How do we deal with difference personally, interpersonally, nationally? Can we weave a cohesive social fabric in a religiously plural society without suppressing differences? This collection of significant essays suggests that to truly honour differences in matters of faith and religion we must publicly exercise and celebrate them. The secular/sacred, public/private divisions long considered sacred in the West need to be dismantled if Canada (or any nation state) is to develop a genuine mosaic that embraces fundamental differences instead of a (...) melting pot that marginalizes. An ethics of difference starts with a recognition of difference, not as deviance or deficit that threatens but as otherness to connect with, cherish, and celebrate. The book begins with the suggestion that our inability to come to terms with social plurality is not fundamentally the fault of religious differences, and that a public/private split inadequately deals with matters of basic difference. It then explores how encouraging people to live out their respective faiths may open new possibilities for respectful, honourable, and just negotiations of contemporary dilemmas arising out of the multicultural fabric of Canadian life. Towards an Ethics of Community introduces readers to some of the most challenging and divisive dilemmas we face in this increasingly pluralistic, postmodern world — issues such as family and domestic violence, Aboriginal rights, homosexuality and public policy, and female genital mutilation. This is a book truly global in scope and significance. (shrink)

Not only are there many particular relationships among religions to be explored, but there are many types of relationships or categories of relationships to be considered. As examples of these types we might mention historical, metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, sociological, or theological relationships without in any way being exhaustive. The prominence of some of these concerns has limited the attention given to other actual or possible relationships. For example, there has been an understandable, even justifiable, prominence given to historical (...) relationships for the sake of accurate fact, to theological relationships for the purpose of clarifying how to think of other religions from a received confessional norm, and to ethical relationships for the sake of judging practical accomplishments and superiorities. (shrink)

The literature analysing Muslim perspective towards other religions is now quite extensive. However, when it comes to Muslim’s perspective towards Buddhism, the scholarship lags far behind. This article aimed to identify the Muslim views on Buddhism from a theological and philosophical framework. The Muslim views have a different category, on categorising Buddhism, the status of Buddha as a Prophet, and Buddhist as the People of the Book. Each view provides a different framework of Muslim perspective towards Buddhism. From (...) the theological view, one of the outlook is tolerance. Due to the rejection of Buddhist doctrine by most Muslim theologians, Muslims apply tolerance, which is subject to religious freedom stand on, ‘firm in principle, tolerant in attitude’. Tolerance encourages Muslims to adhere to the principles of truth, but does not erode the respect for other religion. While from a philosophical view, it considered Buddhism as a religion from God, as well as other religions. Thus, some Muslim inclusivists and pluralists recognise Buddhism. This research is qualitative. The method used in this research is descriptive-analytic, emphasising content analysis of the data from various books and articles covering Muslim view on Buddhism and the patterns of relations between Islam and Buddhism. Studies suggest the understanding of each framework to encourage Muslims to improve comprehensive interreligious dialogue with Buddhists.Contribution: Religious tolerance, inclusivism, and pluralism is a panacea to inordinate and incessant religious conflict, if given its proper place in Malaysia, it will breed harmony and peace in the society. This work would be of immense benefit to interfaith scholars and religious leaders across all strata of discipline. (shrink)

L'A. se base sur deux oeuvres artistiques sur la Trinité qui se correspondent et qui soulèvent des questions sérieuses au sujet de la négociation chrétienne avec les autres religions. Ces deux oeuvres traitent de la Trinité en relation avec les autres traditions religieuses. Il s'agit de l'icône intitulée la Trinité de l'orthodoxe russe André Roublev qui date du 15siècle et de l'oeuvre contemporaine de l'artiste indien catholique romain Jyoti Sahi intitulée Abraham et Sarah recevant les trois anges. Par cette (...) étude comparative, l'A. souligne la richesse du Dieu trinitaire dans l'ouverture à la multiplicité des représentations du mystère infini. Ces représentations, visibles dans les créations, sont parfois le fruit de l'imagination des artistes et des théologiens, imagination qui est nécessaire. (shrink)

This definitive book considers the way in which Christianity relates to the other world faiths. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Name der Zeitschrift: Millennium Jahrgang: 10 Heft: 1 Seiten: 275-280.

