Responses to My IJPT Reviewers

2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-272
Author(s):  
Max Stackhouse
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Local Interaction ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Religious Dialogue ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Dimensions ◽  
The Way

AbstractGlobalization has many dimensions and there are diverse perspectives on it. e contributors to the first three volumes of God and Globalization are a testament to the range of scholarly engagement with key dimensions of globalization. e aim of these essays and the structure of their presentation is to lay the foundations for comprehensive theological interaction with globalization. While the review of volume 1 highlights the issue of glocal and local interaction with the global; volume two's reviewer draws attention to the often neglected religious (Christian) infl uences at work in a variety of professional and scholarly spheres of action shaping global developments. Volume 3 raises questions of the universal and the particular in religious studies and the ways that the world religions are shaping or responding to globalization, opening the way for inter-religious dialogue. is leads to the forth volume which asks what Christian theology and ethics specifi cally have to off er to the interpretation and guidance of these global developments. All four reviews are responded to here and the challenge to tease out a public theology and its mission appropriate for our globalizing era is re-asserted.

Noumenon and Phenomena

1987 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 493-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard Loughlin
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Small Contribution ◽  
John Hick ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World

How is Christian theology, as the self-understanding of the Christian life, to understand the world religions? How is it to understand them in relation to itself? In recent years Professor John Hick has proposed a pluralist paradigm of the world religions which would, if acceptable, answer these sort of questions. In this article we are going to consider the acceptability of Hick's paradigm to Christian theology. The question we want to put to it is simple: Will it do as a model for how Christian theology may begin to think its relation to the world religions?Our discussion is in three parts. In the first part we present Hick's paradigm in, what we take to be, it's strongest form, defending it against certain criticisms. In the second part we consider its phenomenological foundations and the possibility of its judicious evaluation. Finally, in the third part, we offer a critique and come to a conclusion about it's acceptability to Christian theology. However, our answer is only a small contribution to a much larger task: ‘the theological understanding of non-Christian religions’.

Crucified Wisdom

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Mark Heim
Keyword(s):  
Direct Instruction ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Classic Work ◽  
Notable Feature ◽  
Buddhist Practice ◽  
The World ◽  
Background Material ◽  
Mahāyāna Buddhism ◽  
The Way

This book is the first systematic discussion of the bodhisattva path in Māhayāna Buddhism from the perspective of Christian comparative theology. With the increasing interest and participation of Christians in Buddhist practice, many are seeking a deeper exploration of this topic, and of the way the two traditions and their teachings might interface. Crucified Wisdom provides important scholarly background material for this discussion, as well as a constructive proposal for Christian engagement. The text combines a rich exposition of the bodhisattva path with detailed reflection on it in connection with specific Christian convictions. The description of bodhisattva teachings centers on Śāntideva’s classic work the Bodicaryāvatāra and its interpretation by Tibetan commentators. The book argues that Christian theology can take direct instruction from Buddhism in three respects: developing an understanding of a “no-self” dimension in all creatures, recognizing an unvarying nondual dimension of divine immanence in the world, and appreciating that both of these are constituent dimensions in Christ’s incarnation and human redemption. The writer argues that Christians rightly remain committed to the value of novelty in history, the enduring significance of human persons, and the Trinitarian reality of God. A notable feature of the book is its exploration of the tensions around the crucifixion of Jesus in Buddhist-Christian interpretation. This work will be of particular value for those interested in “dual belonging” in connection to these traditions.

scholarly journals Mutual epistemic dependence and the demographic divine hiddenness problem

2015 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
MAX BAKER-HYTCH
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Epistemic Dependence ◽  
Divine Hiddenness ◽  
The World ◽  
Theistic Belief ◽  
The Way

AbstractIn his article ‘Divine hiddenness and the demographics of theism’ (Religious Studies, 42 (2006), 177–191) Stephen Maitzen develops a novel version of the atheistic argument from divine hiddenness according to which the lopsided distribution of theistic belief throughout the world's populations is much more to be expected given naturalism than given theism. I try to meet Maitzen's challenge by developing a theistic explanation for this lopsidedness. The explanation I offer appeals to various goods that are intimately connected with the human cognitive constitution, and in particular, with the way in which we depend upon social belief-forming practices for our acquisition of much of our knowledge about the world – features about us that God would value but that also make probable a lopsided distribution of theistic belief, or so I argue.

