Sources – Christian Perspectives
Classic texts
Role of women
Important concepts
Interfaith dialogue
Classic texts
The Holy Bible – the Douay Version of The Old Testament, First published in 1609. New York: P.J. Kennedy & Sons, 1950.
The Douay-Rheims Bible is a scrupulously faithful translation into English of the Latin Vulgate Bible whichSt. Jerome(342-420) translated into Latin from the original languages. The Vulgate quickly became the Bible universally used in the Latin Rite (by far the largest rite of the Catholic Church).
Saint Augustine. Confessions, transl. with an introduction by R. S. Pine-Coffin. Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1961.
One of the most influential religious books in the Christian tradition recalls crucial events and episodes in the author’s life; his mid-fourth-century origins in rural Algeria; the rise to a lavish lifestyle at the imperial court in Milan; his struggle with sexual desires; eventual renunciation of secular ambitions and marriage; and recovery of his Catholic faith. A detailed classic that will be important to students of religion, religious scholars, and anyone interested in the impact made by one of the most significant figures in the development of Christian thought.
Calvin, John. Commentary on Genesis. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1948.
In this volume, John Calvin provides an engaging commentary on the first 23 chapters of Genesis. Regarded as one of the Reformation’s best interpreters of scripture, Calvin is an apt commentator. In particular, he frequently offers his own translations of a passage, explaining the subtitles and nuances of his translation. He has a penchant for incorporating keen pastoral insight into the text as well. He always interacts with other theologians, commentators, and portions of the Bible when interpreting a particular passage. Further, this volume also contains extensive, informative notes from the editor. After 400 years, Calvin’s Commentary on Genesis remains instructive, engaging, and lively. It should not be ignored.
Role of women
Brown, Peter. The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press: 2008.
First published in 1988, Peter Brown’s The Body and Society was a groundbreaking study of the marriage and sexual practices of early Christians in the ancient Mediterranean andNear East. Brown focuses on the practice of permanent sexual renunciation-continence, celibacy, and lifelong virginity-in Christian circles from the first to the fifth centuries A.D. and traces early Christians’ preoccupations with sexuality and the body in the work of the period’s great writers. The Body and Society questions how theological views on sexuality and the human body both mirrored and shaped relationships between men and women, Roman aristocracy and slaves, and the married and the celibate. Brown discusses Tertullian, Valentinus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Constantine, the Desert Fathers, Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine, among others, and considers asceticism and society in the Eastern Empire, martyrdom and prophecy, gnostic spiritual guidance, promiscuity among the men and women of the church, monks and marriage in Egypt, the ascetic life of women in fourth-century Jerusalem, and the body and society in the early Middle Ages. In his new introduction, Brown reflects on his work’s reception in the scholarly community.
Danielson, Dennis, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Milton. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
The Cambridge Companion toMiltonprovides an accessible, helpful guide for any student ofMilton, whether undergraduate or graduate, introducing readers to the scope ofMilton’s work, the richness of its historical relations, and the range of current approaches to it. This second edition contains new and revised essays, reflecting increasing emphasis onMilton’s politics, the social conditions and climate in which his works were published and received, the importance of his early poems and Samson Agonistes, and the changes wrought by gender studies on the criticism of previous decades.
Ehrman, Bart D. Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
A staggeringly popular work of fiction, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code has stood atop The New York Times Bestseller List for well over a year, with millions of copies in print. But this fast-paced mystery is unusual in that the author states up front that the historical information in the book is all factually accurate. But is this claim true? As historian Bart D. Ehrman shows in this informative and witty book, The Da Vinci Code is filled with numerous historical mistakes. Did the ancient church engage in a cover-up to make the man Jesus into a divine figure? Did Emperor Constantine select for the New Testament–from some 80 contending Gospels–the only four Gospels that stressed that Jesus was divine? Was Jesus Christ married to Mary Magdalene? Did the Church suppress Gospels that told the secret of their marriage? Bart Ehrman thoroughly debunks all of these claims. But the book is not merely a laundry list of Brown’s misreading of history. Throughout, Ehrman offers a wealth of fascinating background information–all historically accurate–on early Christianity. He describes, for instance, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (which are not Christian in content, contrary to The Da Vinci Code); outlines in simple terms how scholars of early Christianity determine which sources are most reliable; and explores the many other Gospels that have been found in the last half century. Ehrman separates fact from fiction, the historical realities from the flights of literary fancy. Readers of The Da Vinci Code who would like to know the truth about the beginnings of Christianity and the life of Jesus will find this book riveting.