Can a material object refer to the divine without attracting to itself devotion and veneration? And, in particular, can a depiction call to mind a reality that subtracts itself from its materiality? There are thus two problems here: whether the divine (God and what pertains to Him) can be rightly said to be represented by an object and whether, in any case, such an object runs the risk of becoming an idol, a little God, an imitation of God. The paper (...) concentrates on the history of the status of images, depending on religions, and the recurrent idea of taking necessarily away the “others”. People belonging to “other” religions are regarded as guilty, idolater, heretic, far away from the true God and the best practises to adore Him. A central year is the 787 CE, for the Nicea II Council, but also for the reactions about it. With all the Platonic-Augustinian suspicion of fictions, the so-called Libri Carolini apportions to images the sole role of bringing to mind the materiality of what is represented thus denying the power of referring to the supersensible: paradoxically, the more an image is “true” and the greater the similarity between the image and its object, the greater is its freight of falsity, insofar as it increases the deception worked on the spectator. The ideas of the Carolingian court cannot be divorced from an artistic production that tended ever more to disconnect a precise meaning from the images made in stone or with the brush, and in due course increasingly regarded sacred history as a pretext for proposing imagines formosae. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Gandhi's Hope: Learning from Other Religions as a Path to PeaceChristopher Key ChappleGandhi's Hope: Learning from Other Religions as a Path to Peace. By Jay McDaniel. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2005. 134 + viii pp.This book by prominent Protestant theologian Jay McDaniel suggests that Mahatma Gandhi challenged the modern world by publicly revealing that which he learned from other faith traditions and advocating (...) this path as a way for intercultural understanding. The wisdom of Gandhi holds special poignancy today, when the processes of globalization and migration have placed followers of different faiths in closer proximity than can be remembered in the past five hundred years.Jay McDaniel writes with crisp clarity and organizes his insights into bite-sized pieces. He lays out five challenges that face all the world's faiths: compassion, self-criticism, simple living, ecological awareness, and welcoming religious diversity. In approaching this decidedly postmodern list of issues, McDaniel draws from two primary resources: the experiences shared by his students at Hendrix College and the writings of Alfred North Whitehead. Along the way, he invokes the Buddhist teacher and leader Thich Nhat Hanh and several progressive Catholics, including Sister Joan Chittester and theologians Hans Küng and Paul Knitter.Continuing with a style developed in his earlier books, McDaniel latches onto a [End Page 237] metaphor and extends it to illustrate his central point—in this case, the value of diversity. In past books, he has used the image of the hunter and the hunted to underscore the need to respect animals. In Gandhi's Hope, the metaphor he employs is that of a jazz concert, with all different manner of instruments pooling their resources to create a tapestry of diverse yet harmonious music.Although the title of the book may seem to indicate that Gandhi will serve as thefocus, in fact, Whitehead anchors McDaniel's approach. Through an updated approach to Whitehead, McDaniel seeks to answer the questions regarding diversity and compassion that he has posed. He suggests that an experience of concrescence will result in the sort of heightened awareness needed to increase one's conscience and to make the ethical changes needed to respond to the current state of the world. McDaniel identifies twelve "planks" that will usher Whitehead's vision into the contemporary world. These twelve aspects seem also to be heavily influenced by McDaniel's own encounter with Buddhism: interdependence, impermanence, indeterminism, mind/matter, deep listening, value, God, creativity, persuasive power, divine empathy, many forms of salvation, and life after death. These broad categories embrace key notions found in all religious traditions. Some traditions emphasize certain aspects more than others. Buddhists cleave to impermanence and Jews to establishing a covenant with God, but Jews also recognize that all things will pass, and Buddhists revere their great teacher and many strive to emulate his experience through techniques akin to those who worship God.In order for religious traditions to maintain their urgency and relevance, McDaniel suggests that they must respond actively to the looming threat of environmental degradation. Consumer culture drives people into a state of indifference about natural resources, and arrogance prevents people from taking an interest in the life patterns and cultures of others. These tendencies lie at the root of the world's troubles. McDaniel suggests that process theology can remedy these ills by calling people into a state