Circling the Elephant A Comparative Theology of Religious Diversity
Produktdetaljer
Om bidragsyterne
John J. Thatamanil is Associate Professor of Theology and World Religions at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. He is the author of The Immanent Divine: God, Creation, and the Human Predicament; An East–West Conversation (Fortress, 2006). He teaches a wide variety of courses in the areas of comparative theology, theologies of religious diversity, Hindu-Christian dialogue, the theology of Paul Tillich, theory of religion, and process theology. He is committed to the work of comparative theology—theology that learns from and with a variety of traditions. A central question that drives his work is "How can Christian communities come to see religious diversity as a promise rather than as a problem?"Christian theologians have for some decades affirmed that they have no monopoly on encounters with God or ultimate reality and that other religions also have access to religious truth and transformation. If that is the case, the time has come for Christians not only to learn about but also from their religious neighbors. Circling the Elephant affirms that the best way to be truly open to the mystery of the infinite is to move away from defensive postures of religious isolationism and self-sufficiency and to move, in vulnerability and openness, toward the mystery of the neighbor.
Employing the ancient Indian allegory of the elephant and blind(folded) men, John J. Thatamanil argues for the integration of three often-separated theological projects: theologies of religious diversity (the work of accounting for why there are so many different understandings of the elephant), comparative theology (the venture of walking over to a different side of the elephant), and constructive theology (the endeavor of re-describing the elephant in light of the other two tasks).
Circling the Elephant also offers an analysis of why we have fallen short in the past. Interreligious learning has been obstructed by problematic ideas about "religion" and "religions," Thatamanil argues, while also pointing out the troubling resonances between reified notions of "religion" and "race." He contests these notions and offers a new theory of the religious that makes interreligious learning both possible and desirable.
Christians have much to learn from their religious neighbors, even about such central features of Christian theology as Christ and the Trinity. This book envisions religious diversity as a promise, not a problem, and proposes a new theology of religious diversity that opens the door to robust interreligious learning and Christian transformation through encountering the other.
Preface: Autobiography and Comparative Theology xi
Note on Transliteration xix
Introduction: Revisiting an Old Tale 1
1 Religious Difference and Christian Theology: Thinking About,
Thinking With, and Thinking Through 21
2 The Limits and Promise of Exclusivism and Inclusivism:
Assessing Major Options in Theologies of Religious Diversity 41
3 No One Ascends Alone: Toward a Relational Pluralism 70
4 Comparative Theology after Religion? 108
5 Defining the Religious: Comprehensive Qualitative Orientation 152
6 The Hospitality of Receiving: Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther
King, Jr., and Interreligious Learning 193
7 God as Ground, Singularity, and Relation: Trinity and Religious Diversity 213
8 This Is Not a Conclusion 249
Acknowledgments 259
Notes 263
Index 289