Fish, Stanley E. Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1971.
In 1967 the world ofMiltonstudies was divided into two armed camps: one proclaiming (in the tradition of Blake and Shelley) thatMiltonwas of the devil’s party with or without knowing it, the other proclaiming (in the tradition of Addison and C. S. Lewis) that the poet’s sympathies are obviously with God and the angels loyal to him. The achievement of Stanley Fish’s Surprised by Sin was to reconcile the two camps by subsuming their claims in a single overarching thesis: Paradise Lost is a poem about how its readers came to be the way they are–that is, fallen–and the poem’s lesson is proven on a reader’s impulse every time he or she finds a devilish action attractive or a godly action dismaying. Fish’s argument reshaped the face ofMiltonstudies; thirty years later the issues raised in Surprised by Sin continue to set the agenda and drive debate.
Milton, John. Paradise Lost. New York: Penguin Books, 2000.
In ‘Paradise Lost’Miltonproduced poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time. And yet, in putting a charismatic Satan and naked Adam and Eve at the centre of this story, he also created an intensely human tragedy on the Fall of Man. Written when Milton was in his fifties – blind, bitterly disappointed by the Restoration and briefly in danger of execution – ‘Paradise Lost’’s apparent ambivalence towards authority has led to intense debate about whether it manages to ‘justify the ways of God to men’, or exposes the cruelty of Christianity. John Leonard’s revised edition of ’Paradise Lost’ contains full notes, elucidatingMilton’s biblical, classical and historical allusions and discussing his vivid, highly original use of language and blank verse.
Newsom, Carol A. and Sharon H. Ringe, eds. The Women’s Bible Commentary. London, England and Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox, 1992.
In The Women’s Bible Commentary, an outstanding group of women scholars introduced and summarized each book of the Bible and commented on those sections of each book that have particular relevance to women, focusing on female characters, symbols, life situations such as marriage and family, the legal status of women, and religious principles that affect relationships of women and men.Now, this expanded edition provides similar insights on the Apocrypha, presenting a significant view of the lives and religious experiences of women as well as attitudes toward women in the Second Temple period.
Important Concepts
The Berkley Center Knowledge Resources provide an overview of the world’s religious traditions and their impact on society, politics, and world affairs. This is the Center’s page on Christianity.
Cox, Harvey. The Future of Faith. New York: Harper One, 2009.
There is an essential change taking place in what it means to be “religious” today. Religious people are more interested in ethical guidelines and spiritual disciplines than in doctrines. The result is a universal trend away from hierarchical, regional, patriarchal, and institutional religion. As these changes gain momentum, they evoke an almost point-for-point fundamentalist reaction. Fundamentalism, Cox argues, is on graphic display around the globe because it is dying. Once suffocated by creeds, hierarchies, and the disastrous merger of the church with theRoman Empire, faith—rather than belief—is once again becoming Christianity’s defining quality. This recent move away from dogmatic religion is best explained against the backdrop of three distinct periods of church history: The Age of Faith: the first three centuries of Christianity, when the early church was more concerned with following Jesus’s teachings than enforcing what to believe about Jesus The Age of Belief: marking a significant shift between the fourth and twentieth centuries when the church focused on orthodoxy and “correct doctrine” The Age of the Spirit: a trend that began fifty years ago and is increasingly directing the church of tomorrow whereby Christians are ignoring dogma and breaking down barriers between different religions—spirituality is replacing formal religion The Future of Faith is a major statement and a hopeful look at a movement that is surfacing within Christianity and other religious traditions by one of the most revered theologians today.
Hinze, Bradford E. Practices of Dialogue in the Roman Catholic Church: Aims and Obstacles, Lessons and Laments. Continuum, 2006.
