Introduction

Today, the issues of identity, religion, spirituality, and secularity are of interest to wider academic circles than ever before. This makes it all the more timely to engage with Hans Mol, a scholar whose creative work offers its own dynamic perspective on human life, values, and commitments. The scope of these reactions to Mol is extensive and will have the benefit of taking some readers into unfamiliar aspects of social theory, philosophical frames, and geographical contexts. The author's theoretical interests included the way the disciplines of the history of religions and comparative religion often seemed to treat the 'great' world religions as qualitatively different from the 'traditional', 'tribal', or primitive 'religions' that were the customary purview of anthropology. One of the voices then heard amidst numerous academic streams dealing with religion, and which struck with an obvious intellectual intensity, was Hans Mol.