International Interfaith Centre Annual Lecture 1995: The Eco-Human Crisis: Interfaith Dialogue and Global Responsibility

The Eco-Human Crisis: Interfaith Dialogue and Global ResponsibilityThe thesis I put before you today is that this eco-human crisis - and the suffering that propels the crisis - must be not only a central concern for each religious tradition and community individually: it must also be a central concern in the religions efforts to understand each other. The crisis is such that its resolution demands the contribution and co-operation of all religious communities. All the individual religions bear a shared global responsibility. Global responsibility - i.e. a responsibility to do something about the eco-human suffering that is causing global crises can and must become the common ground, the common starting point and context, the global commons for interreligious discourse. With global responsibility as the arena for inter-faith discourse, I suspect that the religions will not only be able to contribute to resolving our global crises, but they will also be able to understand, learn from, and enhance each other as never before. Global responsibility can provide a new hermeneutical context in which religions can better grasp their differences and make something positive out of those differences. An alternate title for this paper might be: 'Global Responsibility and the Hermeneutical Circle for Interfaith Dialogue

Horizons on Christianity's New Dialogue with Buddhism

A survey of recent Christian literature on the dialogue with Buddhism reveals a conversation which is new in both spirit and content. This article summarizes these new directions in five areas: 1) the methodology of dialogue; 2) the nature of the ultimate and of religious language; 3) religious experience as an experience of selflessness 4) the value and need of acting in the world, and 5) the unique, salvific mediation of Jesus and Gautama. In each of these areas, suggestions are offered as to how the new insights from the dialogue with Buddhism might aid in clarifying questions and incoherencies in present-day Christian doctrine and practice

Commitment to One -- Openness to Others: A Challenge for Christians

As we so often hear, Christians of every new generation, or in any new cultural context, have to answer for themselves the question Jesus posed for the first generation of disciples: "Who do you say I am?" (Mk 8:27) This is a question that can be answered only in the light of other questions—that is, the personal, social, political, scientific questions we find ourselves grappling with in our own age and experience. The meaning of Jesus "becomes flesh" again in the meaning and direction we struggle for in our own times

Key Questions for a Theology of Religions

Given the spate of studies seeking to elaborate a theology of religions that have appeared over the last five years, it is evident that the question of the "many religions," like that of the "many poor," is one of the issues that most disturb, and therefore can most invigorate, Christian consciousness. In what follows, I would like to review and analyze what I think are some of the pivotal issues in Christian efforts to come to a clearer, more adequate and coherent, understanding of other religions and of Christianity in the light of other faiths

A Monk Sacred and Profane

Review of "The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton," by Michael Mott

Confirmation Through Conflict? Some Questions for the Dialogue of Touchstones

My first reading of Maurice Friedman's essay produced much the same effects that are had—today, alas, so seldom—from a good sermon. I was downright inspired and enlivened with new insights and new hopes concerning the contemporary encounter of religions. With his image of touchstones, Friedman avoids academic annotated analysis and provides creative, practical theology. Though he does not indicate it through notes or references, he is very well acquainted with the literature and central issues in the contemporary discussion on "the many religions"—how to understand them and how to lead them to a more authentic and effective dialogue

A Dialogical Church: Newly Born and Still Growing

As I look back over the past quarter century, since the birthing of Horizons, I witness, from my personal theological perch, the concomitant birthing of what we might call a "dialogical church." Since the theological watershed of Vatican IPs Nostra Aetate, there has begun in the church, especially the Roman Catholic Church, a sea-change in its relationships with other religions. In this "Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions," a Christian church did something that no Christian church had ever done before in its two-millennia journey through history: it affirmed the divinely given truth and value of other religions and then called upon its sons and daughters, "prudently and lovingly" to engage in "dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions." This shift (some might call it an about-face) in Christian attitudes gave birth to a new kind of church—a church that gradually has come to understand itself as a religious community in conversation with other religious communities

World Religions and the Finality of Christ: A Critique of Hans Küng's On Being a Christian

Küng's case for the relevance of Christianity and his program for dialogue with other religions include claims for the exclusive uniqueness and normativity of Christ. This article raises the following questions: 1) Are such claims necessary for personal commitment to Christ and for fidelity to the New Testament witness? 2) Do they allow for genuine dialogue with other religions? 3) Are they even possible in the light of prevalent norms for theological and historical-critical methodology

CHRISTIAN ATTITUDES TOWARD OTHER RELIGIONS: THE CHALLENGE OF COMMITMENT AND OPENNESS

Synopsis: This essay outlines both the necessity and the difficulty that Christians face in working out a theology of religions that will sustain an authentic dialogue with other religions. The necessity for such a dialogical theology is grounded on the need for all religions to move from “an age of monologue” to “an age of dialogue.” The complexity has to do with the requirement of all dialogue: to be both truly committed to one’s own religion and at the same time truly open to other religions

Spirituality and Liberation: A Buddhist-Christian Conversation

Paul Knitter and Masao Abe discuss Buddhism and Christianity