of compassion and can help guide people toward adopting thoughtful self-criticism, to living a more simple life, to recognizing the importance of other living beings and ecosystems, and to celebrating diversity of cultures. Echoing a refrain long associated with process thought, McDaniel writes "the universe is a creative and creating process of interdependent events, lured by but not controlled by God, such that the future is not yet decided, not even by God" (p. 71). To the extent that religions sustain themselves by reinforcing separateness and promoting a narrow cultural identity and/or an unthinking fundamentalism, they can be an impediment to peace, which, for McDaniel, is an important goal of the world's religions.When attempting to theologize about ultimate matters, McDaniel posits "four faces of the sacred," which he lists as the Abyss... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002) 123-126 [Access article in PDF] Beyond the Usual Alternatives? Buddhist and Christian Approaches to Other Religions Virginia Straus Boston Research Center for the 21st Century In regard to the three commonly accepted attitudes toward other religions—exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist—Terry C. Muck presents an extremely persuasive critique of the existing paradigm. He objects to the ideological stereotyping "The Paradigm" promotes. He proposes (...) that we make a shift in the use of The Paradigm: Instead of labeling people and their points of view, it would identify modes of thinking about certain beliefs and practices, without negative connotations. He calls this a shift to an instrumental or functional use of The Paradigm. His cost/benefit analysis of this shift attributes to the benefit side of the ledger the following advantages: less name-calling, more engagement with the substantive ideas being presented, new openings for dialogue among Christians formerly separated from each other by negative use of The Paradigm, and possible resonance with the logic of non-Western traditions.As I read these ideas I recalled a recent paper written by Miriam Levering, who, with no knowledge of Muck's novel and irreverent approach to The Paradigm, wrote about Buddhist thinking, answering Muck's question about whether his idea resonates with non-Western traditions. Levering presents a fascinating description and analysis of the position taken by certain Chinese Buddhist teachers and two contemporary Buddhist leaders, Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama. She says Buddhists, when making judgments about religions, tend to divide them into three parts: teachings, practices, and realization. In regard to teachings, she says Buddhists use discernment to evaluate other teachings. As Levering describes the use of discernment, she cites three modes of thinking that resonate rather well with Muck's instrumental approach. She says Buddhists distinguish among three kinds of teachings:Teachings that are wrong, unskillful, and do not lead to liberation (that is, they take an exclusivist position on a particular doctrine);Teachings that, while partial or shallow, can lead people to make progress on the path to liberation (an inclusivist position); andFully liberative teachings (a pluralist position). [End Page 123]In regard to practices, Levering indicates that the Buddhists she has studied do not apply discernment to practices. They all appear to take a pluralist position at all times on all practices, whether old, new, or yet to be invented. Although she does not say so, I am sure she would agree that this is not true of all Buddhist traditions. Pure Land, Nichiren Buddhists, and others have specific practices to which they are exclusively committed. In Levering's discussion of the third dimension of religions—the one she terms "realization"—she finds the Buddhist view to be primarily inclusivist rather than pluralist.With this in mind, I would like to raise two questions that may provide a helpful starting point for discussion. First, how does the recent scholarship aimed at developing a fourth alternative relate to this paper?Muck, with his justifiably jaundiced view of the use to which The Paradigm has been put, shares the dissatisfaction with the existing paradigm that has motivated this recent scholarly work. Yet he claims to be "skeptical that simply expanding The Paradigm by adding new forms would really get us anywhere." I wonder if he is not too quick to write off this promising work. In fact, I think this scholarship would help those searching for a fourth way (Levering included) and further refine the reflections they make on the pluralist position and also would suggest a fourth alternative mode of thinking to be used in the instrumental way Muck suggests.Specifically, I am thinking of James Fredericks's work on what he calls comparative theology, which he considers a process or practice rather than a theory. In essence, he, like Muck, is shifting to an instrumental use. By emphasizing the comparative approach, Fredericks hopes to understand a religion 1 on its own terms without glossing over differences as in the pluralist approach. Another thinker on this subject, James Wiggins, would substitute the term... (shrink)

