John Hick's Theology of Religions and Inter-Religious Dialogue: a Critique

2001 ◽  
Vol 8 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 274-297
Author(s):  
John R. Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Friedrich Schleiermacher ◽  
John Hick ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Theology Of Religions ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Religious Dialogue ◽  
Other World

AbstractWhile denying that belief in Jesus Christ is an essential element for personal salvation, John Hick presupposes Christian concepts of salvation. Even though he denies the universality of Christ vis-à-vis other world religions, the Christian doctrine of salvation is at the very heart of his project, albeit in a controversial form (as universal salvation or apocatastasis). I explore the influence of Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Schleiermacher in Hick's thought and discuss how his theology of religions and his concept of inter-religious dialogue are related to Christianity and yet are divorced from some of its central tenets.

The Jewishness of Jesus from the Perspective of Christian Doctrine

1989 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-44
Author(s):  
B. Hebblethwaite
Keyword(s):  
Frame Of Reference ◽  
First Century ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
John Hick ◽  
Theology Of Religions ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Realist Analysis ◽  
Jewish Ideal

The task undertaken in this essay is to consider the significance for Christology of a relatively orthodox incarnational kind, of the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was a first century Jew. In other words the frame of reference taken here is the Christianity of the Christian creeds. The question asked is what the Jewishness of Jesus means for that. The task, no doubt, would have been much easier, though less interesting, had we followed the example of those who seek to demythologise the doctrine of the Incarnation, either in the interests of an eirenic global, pluralist, theology of religions, or in the interests of a purely expressivist, anti-realist, analysis of Christian faith. Even on such views as these, as represented by John Hick and Don Cupitt for example, there would be some interesting questions remaining: what still differentiates Christianity from Judaism? Why follow the Jewish prophet, Jesus, rather than some other? Does the Christian ideal necessarily retain its historical links with the Jewish ideal? But these are not the questions pursued here. It is not necessary to abandon the characteristic tenets of one's faith in order to make progress in inter-faith dialogue. Rather, what we bring to the dialogue and submit to mutual questioning are the distinctive and representative faith-stances, true to the patterns of belief and worship of the majority of our coreligionists.

Continuing the Conversation on King: My Really Final Response to Tony Moon?

2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 170-179
Author(s):  
Tony Richie
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Theology Of Religions ◽  
Pentecostal Theology ◽  
Final Response ◽  
Per Se

AbstractTony Richie contends that Bishop J.H. King and a close circle of comrades and colleagues, influential in early Pentecostalism as leading administrators, educators, thinkers, and writers, and including G.F. Taylor and A.A. Boddy, exhibited various levels of (what today is known as) inclusivism regarding Christian theology of religions. He suggests this striking discovery has significant import for the developing field of Pentecostal theology of religions. However, as Tony Moon has rightly pointed out, King did not present non-Christian religions as direct divine instruments or agents of Christ's atonement benefits. Richie agrees with Moon that King primarily encourages hope for some of the humanly unevangelized. Yet Richie, in agreement with Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, also argues that King's thought can be particularly complex. King's complexity especially shows in his perception of the trans-historical 'essential Christ' and 'religion of Christ'. Thus, Richie persistently suggests that at least King, but probably Taylor too, holds out a well-grounded but cautiously guarded optimism, not so much on world religions per se, as in the boundless Christ and an unbounded—but not boundary-less—religion firmly and forever rooted in the revelation of and redemption in the Lord Jesus Christ.

scholarly journals A Critique of John Hick’s Multiple Incarnation: Theology and Christian Approach to Religious Dialogue

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 159-167
Author(s):  
Lawrence Nwachukwu Okwuosa ◽  
Chinyere Theresa Nwaoga ◽  
Favour C. Uroko
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
John Hick ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Descriptive Phenomenology ◽  
Christian Teaching ◽  
Religious Dialogue ◽  
The World ◽  
Christian Beliefs

Abstract The question of Christ’s divine nature is one issue that has caused ripples among the religions of the world. While it is the ground of Christian beliefs and explained as the doctrine of the divine incarnation of God’s only Son into the world, for some people it is faith taken too far. As intellectual ink is being spilt on Christ’s divine incarnation, John Hick, a theologian of great repute, argues of a multiple metaphorical incarnations that include Jesus Christ and other prophetic voices in the religious circle. This has heightened the question and the need to investigate this theological issue. Hence, this paper aims at not only denying the possibility of multiple incarnations, which would distort the entire Christian teaching but also demonstrates how Christ’s incarnation is a witnessed non-metaphoric belief. For this purpose, the paper adopts descriptive phenomenology in its methodology.

