Introduction: Revisiting an Old Tale

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
John J. Thatamanil
Keyword(s):  
Religious Diversity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Constructive Theology

This chapter introduces, reformulates, and defends the old Indian allegory of the blind men and the elephant to argue that, despite critiques, it remains a valuable tool for thinking about religious diversity. Appealing to John Hull, theologian of blindness, the book reformulates the ancient tale as one about blindfolded men and the elephant. After reformulating the tale, the author puts it to new uses. He argues that theology of religious diversity is the work of accounting for why there are so many different accounts of the elephant, comparative theology is the work of actually walking over to another side of the elephant, and constructive theology is the venture of actually redescribing the elephant in light of the other two tasks. This chapter argues that all three tasks must be done together.

Religious Difference and Christian Theology

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-40
Author(s):  
John J. Thatamanil
Keyword(s):  
Religious Diversity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Constructive Theology ◽  
Religious Difference ◽  
Religious Others

This chapter introduces and frames the argument for the entire book: Christian theology must understand religious diversity as promise rather than as problem. The chapter then proceeds to lay out conceptually what was articulated allegorically in the introduction, namely that theology of religious diversity, comparative theology, and constructive theology must be integrated. The chapter defines the scope and tasks of each of these three subfields within theology and puts them into conversation. The chapter argues that it is not enough to merely think about others; we must instead think with religious others and think through what is so learned. In sum, we ought not give an account of the other without being transformed by the other through interreligious learning.

God as Ground, Singularity, and Relation

2020 ◽  
pp. 213-248
Author(s):  
John J. Thatamanil
Keyword(s):  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Ultimate Reality ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Constructive Theology ◽  
Divine Life ◽  
The Trinity

This chapter is the culmination of the book. What previous chapters called for—the integration of theology of religious diversity, comparative theology, and constructive theology—this chapter performs. It offers a new constructive theology of the trinity, a theology of the trinity that is worked out with the help of Hindus and Buddhists. Such a theology is simultaneously a way to think about religious neighbors, a way of learning from those neighbors, and a way to reimagine the divine life. Specifically, this chapter advocates an account of God/ultimate reality as ground, singularity, and relation. Although these features of the divine life can be discerned across traditions, this chapter argues that certain strands of particular traditions focus on one account of ultimacy at the relative expense of others. But this degree of focus is precisely what makes interreligious learning possible, necessary, and rewarding.

Circling the Elephant

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. Thatamanil
Keyword(s):  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Ultimate Reality ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Constructive Theology ◽  
Religious Truth ◽  
The Past ◽  
Religion And Race

Christian theologians have, for some decades, affirmed that they have no monopoly on encounter with God or ultimate reality; other religions also have access to religious truth and transformation. If so, the time has come for Christians not just to learn about but also from their religious neighbors. Circling the Elephant affirms that the best way to move toward the mystery of divinity is to move toward the mystery of the neighbor. In this book, Thatamanil employs the ancient Indian allegory of the elephant and blindfolded men to argue for the integration of three, often-separated theological projects: theologies of religious diversity, comparative theology, and constructive theology. Circling the Elephant also offers an analysis of why we have fallen short in the past. Interreligious learning has been obstructed by problematic ideas about “religion” and “religions.” Thatamanil also notes troubling resonances between reified notions of “religion” and “race.” He contests these notions and offers a new theory of the religious that makes interreligious learning both possible and desirable. Christians have much to learn from their religious neighbors, even about such central features of Christian theology as Christ and Trinity. This book proposes a new theology of religious diversity, one that opens the door to true interreligious learning.

Tolerance is theoretical and practical principles

1996 ◽  
pp. 13-23
Author(s):  
Mykhailo Babiy
Keyword(s):  
Religious Diversity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Nodal Points ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
The One ◽  
Ukrainian Society

Political ideological pluralism, religious diversity are characteristic features of modern Ukrainian society. On the one hand, multiculturalism, socio-political, religious differentiation of the latter appear as important characteristics of its democracy, as a practical expression of freedom, on the other - as a factor that led to the deconsocialization of society, gave rise to "nodal points" of tension, confrontational processes, in particular, in political and religious spheres.

Finding the Rights Questions about Religious Diversity

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-87
Author(s):  
Rita M. Gross
Keyword(s):  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Spiritual Disciplines ◽  
The Other

This article argues that all current theologies of religion share the presupposition that differences among religions are a problem, even a mistake, and that unity or agreement would be preferable to difference and religious diversity. But theologians of religion need to start at the other end of the puzzle, conceding from the get-go that religious diversity is here to stay, is inevitable, normal, natural, and, therefore, not the major problem or issue. The important questions are not about them, the others who are different from us, but about us. Why do we dislike diversity so much? Why does it make us so uncomfortable? Why does difference so frequently elicit the response of ranking the different options hierarchically? And, most important of all, how can we cure our own discomfort with diversity? The article also suggests that we need to practice the spiritual disciplines that help us overcome our egocentric preferences for a world in which everyone else would be just like us and can, instead, live comfortable in a world that accommodates vast differences.

