Professor John Hinnells
Scholar whose research transformed the study and understanding of the world’s main religions
PROFESSOR JOHN HINNELLS, who has died aged 76, was a scholar who campaigned to broaden religious education in schools and universities to encompass all the world’s main religions.
During the 1970s, when most religious education in Britain focused on Christianity, by exploring how different faiths interacted and shaped different societies, Hinnells helped to transform the study of world religions and their social impact. As chairman of Comparative Religion at the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas), University of London, and founding head of its new department for the study of religions, he published research methodology that influenced geography and migration studies as well as religion.
Hinnells endured lifelong disabilities and pain stemming from contracting tuberculosis of the bone as a child, but he refused to let his physical problems hold him back. He once climbed Thorpe Cloud in Dovedale, Derbyshire, toes to chest in plaster, and on crutches, “because it was there”. At the top he realised that going down on crutches would be harder than going up. So he slid down, and burnt a hole in his plaster.
John Russell Hinnells was born in Derby on August 27 1941, the son of a miner who had been sacked for taking part in the General Strike, and had lived wild in woods for a year, surviving by trapping animals to eat.
An only child, John spent nearly seven years in hospital with TB. As well as separation from his family, and a series of painful operations, he also experienced some of the unthinking attitudes to disability then prevalent. Despite his disrupted education, he got the equivalent of three GCSES, but his grammar school was interested in high-fliers and encouraged him to leave. Years later, his old headmaster encountered his mother, and said disbelievingly that he had heard a rumour that John was now a lecturer at Manchester University. Was that true? “No,” she replied. “I thought not,” said the headmaster. “No,” said Hinnells’s mother, “he’s a professor.”
Hinnells attended art college in Derby, going on to teach art. He then joined the Anglican Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield Monastery near Leeds, where he began training as a monk. But one day, he met there the young Marianne Grace Bushell, who had come to visit her cousin. Realising he could no longer commit himself to holy vows, he had to leave. Later they married.
In 1961 King’s College London accepted him for a course in Theology and Religious Studies. His specialist area was Zoroastrianism, and his first-hand knowledge of Zoroastrian communities around the world was unrivalled. After lecturing at Newcastle University (1967-1970), Hinnells moved to the University of Manchester, remaining for 23 years and becoming professor in 1985.
There and later at Soas, Hinnells played a leading role in promoting curriculum development through convening conferences and taking active roles in such bodies as the Society for Mithraic Studies, the British Institute of Persian Studies and Theology and Religious Studies UK, of which he was president.
As a young man, Hinnells was told he would be unable to walk again. Yet he trained as a coach with Derby County FC, and coached football teams at King’s College. A hip replacement in 1975 transformed his life and he even took up white-water canoeing.
In 2007 the Zoroastrian Trust Funds of Europe gave him the title of Honoured Friend and he held many other posts and honours. He was also a Senior Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies.
As a consulting editor for Penguin Books, he popularised the study of religion through such publications as the Penguin Dictionary of Religion, Handbook of Ancient Religions and a Who’s Who of Religions. He wrote and edited books on such themes as religion, health and suffering; religion and art; and religion and migration. While he himself was agnostic, Hinnells remained sympathetic to people of faith.
John Hinnells’s wife, Marianne, died in 1996. Their two sons survive him.