World Christianity, ‘World Religions’ and the Challenge of Insider Movements

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-103
Author(s):  
Christian J. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
World Religion ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Historical Series ◽  
Enlightenment Project ◽  
World Christianity ◽  
Other World ◽  
Religious Systems ◽  
The One ◽  
Insider Movements

While studies in World Christianity have frequently referred to Christianity as a ‘world religion’, this article argues that such a category is problematic. Insider movements directly challenge the category, since they are movements of faith in Jesus that fall within another ‘world religion’ altogether – usually Islam or Hinduism. Rather than being an oddity of the mission frontier, insider movements expose ambiguities already present in World Christianity studies concerning the concept of ‘religion’ and how we understand the unity of the World Christian movement. The article first examines distortions that occur when religion is referred to on the one hand as localised practices which can be reoriented and taken up into World Christianity and, on the other hand, as ‘world religion’, where Christianity is sharply discontinuous with other world systems. Second, the article draws from the field of religious studies, where several writers have argued that the scholarly ‘world religion’ category originates from a European Enlightenment project whose modernist assumptions are now questionable. Third, the particular challenge of insider movements is expanded on – their use of non-Christian cultural-religious systems as spaces for Christ worship, and their redrawing of assumed Christian boundaries. Finally, the article sketches out two principles for understanding Christianity's unity in a way that takes into account the religious (1) as a historical series of cultural-religious transmissions and receptions of the Christian message, which emanates from margins like those being crossed by insider movements, and (2) as a religiously syncretic process of change that occurs with Christ as the prime authority.

scholarly journals United by the same concern. Ecumenical impulses of Pope Francis in the context of integral ecology

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrzej Anderwald
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
The Common ◽  
Other World ◽  
The Church ◽  
Integral Ecology

One of the important tasks of the Church in the temporal order are concern for the work of creation and for man himself, and sometimes even the defense against threats of technical progress, conducted from any ethical and moral references. The concern for the common home is not only a domain of the Catholic Church. Similarly, other churches and Christian communities as well as other world religions reflect on the issues relating to the degradation of human and natural environment. Thus, the aim of these reflections is an attempt to recognize ecumenical impulses of the Pope in the context of integral ecology that takes into account the interlinkages between different dimensions of reality. Therefore, during the considerations will be presented firstly the papal diagnosis of the social and ecological crisis (1), then the proposals of actions aiming at the development of integral ecology (2) as well as an invitation to a dialogue resulting from the care for the common home (3). The main sources of the analysis undertaken are the two papal documents, namely the encyclical Laudato si’ (LS) and the post-synodal apostolic exhoration Querida Amazonia (QA).

Religious Interaction in Early Medieval Kamarupa: An Insight into the Kalikapurana

2021 ◽  
pp. 037698362110520
Author(s):  
Rashmi Rekha Bhuyan
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Early Medieval Period ◽  
Brahmaputra Valley ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Other World

Like all other world religions, Brahmanism and Buddhism, the two prominent religious traditions of India, have histories of development and transformations since their inception. Depending on the socio-economic and political scenario, religions are subject to change, often in their basic beliefs and rituals, and at a certain point of time, the interaction between diverse religious traditions also becomes inevitable. Although opponent by nature in their early philosophies, Buddhism and Brahmanism got entwined at a certain phase of history, when many Buddhist deities and rituals were accommodated within the purview of Brahmanism and vice-versa. In the history of Brahmanical tradition, this interaction is traceable in the narratives of Puranic texts composed during the first millennium years of the Christian Era (ce). For the present study, one such Puranic text: the Kalikapurana, composed in Kamarupa (early Assam) during the early-medieval period, has been taken into account to understand the process of interaction between Brahmanism and Buddhism in the historical context of early Assam. Being primarily Brahmanical religious texts, the Puranas contain traces of Buddhism only in ‘covert’ form: in the form of myth. Focussing on some myths narrated in the Kalikapurana, the present study will discuss the existence of Buddhism in the early-Brahmaputra valley prior to the coming of Brahmanism. It will help us to understand the strategies adopted by the immigrant Brahmins to accommodate the prevailing traits under the purview of Brahmanical Hinduism.