Buddhism and its relation to other religions: Essays in honour of Dr Shozen Kumoi on his seventieth birthday. Heirakuji Shoten, Kyoto 1985. viii + 299, 431 pp. N.P.

Sri Aurobindo Ghose , the Indian Nationalist and yogi, developed in the period of his life at Pondicherry in Southeast India a system of thought, practice and experience which he called ‘Integral Yoga’. The title indicated, he said, that ‘it takes up the essence and many processes of the old Yogas — its newness is in its aim, standpoint and the totality of its method’. In the development of Integral Yoga Aurobindo believed he was speaking and acting as a ‘realized (...) yogi’ or, better still, a yogi who was in the process of realization. He had not attained a final experience of jñāna , but he believed he had experienced levels of supra-mental consciousness which would lead to the higher level of Supermind itself. (shrink)

Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason is a key element of the system of philosophy which Kant introduced with his Critique of Pure Reason, and a work of major importance in the history of Western religious thought. It represents a great philosopher's attempt to spell out the form and content of a type of religion that would be grounded in moral reason and would meet the needs of ethical life. It includes sharply critical and boldly constructive discussions on topics (...) not often treated by philosophers, including such traditional theological concepts as original sin and the salvation or 'justification' of a sinner, and the idea of the proper role of a church. This new edition includes slightly revised translations, a revised introduction with expanded discussion of certain key themes in the work, and up-to-date guidance on further reading. (shrink)

At a moment of cultural and political crisis, with forces of reaction seemingly ascendant throughout the West, it's fair to ask what use does anyone have for America, God, or any other similar fictions? What use does theological language have for the radical facing the apocalypse? Among the subjects considered: the need for an Augustinian left, legacies of American violence, speaking in tongues, the humanities facing climate change, the maturity of realizing that you will die, how to sail towards (...) Utopia, and witches."--Back cover. (shrink)

The Other Freud undertakes an exciting and original analysis of Freud's major writings on religion and culture. James DiCenso suggests that Freud's texts on religion are unjustifiably ignored or taken for granted, and he shows that Freud's commentary on religion are rich, multifaceted texts, and deserve far more attention. Using concepts derived primarily from Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva, DiCenso draws an unparalleled critical portrait of the "other Freud". This book is rich with new ideas and fresh interpretations.

Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason is a key element of the system of philosophy which Kant introduced with his Critique of Pure Reason, and a work of major importance in the history of Western religious thought. It represents a great philosopher's attempt to spell out the form and content of a type of religion that would be grounded in moral reason and would meet the needs of ethical life. It includes sharply critical and boldly constructive discussions on topics (...) not often treated by philosophers, including such traditional theological concepts as original sin and the salvation or 'justification' of a sinner, and the idea of the proper role of a church. This volume presents it and three short essays that illuminate it in new translations by Allen Wood and George di Giovanni, with an introduction by Robert Merrihew Adams that locates it in its historical and philosophical context. (shrink)

Benjamin Constant's famous lecture comparing ancient and modern liberty can be better understood if it is read alongside a set of unpublished lectures on ancient religion that he delivered one year earlier. Those lectures suggest that Constant's commitment to modern liberty was based in part on his deep anxieties about religious freedom, and that he valued religious freedom because he thought the "religious sentiment" was an important manifestation of a natural human capacity for self-development. In putting religion and self-development at (...) the heart of his vision, he tried to show that modern liberty could have a positive moral or spiritual purpose beyond merely assuring people freedom from interference in the pursuit of their interests. (shrink)