One of the principal buzzwords of the Second Vatican Council (1963-65), along with collegiality, co-responsibility, full participation, and aggiornamento, was dialogue. This is a history of how the practices of dialogue have actually worked or failed to work at every level of the church over the past forty years. Beginning at the most basic level, that of the parish, the book moves up the ecclesiastical ladder from parish councils, to diocesan synods, to the (Roman) synod of bishops. The book moves laterally as well to include ecumenical and interreligious dialogues. A chapter is devoted to the fractious Call to Action Conference, initiated by the U.S. bishops in 1976; another to the new inclusive style of drafting pastoral letters by the U.S. bishops – “The Challenge of Peace” (1983), “Economic Justice for All” (1986), and the never approved pastoral on women (“Partners in the Mystery of Redemption”). A further chapter is devoted to Cardinal Bernardin’s Catholic Common Ground Initiative, which is still going on, though it was initially publicly attacked by fourU.S.cardinals. Finally, there is a chapter on what was perhaps the most radical and far-reaching exercise of dialogue of all, namely, the dialogical and democratic processes by which women religious revised their constitutions. This is a cautionary tale, filled with thick description of advances and retreats. In a curious way, the book is a sequel to the multi-volume “History of the Second Vatican Council”, edited by Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph Komonchak If those volumes tell us what transpired at the council, Hinze’s volume tells us what happened when the council fathers went home and all the good ideas of the council were either put into effect or left to gather dust in the dead-letter bin. Vatican Council II is an ongoing experiment, and “Practices of Dialogue” is a series of reports from the labs.
Lewis, C. S. The Four Loves: The Much Beloved Exploration of the Nature of Love. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1988.
A candid, wise, and warmly personal book in which Lewis explores the possibilities and problems of the four basic kinds of human love- affection, friendship, erotic love, and the love of God.
——. Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1956.
This tale of two princesses – one beautiful and one unattractive – and of the struggle between sacred and profane love is Lewis’s reworking of the myth of Cupid and Psyche and one of his most enduring works.
——. The Great Divorce. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1974.
C. S. Lewis takes us on a profound journey through both heaven and hell in this engaging allegorical tale. Using his extraordinary descriptive powers, Lewis introduces us to supernatural beings who will change the way we think about good and evil. In The Great Divorce C. S. Lewis again employs his formidable talent for fable and allegory. The writer, in a dream, finds himself in a bus which travels between Hell and Heaven. This is the starting point for an extraordinary meditation upon good and evil which takes issue with William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. In Lewis’s own words, ‘If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven then we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.’
Novak, Michael, William Brailsford, and Cornelis Heesters, eds. A Free Society Reader: Principles for The New Millennium. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2000.
A Free Society Reader rises to the challenge of freedom in the twenty-first century, offering thoughts and insights with significant implications for citizens of today’s brand new world. Our era’s most prominent figures in the fields of Christianity and liberty speak about Pope John Paul II’s vision of a free society, conceptualize Christianity and political economy, debate issues of democracy and the free society, and question the role of culture. Together for the first time in one volume, these preeminent thinkers provide inspiration and insight to scholars, students, and general readers charting the enormous changes the new millennium has seen.
Pelikan, Jaroslav. Whose Bible Is It? A History of the Scriptures through the Ages. New York: Penguin Group, 2005.
No book has been more pored over, has been the subject of more commentary and controversy, or had more influence not only on our religious beliefs but also on our culture and language than the Bible. And certainly no book has been as widely read. But how did the Bible become the book we know it to be? In this superbly written history, Jaroslav Pelikan takes the reader through the good books evolution from its earliest incarnation as oral tales to its modern existence in various iterations, translations, and languages. From the earliest Hebrew texts and the Bibles appearance in Greek, then Latin, Pelikan explores the canonization of different Bibles and why certain books were adopted by certain religions and sects, as well as the development of the printing press, the translation into modern languages, and varying schools of critical scholarship. Both an enduring work of scholarship and a fascinating read, Whose Bible Is It? will be eagerly welcomed by the many fans of Elaine Pagels’s books and Adam Nicolson’s Gods Secretaries.
Interfaith Dialogue
Amirtham, Sam and S. Wesley Ariarajah, eds. Ministerial Formation in a Multifaith Milieu: Implications of Interfaith Dialogue for Theological Education. Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1986.
