"In The Intercultural Challenge of Raimon Panikkar, sixteen men and women steeped in the multi-layered, multi-cultural texture of Panikkar's unique gifts are gathered to consider his profound contributions to philosophy of religions and interreligious dialogue. Born in Spain of a Spanish mother and Indian father, Panikkar is a Catholic priest who considers himself a practicing Hindu and a secularist as well as a Catholic. Professor Emeritus of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Panikkar holds doctorates in chemistry, philosophy, and theology and has given lectures worldwide, including the prestigious Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh (soon to be published by Orbis as The Rhythm of Being.) Panikkar's many books include The Unknown Christ of Hinduism, The Silence of God: The Answer of the Buddha, and The Cosmotheandric Experience."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Raimon Panikkar: A Companion to his Life and Thought is a guide to the life, work and thought of Raimon Panikkar, a self-professed Buddhist-Christian-Hindu philosopher and theologian. A man of deep and wide learning and an extremely prolific author, Panikkar is equally at home in various religious and cultural traditions and embodies in himself the ideals of intercultural, intrareligious, and interreligious dialogues. This book explicates Panikkar's basic vision of life as the harmonious rhythm of divinity, humanity, and the cosmos, which he terms cosmotheandrism, and shows how it permeates and illumines his articulations of the central Christian doctrines. Given the complexity and difficulty of Panikkar's thought this book is a welcome companion for a course on Panikkar and for a general reader who wishes to understand one of the most profound and orginal thinkers of our time.

This study gives a detailed analysis of the theology of religions of Raimon Panikkar (b. 1918), a Catalan-born Hindu-Christian. His radical pluralism is found to be based on his idiosyncratic "cosmotheandrism," and even to show signs of inclusivism.

In contrast to the popular notion that the doctrine of the Trinity hinders Christians from engaging with the reality of religious diversity, this book argues that the doctrine is the best way of constructing contemporary theology of religions. An Imaginative Glimpse reexamines three prominent Trinitarian theologians of religions (Raimundo Panikkar, Gavin D'Costa, and S. Mark Heim) and proposes a fresh and creative model by bringing the classical idea of perichoresis to its present-day multifaith situation. Opening a new alternative in both Trinitarian theology and theology of religions, Adiprasetya's approach adds a distinctive contribution to the ongoing and challenging discussion in both fields. By using perichoresis imaginatively as a multidimensional category for multiple religious participations within the Trinity, Adiprasetya argues that the model is able to respect all religions on their own terms, while at the same time being faithful to the Christian standpoint.

As Hans Kung said, No peace among the nations without peace among the religions. No peace among the religions without dialogue between the religions. No dialogue between the religions without investigation of the foundations of the religions. Accommodation and Acceptance is a crucial work in both promoting interreligious dialogue and exploring the turbulent history of Christian faith and identity in Asia down the years. From the reaction to missions, often inextricably linked with the practice of colonialism, to the rise of religious pluralism, Ambrose Mong examines the relationships between the leading faiths of Asia up to the present day.Whether practicing pluralism or exclusivism, the history of Christianity in Asia is long and fascinating. AmbroseMong delves into the biography of intercultural pioneers like Matteo Ricci and Timothy Richard to understand better the theology - as well as the pragmatism - behind cultural accommodation, and the necessary mutability of an eternal church.