A middle-aged Swiss friend tells me that, for her, God is ‘a contaminated word, … loaded with the spirit of many hundreds of years and miles of library shelves, a word that has nothing to do with the holistic worldview she embraces today.’1 So, she says, she has simply ‘removed the word from her vocabulary’: It’s out, it’s past, it has become a word that is used by other people only. The mindset that is expressed in these words is (...) typical for the situation in contemporary Western Europe. Many feel alienated from the notions and lifestyles and have left the institutions – churches, synagogues, mosques – that traditionally represent what we call ‘religion’. Besides, there are, in this part of the world, so many alternatives that allow one to form a meaning of life and provide security, togetherness and entertainment: family brunches on Sunday morning, TV movies, festivals, excursions, concerts, meditation workshops, neopaganist or atheist meetings, political engagements, lonely walks in the woods…. (shrink)

Leszek Kolakowski discusses, in a highly original way, the arguments for and against the existence of God as they have been conducted through the ages. He examines the critiques of religious belief, from the Epicureans through Nietzsche to contemporary anthropological inquiry, the assumptions that underlie them, and the counter-arguments of such apologists as Descartes, Leibniz, and Pascal. His exploration of the philosophy of religion covers the historical discussions of the nature and existence of evil, the importance of the concepts of (...) failure and eternity to the religious impulse, the relationship between skepticism and mysticism, and the place of reason, understanding, and in models of religious thought. He examines why people, throughout known history, have cherished the idea of eternity and existence after death, and why this hope has been dependent on the worship of an eternal reality. He confronts the problems of meaning in religious language. (shrink)

Yvonne C. Zimmerman offers a groundbreaking exploration of the relationship between freedom and sexual regulation in American approaches to human trafficking.

Religion: a dialogue.--A few words on pantheism.--On books and reading.--On physiognomy.--Psychological observations.--The Christian system.--The failure of philosophy.--The metaphysics of fine art.