It is generally accepted that theological education and ministerial formation must both take place “in context”. The context, in most parts of the world today, is one of religious pluralism where Christians must live in dialogue and grow in commmunity with neighbours of other faiths. Ministers have a crucial role in shaping the attitudes of church people, especially in the area of interfaith relations. How may they be equipped to play this positive role? What, in other words, are the implications of interfaith dialogue for theological education?
That was the question discussed by a group of theological teachers when they met in Malaysiain June 1985, called together by the World Council of Churches’ Programme on Theological Education (PTE) and the Dialogue Sub-unit. Ministerial Formation in a Multifaith Milieu presents an informal report of that meeting.
Arai, Tosh and Wesley Ariarajah, eds. Spirituality in Interfaith Dialogue. Geneva: WCC Publications, 1989.
This readable book brings together the personal testimonies of Christians – Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox – who have lived among people of other faiths. From the First and Third Worlds, they encounter Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Taoism, and the aboriginal religion ofAustralia. In the course of their encounters all have found and intgrated spiritual disciplines from other religions into their own spirituality.
Religious and lay, they reveal what “living in dialogue” with other religions has meant to them in the most personal terms. How has their own faith been challenged or enriched? What insights have they gained? How might their discoveries contribute to the spiritual lives of other Christians?
Becker, Karl Joseph and Ilaria Morali, eds. Catholic Engagement with World Religions: A Comprehensive Study. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010.
Twenty-Five Element International Scholars show how Roman Catholic theology has grappled with religious pluralism. Catholic Engagement with World Religions outlines, clarifies, and defends official Roman Catholic teaching on the relationship between Christianity and other religious traditions in light of the Catholic belief that “We must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery.” (Gaudium et Spes, 22) Part I studies the history of these issues while Part II examines their theological framing. Part III addresses Christianity and other religions since Vatican U. Part IV deals specifically with Judaism, Confucianism, Hinduism and Islam as these religions see themselves in relation to Christianity. A final chapter by Bishop Michael Fitzgerald offers a theological reflection on the foundations of interreligious dialogue today. For scholars, students, and practitioners of interreligious encounter, Catholic Engagement with World Religions is necessary and absorbing reading. Karl J. Becker, S.J., and Ilaria Morali teach at theGregorianUniversityinRome.
Beversluis, Joel. Catholicism and Other Religions: Introducing Interfaith Dialogue. Novato, CA: New World Library, 2000.
Now in its third edition, this is the most comprehensive work available on the rich variety of paths available to today’s spiritual seekers. More than a reference work, it explores how religions can collaborate to help the world. Essays explore interfaith community and spiritual practices such as theosophy, wicca, and indigenous religions. Portraits of all the major religious traditions are also included. This revised text offers an unparalleled look at where spirituality is headed in the coming millennium.
Bowe, Peter and Anthony O’Mahony, eds. Catholics in Interreligious Dialogue. Herefordshire, England: Gracewing, 2006.
Interreligious dialogue is now seen as one of the most pressing needs of our times. However both this perception and active engagement in dialogue are both recent phenomena. From the beginning, many of the pioneers in this work have been drawn from the Catholic monastic tradition. This volume brings together a wide-ranging and engaging series of studies that witness to the depth of theological reflection that the contemporary Christian monastic and scholarly community are engaged in as the religious traditions seek to understand and relate to each other in a global context. Here are reflections on encounters with Buddhism, where the main efforts of monastic interreligious dialogue have been directed, with Hinduism, and with Islam (from St Francis to the Cistercian Martyrs of Algeria). As well as profiling the history and current witness of monastic interreligious dialogue, the volume also contains studies of the great pioneers of this work – Charles de Foucauld, Bede Griffiths, Henri Le Saux (Abhishiktananda), Louis Massignon and Thomas Merton. At a time when there is so much need for understanding among people belonging to different religion, may these studies stimulate that exchange at the deeper level which leads to an experience of harmony, and even of a certain unity. Our conflict-ridden world is longing for this.
Briggs, John, Mercy Amba Oduyoye and George Tsetsis, eds. A History of the Ecumenical Movement: 1968-2000. Geneva: World Council of Churches, 2004.
