Distinguished Professor Emeritus and currently Director of the Centre for Dialogue & Spirituality in the World Religions at Renison University College/University of Waterloo, he was educated at Concordia College (BA Philosophy & Political Science), Harvard Divinity School (STB, Theology), and the Institute of Christian Thought, St. Michael’s University College (PhD, Special Religious Studies). He taught at Waterloo Lutheran University (now Wilfrid Laurier) 1967-69 and Renison College, University of Waterloo (1973-2007). He is the author/editor of more than 25 volumes in the study of religion, most recently, the 3rd edition of Religion in a New Key and three volumes of Ways of the Spirit: Celebrating Dialogue, Diversity & Spirituality, Ways of the Spirit: Voices of Women, and Ways of the Spirit: Persons, Communities & Spiritualities.
Ever since his childhood on the plains of Dakota near a Native American reservation, Darrol had been keen to know more about his own Christian faith and the faiths of others. That passion has continued and deepened through his studies and through many opportunities to meet people of different faiths in their own settings -- e.g., in ashrams, temples, masjids and gurdwaras in India, in Buddhist monasteries in Korea, Sri Lanka and Japan, and in masjids in Egypt and Turkey. His hope is that SHEN can become a resource and a place of dialogue about the wisdom essential to a life of spiritual depth.