Comparative Theology E-Book

Francis X. Clooney

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 298

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Drawing upon the author's three decades of work in comparative theology, this is a pertinent and comprehensive introduction to the field, which offers a clear guide to the reader, enabling them to engage in comparative study. * The author has three decades of experience of work in the field of comparative theology and is ideally placed to write this book * Today's increasing religious diversity makes this a pertinent and timely publication * Unique in the depth of its introduction and explanation of the discipline of 'comparative theology' * Provides examples of how comparative theology works in the new global context of human religiosity * Draws on examples specific to Hindu-Christian studies to show how it is possible to understand more deeply the wider diversity around us. * Clearly guides the reader, enabling them to engage in comparative study

Leseprobe

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

Part I Starting Points

Chapter 1 Religious Diversity and Comparative Theology

Diversity around Us

Diversity within Us

Comparative Theology as a Response to Twenty-first-Century Religious Diversity

Distinguishing Comparative Theology from Related Disciplines

Comparative Theology and the Academic Study of Religions

Comparative Theology and Interreligious Dialogue

Comparative Theology and the Theology of Religions

Comparative Theology Autobiographically Grounded

On the Limits of This Book

Looking Ahead

Chapter 2 In Generations Past

Comparative Theology and the Long History of Christian Interreligious Reflection

Western Jesuit Scholars in India

Comparative Theology as a Discipline (1699-)

A Moderate Criticism of Missionary Scholarship and the Older Comparative Theology

At the End of the Era

Chapter 3 Comparative Theology Today

David Tracy

Keith Ward

Robert C. Neville

A Note on Raimon Panikkar

James Fredericks

New Directions

From Theory (Back) to Practice

Part II Doing Theology Comparatively

Chapter 4 From Theory to Practice

The Practice of (Comparative) Religious Reading

Intelligent Reading

Commentary as a Religious Practice

Interreligious Commentary

Leaving Room for Other Readers and Their Readings

Necessarily Elite Choices

Chapter 5 Getting Particular

The Importance of Focus

(Self)Identifying This Particular Comparative Theologian

Making a Map, Marking the Field: Hinduism in Brief

Getting Particular: Mimamsa, Vedanta, and Srivaisnavism

Appreciating Similarities

Theistic Hinduism as a Useful and Comfortable Focus

Theology as a Hindu Discipline

Comparative Theology in Hinduism and Other Traditions

My Comparative Theology, Indebted to Hindu Theologies

Chapter 6 “Learning to See”

Plenary Address at the Catholic Theology Society of America, 2003

Rediscovering Mary

After “Learning to See”

Part III The Fruits of Comparison

Chapter 7 Theology After Comparison

Comparative Theology and the Larger Work of Theology

The Multiple Responsibilities of the Comparative Theologian

Some Theological Presuppositions Implicit in Comparative Theology

Comparative Theological Learning, in Particular

The Imago Dei and Our Destiny in Bliss

What “Narayana” Might Mean for the Christian

Encountering Goddesses

Comparative Theology and the Intensification of Devotion

Theology on a Smaller Scale

Chapter 8 “God for Us”

“God for Us”: An Essay

A Verse, a Clue

What Hindus Thought about the Verse

Living the Verse

The Verse and Its Wider Context

An Aside on How to See God and on How God Wills to Be Seen

Noticing One’s First Citizenship: Reflection on Ignatian Insight and My Home Citizenship

What Ignatius Had to Say

Some Contemporary Views of the Intensification and Emptying of the Imagination in the Spiritual Exercises

Multiple Religious Belonging, Human but Also Divine

“God for Us” as Comparative Theology

Chapter 9 Comparative Writer, Comparative Reader

The Comparative Theologian Transformed

The Comparative Theologian as Marginal Person

The Comparative Theologian’s New Community

Tasks and Opportunities for the Reader

Beyond This Book

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index

This edition first published 2010

© 2010 Francis X. Clooney

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Clooney, Francis Xavier, 1950–

Comparative theology : deep learning across religious borders / Francis X. Clooney.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4051-7973-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1-4051-7974-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Religions. 2. Christianity and other religions. 3. Hinduism–Relations–Christianity. 4. Christianity and other religions–Hinduism. 5. Catholic Church–Relations. 6. Catholic Church–Relations–Hinduism. I. Title.