The third volume of this History reflects the changes in the profile of the ecumenical movement over the last 35 years, and the controversial and complex period we have just passed through. Chapters cover, among other subjects, inter-religious dialogue, racism and ethnicity, spirituality, inclusive community, and ecumenical social thought. Five introductory analyses cover the global context, major trends in the life of the churches and of the movement, and the progress made in the area of unity.
Cassidy, Edward Idris. Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue: Unitatis Redintegratio, Nostra Aetate. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2005.
In commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Vatican II, Paulist Press has created a groundbreaking 8-book series, Rediscovering Vatican II, that places the Council in dialogue with today’s church and her people and focuses on what today’s Catholics need to know, not just historically. The first volume, Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue: Unitatis redintegratio, Nostra aetate, looks at the relationship of the Catholic Church with other Christian churches and other great religions.
Cardinal Cassidy devotes part one of his book to Unitatis redintegratio, the decree on Restoring Christian Unity, which brought the Catholic Church into the modern ecumenical movement. And in part two, Nostra aetate (the Declaration on Interreligious Dialogue), he looks at the relationship of the Catholic Church with other world religions.
This work, and indeed the entire series, which is the only one of its kind at this level and organization, will prove valuable for religious educators, theologians, church historians (of all faiths, especially Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), undergrad and grad students, as well as readers who have heard much about Vatican II, but who have never sat down to understand certain aspects of it.
Cracknell, Kenneth. In Good and Generous Faith: Christian Responses to Religious Pluralism. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2006.
If Christians are to enter interfaith dialogue in good faith, they need to have some basic theological principles to guide them in this process. In this much needed resource, Cracknell, who has been engaged with such issues for nearly 40 years, suggests fruitful new ways of approaching basic biblical and theological themes that show how Christians can engage people of other faiths without being unfaithful to the Bible or their own theological inheritance.
ch wi��h [1]�(QJe w:st=”on”>Roman Empire, faith—rather than belief—is once again becoming Christianity’s defining quality. This recent move away from dogmatic religion is best explained against the backdrop of three distinct periods of church history: The Age of Faith: the first three centuries of Christianity, when the early church was more concerned with following Jesus’s teachings than enforcing what to believe about Jesus The Age of Belief: marking a significant shift between the fourth and twentieth centuries when the church focused on orthodoxy and “correct doctrine” The Age of the Spirit: a trend that began fifty years ago and is increasingly directing the church of tomorrow whereby Christians are ignoring dogma and breaking down barriers between different religions—spirituality is replacing formal religion The Future of Faith is a major statement and a hopeful look at a movement that is surfacing within Christianity and other religious traditions by one of the most revered theologians today.
De Bethune, Pierre-Francois. Interreligious Hospitality: The Fulfillment of Dialogue. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2010.
Interreligious Hospitality is an enlightening account of one Catholic monk’s search for God through dialogue with another religious tradition. Interreligious dialogue will sometimes involve discussions about doctrine, sometimes promote joint action for the common good. But ultimately it is about hospitality: accepting the invitation of others to experience their spiritual practices and welcoming others to experience ours. Pierre de Bethune’s engaging description of learning the way of tea and of living in a Japanese Zen monastery, along with his probing reflections on the meaning of those experiences, shows how the dialogue of religious experience can lead Christians to a deepened faith and a more intense and rewarding spiritual life.
Fitzgerald, Michael I. and John Borelli. Interfaith Dialogue: A Catholic View. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2006.
Written by two of the Church’s longest-serving and best-informed experts, this important book offers fresh insight into developments in interreligious dialogue between world religions and the Catholic Church. Here readers can see clearly how dialogue has been central to the Church’s attempts to improve understanding and interchange among the world’s religious traditions, particularly during the long pontificate of John Paul II.
The authors not only provide informative, readable accounts of interfaith encounter but reflect on what has been learned in the process, and point out where relations among the world’s great religious ways and practitioners have improved. They also allow the reader to see where interreligious interchange has met problems, pointing to issues that urgently require attention.
Forward, Martin, Stephen Plant and Susan White, eds. A Great Commission: Christian Hope and Religious Diversity. New York: Peter Lang, 2000.