Like Lambert, my instincts are informed by Derrida, but I think Derrida points toward an alternative approach. In my reading, although Derrida complicates the concept of religion in terms that intersect with recent scholarship in religious studies. Even though he is not “religious” in any obvious sense, Derrida draws on upon Jewish and Christian texts (among others) in developing his project. In this way, he suggests that the relation between these traditions and modernity is too complex to be captured by (...) the opposition between religion and its other. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Other Dreams of Freedom: Religion, Sex, and Human Trafficking by Yvonne C. ZimmermanAbbylynn HelgevoldReview of Other Dreams of Freedom: Religion, Sex, and Human Trafficking YVONNE C. ZIMMERMAN New York: Oxford, 2013. 223 pp. $35.00In Other Dreams of Freedom, Yvonne Zimmerman develops a genealogical analysis of US antitrafficking policy. She aims to show how antitrafficking initiatives in the United States are influenced by and expressive of (...) distinctively Protestant norms regarding gender, sex, and freedom. Zimmerman argues that US antitrafficking initiatives are limited in their ability to promote [End Page 229] diverse expressions of freedom because they are both implicitly and explicitly framed from within such a religious worldview. As a result of the biases that have shaped US antitrafficking efforts, the complex social phenomenon of human trafficking, which involves a variety of forms of exploitation and abuse, has become essentially identified with the sexual exploitation of vulnerable women and girls. According to Zimmerman, this has led to a disproportionate focus on “freeing” trafficking victims from sexual slavery and exploitation to “choose” to live lives that better reflect “good old American values” (126). Instead of respecting the agency of victims and promoting their freedom to make diverse choices about their own lives, current initiatives encourage conformity to “American” (i.e., middle class, white, and Protestant) values. If dreaming “other dreams of freedom” is ever to become a reality for the wide range of individuals who are or have been trafficked, becoming critically aware of these biases is an important first step.Zimmerman’s primary aim is to reveal these biases, and she examines them from a number of different angles. Thus, she examines the historical development of antitrafficking legislation; the gendered and theological language of US antitrafficking public policy; the implementation of policy under the Bush and Obama administrations; and the historical influence of distinctively Protestant conceptions of human freedom, morality, and sexual expression on what many typically consider to be “traditional American values.” Zimmerman’s analysis urges readers to become critically aware of how the language used in public policy communicates and enforces particular norms. She highlights the gendered language that normativizes female passivity and male aggression, and pays close attention to the deeper theological meaning of terms like “evil” and “God-given potential” used in US public policy that link Christian understandings of freedom to sexual expression. According to Zimmerman, understanding the religious moral imagination evoked by such language helps to explain the otherwise unreasonable “conflation of sex work and human trafficking” in US policy (173).On the whole, the threads of sex, gender, and freedom that Zimmerman picks up are generally well supported throughout Other Dreams. Her research also raises some difficult questions that are beyond the scope of her book but worth considering. For example, even if the language of evil carries with it certain theological assumptions, is it possible that there are good reasons for using such language in addition to the language of justice? Or, even if one challenges the Protestant norms that are being used to shape antitrafficking efforts, are there other reasons for supporting the policy that is in place?Zimmerman’s book is clear, well-written, and accessible. Other Dreams of Freedom will likely appeal to a number of different audiences: diverse scholars interested in the relationship between religion and public policy; political activists, social workers, or policy makers interested in the problem of human [End Page 230] trafficking; and teachers of advanced undergraduate or graduate courses that deal with these issues. Other Dreams of Freedom is edifying, thought-provoking, and timely. As more attention turns toward the global social problem of human trafficking it is important that the policies in place and the activities of those who implement them are not hampered in their usefulness by unexplored biases.Abbylynn HelgevoldUniversity of Northern IowaCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The rejection of confessional commitments in the study of religion in favor of social-scientific or humanistic theories of religion has produced not unbiased accounts, but reductionist explanations of religious belief and practice with embedded secular biases that preclude the understanding of religious believer-practitioners. These biases derive from assumptions of undemonstrable, dogmatic, metaphysical naturalism or its functional equivalent, an epistemological skepticism about all truth claims of revealed religions. Because such assumptions are so widespread among scholars today, they are not often (...) explicitly articulated. They were overtly asserted by Emile Durkheim in his Elementary Forms of Religious Life , however, and are implicit in the claims of two other thinkers influential in the study of early modern Christianity in recent years, namely Clifford Geertz and Michel Foucault. The use of such theories in the history of religion yields secular confessional history, parallel to traditional religious confessional history only with different embedded metaphysical beliefs. If scholars want to understand religious persons such that the latter would recognize themselves in what is said about them, rather than impose their own metaphysical convictions on them, then they should reject metaphysically biased reductionist theories of religion no less than confessional religious assumptions in the practice of their scholarship. Instead, a study of religion guided not by theories but by the question, “What did it mean to them?” and which is particularized in metaphysically neutral ways offers a third alternative that avoids confessional history, whether religious or secular. When carried out consistently for multiple traditions, such an approach can reconstruct disagreements that point beyond description to historical explanation of change over time. (shrink)

David Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, first published in 1779, is one of the most influential works in the philosophy of religion and the most artful instance of philosophical dialogue since the dialogues of Plato. It presents a fictional conversation between a sceptic, an orthodox Christian, and a Newtonian theist concerning evidence for the existence of an intelligent cause of nature based on observable features of the world. This new edition presents it together with several of Hume's other, shorter (...) writings about religion, and with brief selections from the work of Pierre Bayle, who influenced both Hume's views on religion and the dialectical style of the Dialogues. The volume is completed by an introduction which sets the Dialogues in its philosophical and historical contexts. (shrink)

Religion has returned as a political and cultural factor. After the political ideologies, whose secular and worldly promises of salvation had influenced the history of the 20th century in such a radical manner, had been invalidated, the reappearance of religion on a global level cannot be overlooked: as a focal power as to how to conduct one’s life, as a guarantor of cultural identity, and as religious-political creativity. We cannot understand the current state of the world, its crises, conflicts and (...) wars, but also the selfperception and self-awareness of non-European cultures and peoples anymore, if we do not also realise that religion as a “power of life” has returned. In addition to sketching this process, this essay raises the question: what are the cultural and political challenges which especially the secular societies of the West are to face? (shrink)