On Teachers, Rabbinic and Maternal

2017 ◽  
pp. 359-376
Author(s):  
Mara H. Benjamin
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Constructive Theology ◽  
Cultural Perspectives ◽  
Maternal Work ◽  
Maternal Teaching

This chapter offers a constructive theology on the master–disciple relationship and a rabbinic culture which replaces the parent with the sage-teacher. It talks about a parent engaged in childcare and childrearing as a metaphorical sage. It also analyses the quotidian tasks of childrearing that is primarily gendered as maternal teaching or maternal work to Torah. The chapter describes the parent as a sage that embodies Torah in the practices of attention, care, and openness to the other. It advocates a shifting of cultural perspectives for a fuller understanding of Torah, in which maternal work becomes the foundation upon which later learning rests.

scholarly journals Comparative Theology and Scriptural Reasoning: A Muslim’s Approach to Interreligious Learning

Religions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 297
Author(s):  
Betül Avcı
Keyword(s):  
Interreligious Dialogue ◽  
The Other ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Transformative Power ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Learning Practices ◽  
Depth Study ◽  
Scriptural Reasoning ◽  
Transformative Journeys ◽  
Initial Results

In this paper, I examine Comparative Theology (CT) and Scriptural Reasoning (SR), two distinctive interreligious learning practices, in relation to each other. I propose that these practices, with respect to their dialogical features and transformative power, represent two of the most noteworthy current modes of interreligious dialogue. They achieve this by their ability to explicitly understand the “other.” This is also because they serve not only as tools in service of understanding in academic circles, but also as existentially/spiritually transformative journeys in the exotic/familiar land of the “other.” In respect to religious particularity and (un)translatability, I argue that both CT and SR have certain liberal and postliberal features, as neither of them yields to such standard taxonomies. Finally, I deal with Muslim engagement with CT and SR and present some initial results of my current comparative questioning/learning project. Consequently, I plan for this descriptive work to stand as a preliminary to, first, an SR session that focuses on some Qur’anic verses and biblical accounts with a probable progressivist view of history and, second, an in-depth study of the Islamic tradition in that light.

Hedgehog and Fox: Anderson as Historian and Philologist

2010 ◽  
Vol 103 (3) ◽  
pp. 373-382
Author(s):  
Benjamin D. Sommer
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
New Testament ◽  
The Other ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Constructive Theology ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Religious Dialogue ◽  
Positive Sense ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The One

To sin or transgress, according to one dictionary definition, is to go beyond a limit, to cross what is supposed to be a clear border. In this sense, one can say that Gary Anderson has succeeded in writing a very sinful book. Like Sennacherib as the rabbis describe him, Anderson is (he “erases boundaries between nations”)—only I use this phrase to describe Anderson in rather a more positive sense than the rabbis intended it when they applied it to the Assyrian emperor.2 Throughout this book we are discussing, Anderson crosses boundaries between academic disciplines: biblical criticisms that study the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, Qumranic scholarship, rabbinics, patristics, the study of both medieval Catholic and early Protestant theology. He crosses boundaries within some of these fields, as well: for example, by attending to modern Israeli biblical scholarship in a way that is, alas, all too rare among non-Jewish scholars in North America and Europe; or by showing scholars of rabbinics what they can learn from the study of the New Testament, especially when that study is conscious of its roots in medieval and early modern theology. Most importantly, Anderson tears down artificial barriers that separate historical, philological, descriptive scholarship on the one side from constructive theology and inter-religious dialogue on the other.

How to Do Comparative Theology

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Spiritual But Not Religious ◽  
Younger Generation

How To Do Comparative Theology contributes to the maturation of method in the field of comparative theological studies, learning across religious borders, by bringing together essays drawing on different Christian traditions of learning, Judaism and Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, the wisdom of senior scholars, and also insights from a younger generation of scholars who have studied theology and religion in new ways, and are more attuned to the language of the “spiritual but not religious.” The essays in this volume show great diversity in method, and also—over and again and from many angles—coherence in intent, a commitment to one learning from the other, and a confidence that one’s home tradition benefits from fair and unhampered learning from other and very different spiritual and religious traditions. It therefore shows the diversity and coherence of comparative theology as an emerging discipline today.

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