syr.edu; Why Religion Matters (2001)archive.orgphilarchive.org; Tales of Wonder (2009) goodreads.com; And Live Rejoicing (2012); Parliament of World’s Religions tribute parliamentofreligions.org; and interviews with Huston Smith latimes.com philarchive.org.