This book is a Festschrift for Kenneth Cracknell on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Cracknell has had an astonishingly varied career leading him to hold a number of distinguished positions. From being a missionary educator inNigeria, and then a pastoral minister in Loughborough, he became the first Secretary of the Committee for Relations with People of Other Faiths of the British Council of Churches. Later he held the Michael C. Gutteridge Chair of Systematic and Pastoral Theology at Wesley House,Cambridge, and he is now Director of Global Studies and Professor of Theology andMissionatBriteDivinitySchool,TexasChristianUniversity. In honour of Cracknell’s own achievements his distinguished colleagues, friends and students here survey the achievements of Christian theologies of religion in the recent past, examining such themes as ‘Jesus in Islam’, ‘Translating the Gospel Everywhere’ and ‘John Wesley as Interreligious Resource’. They also look at themes and issues that currently engage Christian theologians and missiologists in a multi-faith context: ‘Christians and Religious Pluralism in the Netherlands’, ‘Religion and Peace Making in South Africa’, ‘A Theology of Jewish-Christian Dialogue’, ‘Theological Education in Today’s Multi-Religious Setting’ among others. This collection of essays makes a significant contribution to Christian hope in our diverse world at the beginning of the third millennium.
Haque, A. Mission and Dialogue in the New Millennium. Delhi: ISPCK, 1999.
A study of the understanding of interfaith dialogue during 1961-1990 and its relevance for Christian missions inIndia.
Hedges, Paul and Alan Race, eds. Christian Approaches to Other Faiths: A Reader. London: SCM Press, 2009.
The SCM Reader: Christianity and Other Religions is divided along the same lines as the textbook. In the first section, least one reading is provided per sub-sections. The second section contains at least two readings per section, both adopting a different way of understanding that faith.
Heim, Mark S., ed. Grounds for Understanding: Ecumenical Resources for Responses to Religious Pluralism. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1998.
This volume surveys the different theological approaches that Christian denominations bring to the issue of religious pluralism. In these diverse essays, writers from eleven different Christian traditions share their confession’s characteristic approaches to the challenges and possibilities raised by religious pluralism.
Hick, John and Brian Hebblethwaite, eds. Christianity and Other Religions: Selected Readings. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981.
This definitive book considers the way in which Christianity relates to the other world faiths.
McAfee, Ward and John B. Cobb, eds. The Dialogue Comes of Age: Christian Encounters With Other Traditions. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010.
Increasingly world religious traditions present not just an intellectual or apologetic challenge to Christians but a daily encounter, a source of religious practices, and even live religious options. How are Christians to relate to these traditions and the neighbors and friends who live by them? This lively and engaging book is a great resource for faithful wrestling with the new realities in their historical and theological dimensions.
Pinto, Henrique. Foucault, Christianity and Interfaith Dialogue. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Foucault, Christianity and Interfaith Dialogue develops a new model for interfaith dialogue using the work of the French historian of ideas, Michel Foucault. The author argues that it is the injustice done to the ‘Other’ by Roman Catholic, Protestant and other centred and unitary models of religious pluralism that allows the introduction of Foucault’s de-centring of transcendence and human reason as an alternative model for understanding religious diversity and the role it ought to play, in the constitution of the self and the making of society. This Foucaultian approach provides a new direction for interfaith dialogue in the modern world and leads to an ethical rather than a nihilistic position while fostering a non-unitary theology of religious pluralism and an open-textured process of self-transformation.
The author’s original and imaginative application and expansion of Foucault’s concept of the ‘More’ from The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969) makes important and original contributions to academic work on Foucault and contemporary theology.
Phan, Peter C., ed. Christianity and the Wider Ecumenism. New York: Paragon House, 1990.
How has Christian tradition developed its understanding of the problem of salvation for non-Christians? How do the Christian churches appraise the spiritual values of those other religions whose members collectively make up the majority of mankind? Christianity and the Wider Ecumenism explores the growing shift from efforts toward unity within Christianity to broader, more far-reaching attempts at greater harmony among world religions (the “wider ecumenism”). Editor Peter Phan traces the trend back to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) but notes that, in the last ten years or so, the movement has become pronounced. in addition to Vatican II, the World Council of Churches has established a Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and ideologies. Also, the growing number of courses on campus in comparative religions testifies to the critical importance of interfaith studies and dialogue in our religiously plural world. Despite resistance by some Christians to this new trend, there is a willingness on the part of others to support the “wider ecumenism,” even to abandon any claim to Christ’s/Christianity’s uniqueness, definitiveness, absoluteness, and superiority. They rightly point to the need for faith in God as Absolute Mystery, to Christian praxis in favor of justice and freedom, and to the enormous historical suffering and conflicts, caused by the myth of Christian uniqueness. They add that we live today in a world village in which dialogue with other religionists and societies, as full equals, is imperative, perhaps for our very survival. Not mere contact but active cooperation and mutual understanding is required now more than ever to deal with urgent global issues.