BL41.C56 2010

261.2′945-dc22

2009033871

For my students, from Kathmandu until now, who have taught me how to teach.

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

(Philippians 4: 8–9)

Whichever form pleases his people, that is his form;

Whichever name pleases his people, that is his name;

Whichever way pleases his people who meditate without ceasing, That is his way, the one who holds the discus.

(Poykai Alvar, The First Antati 44)

Preface and Acknowledgments

I am grateful to my students at Harvard Divinity School, many of whom read the entire manuscript in the fall of 2008 and gave me feedback. I wish particularly to thank Brad Bannon, Joshua Daneshforooz, Ari Gordon, Paul Nicholas, Lee Spriggs, and Axel Takacs, for their insightful comments, and to Josh also for doing the index as well. Similarly, Albertus Bagus Laksana, SJ, and Glenn Willis from Boston College offered very helpful advice. Professor Klaus von Stosch (Paderborn, Germany), who visited at Harvard Divinity School for several months in the winter of 2009, gave me many helpful theological and philosophical suggestions. I have also benefited from the advice of participants in the American Academy of Religion’s Seminar in Theologies of Religious Pluralism and Comparative Theology, held in June, 2009, at Union Theological Seminary in New York and sponsored by the Henry Luce Foundation. I thank John Makransky, my long-time Boston College colleague and friend, for suggesting the expansive subtitle to this book.

I am also grateful to the Catholic Theological Society of America for permission to reprint as chapter 6 my plenary address from the 2003 CTSA Annual Convention, and to Orbis Books for permission to reprint as chapter 8 my essay from Many Mansions: Multiple Religious Belonging and Christian Identity. All translations in chapter 8 are my own, based on standard editions of the original Tamil and Sanskrit sources.

Writing an introductory book requires a willingness to generalize and explain a discipline in broad terms without footnoting every insight. This can be harder than specialist work, particularly when the effort discloses the limits and rough edges of my own learning. As I now look back on the finished product, it seems to have been a valuable exercise, and so I am happy to thank Rebecca Harkin, Senior Commissioning Editor in Theology and Religious Studies at Wiley-Blackwell, who invited me to write this book.

The longer I am in this field, the more aware I am that the meaning of what we write depends in part on what the reader will do upon reading. The future of comparative theology lies with readers who find their own way, mapped in their own terms, to practice theology – a faith that seeks to understand – in a world where our own religion is always among many religions. I have always depended on my students to make sense of my particular, peculiar experiments in comparative theology, and so it is to them that I dedicate this small book. I likewise have great hopes for you, the reader, as by your reflections and experiments you advance the field beyond where I have for now left off.

The dedicatory verses preceding this preface are lights to guide the way. The translation of Philippians is from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, while the translation of the First Antati (Mutal Tiruvantati) 44 is my own.

Part I

Starting Points

Chapter 1

Religious Diversity and Comparative Theology

We live in a world where religious diversity is increasingly affecting and changing everything around us, and ourselves as well. No religious community is exempt from the pressures of diversity, or incapable of profiting from drawing on this new religious template. No community, wherever it is and however it is configured, will casually abandon its traditional commitments and practices in the face of religious diversity. If we are trying to make sense of our situation amidst diversity and likewise keep our faith, some version of comparative theological reflection is required.

While religious diversity can justly be celebrated as enormously interesting, it is also an unsettling phenomenon for people who actually are religious. Individual religious traditions are under internal and external stress as they are challenged to engage an array of religious others. Some find themselves under siege, threatened by a bewildering range of religious possibilities; some withdraw and demonize their others; some, perhaps too accommodating, begin to forget their identities. Some of us are relatively untouched by the phenomenon, but none of us avoids changing inside and out.