Editor\u27s Introduction

The main theme of this year’s issue, “Yoga and God: Hindu and Christian Perspectives,” continues a theme taken up five years ago by this journal, called “Yoga and Christianity.” The articles appearing in the present issue tend to give more explicit attention to the challenge of reconciling Christian theology and spirituality with various yoga systems than did the essays from 2012. Unlike the purely negative approach taken in recent years by many Christian groups to the question of integrating yoga practice and philosophy with Christian spirituality and teaching, the first three authors here affirm the value of yoga practice for Christians while at the same time occasionally pointing out difficulties in reconciling yogic teachings with Christian theology

Book Review: Hindu God, Christian God. How Reason Helps Break Down the Boundaries between Religions

A review of Book Review: Hindu God, Christian God. How Reason Helps Break Down the Boundaries between Religions by Francis X. Clooney

Editor\u27s Introduction

The editor\u27s introduction to this issue

Editor\u27s Introduction

The editor\u27s introduction to this issue

Some Thoughts on God and Spiritual Practice in Yoga and Christianity

I do not approach this topic as an expert historian of the diverse schools of yoga or as a systematician of their teachings or as an exegete of their classical texts.1 Rather I address the theme of yoga and Christianity as a Christian theologian who has been a practitioner of Iyengar yoga, a prominent method of modern postural yoga, for more than thirty years and who has done some scholarly reading on contemporary and classical yoga and on Patanjali’s Yoga-Sutra (hereafter YS) in particular.2 Despite all the controversy that has arisen in recent years about whether or not Christians should be practicing yoga, my own spiritual life has been greatly enriched by the yoga practice and the teachings of B. K. S. Iyengar (1918-2014)3 as well as by some of the writings of contemporary scholars on the YS and the YS’s subsequent history of commentary.4 In what follows I offer some thoughts on the possible value of yoga for Christians, about which much has already been written,5 but I will also reflect on a few challenges that emerge when one attempts to unite yoga theory and practice with Christian teaching and spirituality. My main focus will be on the conception of the Lord (Ishvara) in the YS, on the notion of God in the teachings of Mr. Iyengar, and on the understanding of God in Christianity, so as to show where these views on the divine align and where they diverge

Editor\u27s Introduction

THE main theme of this year’s issue, “Aesthetic Theory and Practice in Hindu and Christian Experience,” takes a theological approach to the Hindu-Christian encounter that proceeds in a different direction than the more traditional attention to comparing doctrines. Reflection on aesthetic theory as presented in these essays proves useful in making sensory experience a starting point for Hindu-Christian comparison of religious experience

Book Review: Christ Across the Ganges: Hindu Responses to Jesus

A review of Christ Across the Ganges: Hindu Responses to Jesus by Sandy Bharat

Book Review: Brahman and Person: Essays by Richard De Smet

Bradley Malkovsky\u27s review of Brahman and Person: Essays by Richard De Smet, edited by Ivo Coelho

Editor\u27s Introduction

One of the oldest and most persistent challenges to faith in an all-good and all-powerful Creator is the reality of evil and suffering. This issue of the Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies addresses the perennial issue of theodicy in a wide-ranging way, examining both well-known and lesser-known Hindu and Christian approaches, even going so far as to question the very legitimacy of theodicy itself