Price, Lynne. Interfaith Encounter and Dialogue: A Methodist Pilgrimage. New York: P. Lang, 1991.
How is a Christian to think, feel and act in relation to neighbours, workmates and communities of «Other Faiths»? The question demands personal, institutional and theological responses. This book demonstrates that these attitudes are equally important and interdependent. It brings together an original survey of lay members of a church in a multifaith area ofBirmingham,England, the relevant literature and statements of theMethodistChurchinBritain, and Methodist theology.
In making a pilgrimage we discover, through both openness to the faith of others and commitment to Christ, that relation, dialogue and change are the means of our Christian response to life.
Race, Alan. Interfaith Encounter: The Twin Tracks of Theology and Dialogue. SCM Press, 2010.
Theology and dialogue represent the twin tracks for Christian engagement with the rich religious diversity of a shrinking globe. Yet, for much of the time they exist in profound tension. This tension arises because the largely negative history of Christian approaches towards the religious Other is now being questioned by the new information, experiences and relationships which stem from the growing dialogue between religions. Track One argues for a basically pluralistic and therefore controversial view in the theology of religions, while Track Two advances an equally controversial view that dialogue really does instigate a paradigm shift in religious thinking and being. For Alan Race, the twin tracks cannot afford to maintain their separateness for much longer. This book offers a summary introduction to its subject for those coming to the issues for the first time, whilst drawing its readers beyond the purely descriptive. It will be of interest to students of theology, philosophy of religion, interfaith studies and to the general reader or practitioner in interfaith relations. Alan Race is Dean of Postgraduate Studies at St Philip’s Centre for Study and Engagement in a Multifaith World and Vicar of St Philip’s Church, Leicester.
Rousseau, Richard W., ed. Interreligious Dialogue: Facing the Next Frontier. Montrose, PA: Ridge Row Press, 1981.
Chapters include:I. The Next Frontier: Understanding Other Communities of Faith, II. Ground Rules for Interreligious Dialogue, III. The Basis, Purpose and Manner of Inter-Faith Dialogue, IV. Towards a Theology of Dialogue, V. Dialogue: Does it Complement, Modify or Replace Mission, VI. Bases and Boundaries for Interfaith Dialogue: a Christian Viewpoint, VII. The Failure of Dialogue in Hendrick Kraemer’s Evaluation of Non-Christian Faith, VIII. Some Recent Developments on the Christology and World Religions, IX. Does Copernicus Help: Reflections for a Christian Theology of Religions, X. The Anonymous Christian and Christology, XI. World Religions and the Finality of Christ: A Critique of Hans Kung’s “On Being a Christian”.
Vroom, Hendrik. No Other Gods: Christian Belief in Dialogue with Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1996.
In today’s pluralistic culture, Christianity is no longer the dominant belief system. Interest in religion is on the increase again after having declined in the seventies, but this does not mean that people are returning to the same positions they once held. Eastern religions, especially, have attracted wide interest. This significant work by Hendrik Vroom presses the theological and dialogical dimensions of religious pluralism. Vroom here makes a broad study of the views of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam, especially their views on truth, and explores their mutual relationships. In the process, he seeks to answer a crucial question for our time: For what reasons would a person who has read extensively on Buddhist, Hindu, or Islamic thought continue to be a Christian?
World Council of Churches. My Neighbor’s Faith—and Mine: Theological Discoveries through Interfaith Dialogue. Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1986.
This study guide is prepared in the hope that Christians would be challenged to seek new dimensions of their own faith and also to see their neighbours in a new light and learn to live with them in closer community. It is meant for Christians who live in religiously plural situations — and that’s everywhere, in our day. It urges them to reflect on the theological significance of the faith and witness of their neighbours who are not Christians.