Friedrich Schleiermacher

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul T. Nimmo
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Empirical Approach ◽  
Friedrich Schleiermacher ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Liberal Theology ◽  
The Church

This chapter recounts the theology of the sacraments of the post-Enlightenment Reformed theologian, philosopher, and pastor Friedrich Schleiermacher, who is often considered the father of modern liberal theology. He was unique in that rather than rooting his theologies of the sacraments in a “magical” or “empirical” approach, Schleiermacher advocated a “mystical” approach, grounded in “the religious affections of the Christian community” united in its redemption through Jesus Christ. Baptism and Eucharist are therefore “actions which establish and preserve communion of life with Christ in the present day.” His approach to the theology of the sacraments was quite ecumenical, for while disagreeing with Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli he accepted their views as equally valid, rather than reasons for division in the church.

Max Weber oder das Scheitern an der Religion

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Reinhard
Keyword(s):  
Max Weber ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Cultural Communication ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Protestant Christianity ◽  
Other World ◽  
Careful Comparison

Der Weltruhm Max Webers geht langsam, aber deutlich zurück. An seinem Lebensthema, der Bedeutung der Religion für die moderne Welt, ist er langfristig gescheitert. Das gilt nicht nur für seine Protestantismus-These, sondern auch für den aufwändigen Versuch, die These durch Vergleich mit anderen Weltreligionen auszuweiten und abzusichern. Er landet dabei in der kolonialistischen Orientalismus-Falle, indem er beweist, was er zuvor vorausgesetzt hatte. Umgekehrt wussten und wissen Vertreter anderer Religionen das protestantische Christentum zur Modernisierung ihrer eigenen Kulturen ‚auszuschlachten‘. ‚Das Empire hat zurückgeschlagen‘. Auch Karl Jaspers’ post-koloniale Alternative zu weltanschaulicher Kommunikation auf gleicher Augenhöhe im Zeichen einer ‚Achsenzeit‘ ist gescheitert. Der viel berufene Aufschwung der Religionen besteht global gesehen in pluralistischer Beliebigkeit, die den Charakter von Religion überhaupt verändert hat. ‚Transzendenz‘ ist immanent geworden. Unsere Religion ist längst nicht mehr diejenige Max Webers. Obviously Max Weber’s fame is continuously decreasing. In the end, he failed in his self-chosen task to explain the growth of the modern world through religious experience. This statement does not only refer to his world-famous essay on The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. It is also true of his extensive attempt to confirm and extent his thesis through careful comparison with other world religions. But he fell into the circular trap of colonialist orientalism because he simply proved what had been his own preconditions. On the other hand, members of other religious communities used and still use protestant Christianity selectively to modernize their own cultures. The empire hits back! Karl Jaspers’s Axial Age, his post-colonial attempt in cultural communication on equal level, failed as well. Today, from the global point of view the famous renewal of religion consists in arbitrary pluralism. The very character of religion as such has changed. Transcendence turned immanent. The religion of today is no longer the religion of Max Weber.

The broken chain of learning: the crisis of religion and belief literacy and its origins

2020 ◽  
pp. 9-26
Author(s):  
Adam Dinham ◽  
Alp Arat ◽  
Martha Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
World Religions ◽  
The West ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
Public Religion ◽  
Other World ◽  
Post War

This chapter discusses the loss of religion and belief literacy, which it locates in two public spheres: welfare and education. The period before the loss of religion and belief literacy in Britain and the West was, by its very nature, almost entirely Christian. Although there was a degree of plurality, and an awareness of some other religions, these were largely treated as essentially exotic. Yet, at the very moment that people stopped paying (much) attention to religion and belief, they entered a period of dramatic change. This has meant massive declines in Christianity, increases in other world religions, a huge growth in atheism and non-religion, and a shift towards informal and revival forms of religion and belief, especially associated with varying ideas of spirituality. The resulting challenges of religion and belief literacy are rooted here in the post-war period, in which the deliberate dilution of religious socialisation post-1945 has been followed by the accidental invisibility of religious social action and its disconcerting re-emergence after 1980, and then a striking renewal of religion and belief as a public sphere issue around the turn of the century, and especially after 9/11. What emerges is a tension between a loss of public religion and belief and its subsequent re-emergence after a prolonged period in which it was not really talked about.

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