Salvation in World Religions

2002 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.S. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Mutual Transformation ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Faith Traditions ◽  
Religious Dialogue ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future

AbstractThis article is a plea for a sympathetic and empathetic understanding of salvation in the major faith traditions of the world. There is no such thing as Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim or Jewish salvation, H. S. Wilson insists--only human salvation. After discussing the biblical roots of the word "salvation," Wilson reflects on what Christians would call salvation in Judaism, Islam,, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Confucianism and Taoism. Here he finds many similarities to the Christian notion, but also significant differences. Then, in the context of today's changing Christian attitude toward the possibility of salvation in other religious ways, Wilson finds paths toward possible progress in John B. Cobb, Jr.'s challenge of "mutual transformation," in Raimon Panikkar's call for intra-religious dialogue, and in Aloysius Pieris' notion of "enreligionization." The religions of the world will thrive in the future, argues Wilson, only if they grow towards one another and avoid isolation and fundamentalism.

Barth on Divine Simplicity and the Attributes of God: A Theological Agenda for Christian/Muslim Dialogue

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-532
Author(s):  
Stephen Pickard
Keyword(s):  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
Divine Simplicity ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Religious Dialogue ◽  
The World ◽  
Attributes Of God ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This article examines the theological concepts of divine simplicity and the attributes of God. The purpose of this inquiry is to explore the significance of these themes for Christian/Muslim dialogue. In this sense the article is an overture to a public theology undertaken through aspects of the doctrine of God foundational for Christians and Muslims. An introduction identifies the somewhat marginal significance of theological dialogue in Christian-Muslim encounter. In doing so it considers what contribution Karl Barth might have to make to Christian-Muslim reflections on the doctrine of God. The main focus of the article examines Barth’s treatment of divine simplicity and the attributes of God. In this respect the article highlights the importance of Barth’s ethical transposition of the doctrine of divine simplicity and its implications for inter-religious engagements in the world. The article argues for a public theology which takes more seriously the relationship between theory and practice in inter-religious dialogue.

World Christianity and Religions 2022: A Complicated Relationship

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-80
Author(s):  
Gina A. Zurlo ◽  
Todd M. Johnson ◽  
Peter F. Crossing
Keyword(s):  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Statistical Information ◽  
Personal Contact ◽  
World Religions ◽  
The World ◽  
World Christianity ◽  
The Way

This article marks the thirty-eighth year of including statistical information on World Christianity and mission in the International Bulletin of Mission Research. This year it includes details on the growth of world religions, increasing religious diversity, and personal contact between Christians and people of other religions. The world is becoming more religious, and the world’s countries have become more religiously diverse, yet Christians have inadequate personal contact with members of other religions. Solidarity, including friendship, love, and hospitality, is posited as the way forward in addressing these trends.

The Proper Self

2020 ◽  
pp. 155-174
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Insole
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

The chapter explores the way in which transcendental idealism provides Kant with an ethically significant conception of transcendence. Kant’s conception of transcendence is distinct from that found in Christian theology, but is nonetheless capable of bringing a degree of spiritual, religious, and moral consolation, insofar as the way things fundamentally are (we can believe), may be quite different from how they appear. This is particularly relevant when we think about freedom and autonomy, and Kant’s notion of the ‘proper self’. The proper self is the noumenal and intelligible subject, and it is this subject who is capable of autonomy. At the heart of autonomy is our setting of ends, which involves our being free and purposive. The value of such end-setting is the ‘inner value’ of the world. End- setting is valuable, and is so absolutely and intrinsically, in that the value is not itself bestowed by an act of end-setting. That it is our nature to be purposive is, importantly, distinct from the more traditional assertion that there is a purpose which is our nature.

Signifying on the World Religions Paradigm

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 35-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Newton
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
World Religions ◽  
American Experience ◽  
The World

The growing role of critical theory and postcolonial inquiry within the religious studies classroom has challenged the utility of the World Religions Paradigm. This has created a pedagogical opportunity for recreating the Religion 101 course. This essay introduces a course that uses signifying theory and the African American experience to consider "religion."

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