Finding Salvation in Christ brings together some of the most important figures in contemporary theology to honor the work of William Loewe, systematic theologian and specialist in the theology of Bernard Lonergan, SJ. For over three decades Loewe's writings have sought to make classic christological and soteriological doctrines comprehensible to a Catholic Church that is working to integrate individual subjectivity, communal living, and historical consciousness in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Essays included in this volume assess Loewe's reinterpretation of patristic and medieval Christology from Irenaeus to Anselm of Canterbury, and explain the significance of the theology of Lonergan and Loewe for the fields of soteriology, economics, family life, and interreligious theology. While some recent postliberal theologies have polarized the church's relationship with contemporary culture by minimizing similarities between Christianity and other worldviews, the contributors in this volume continue Lonergan's project of integrating the findings of various intellectual disciplines with Christian theology, and use Loewe's historical and systematic work as a guide in that endeavor. While Lonergan's "transcendental Thomism" has been criticized by both traditionalists and revisionists, essays in this collection apply Loewe's theological methodology in a variety of ways to demonstrate that time-honored doctrines about Christ can be transplanted into new cultural contexts and gain intelligibility and credibility in this process. Having lived and labored through the far-reaching changes in Catholic thought introduced in recent decades, Loewe's career provides a model for theologians attempting to build bridges between the past and the present, and between the church and the world.

Muthuraj Swamy provides a fresh perspective on the world religions paradigm and 'interreligious dialogue'. By challenging the assumption that 'world religions' operate as essential entities separate from the lived experiences of practitioners, he shows that interreligious dialogue is in turn problematic as it is built on this very paradigm, and on the myth of religious conflict. Offering a critique of the idea of 'dialogue' as it has been advanced by its proponents such as religious leaders and theologians whose aims are to promote inter-religious conversation and understanding, the author argues that this approach is 'elitist' and that in reality, people do not make sharp distinctions between religions, nor do they separate political, economic, social and cultural beliefs and practices from their religious traditions. Case studies from villages in southern India explore how Hindu, Muslim and Christian communities interact in numerous ways that break the neat categories often used to describe each religion. Swamy argues that those who promote dialogue are ostensibly attempting to overcome the separate identities of religious practitioners through understanding, but in fact, they re-enforce them by encouraging a false sense of separation. The Problem with Interreligious Dialogue: Plurality, Conflict and Elitism in Hindu-Christian-Muslim Relations provides an innovative approach to a central issue confronting Religious Studies, combining both theory and ethnography.

Today, many of us live under the impact of cultural pressures urging us to adopt an independent, me-first (or us-first) orientation towards life. "Born into Unity: Embracing Our Common Spirituality" urges us to do the opposite. This collection of essays encourages readers to acknowledge our fundamental togetherness—our interdependence—and reflect on its implications for everyday life. It reminds us that we are always co-creators rather than solitary makers of our experiences. And because our basic personal attributes and experiences are universal, it speaks about spirituality in a way that looks beyond the boundaries of specific religions. In the light of our common spirituality, "Born into Unity" points to the obvious but often overlooked insight that we participate most fully and creatively in the growth and development of both ourselves and our world by embracing the unity into which we have been born.

A groundbreaking and hopeful new look at contemporary spirituality, transpersonal psychology, integral education, and religious diversity and pluralism. Participation and the Mystery is both an introduction to and expansion of Jorge N. Ferrer’s groundbreaking work on participatory spirituality, which holds that human beings are active cocreators of spiritual phenomena, worlds, and even ultimates. After examining the impact of his work since the publication of Revisioning Transpersonal Theory, Ferrer discusses the relationship between science and transpersonal psychology, the nature of a fully embodied spirituality, and the features of integral spiritual practice. The book also introduces a participatory philosophy of education and applies it to the academic teaching of mysticism and a novel approach to embodied spiritual inquiry. Critically engaging the influential work of Stanislav Grof, Ken Wilber, and A. H. Almaas, Ferrer concludes with an original solution to the problem of religious pluralism that affirms the ontological richness of religious worlds while avoiding the extremes of perennialism and contextualism, offering a hopeful vision for the future of world religion. Participation and the Mystery is an invaluable resource to anyone seeking to deepen their understanding of participatory approaches to transpersonal psychology, integral and contemplative education, contemporary spirituality, and religious studies. “In Participation and the Mystery, we are given the opportunity to dive into the engaging, provocative, and stunningly erudite thought of Jorge N. Ferrer, arguably one of the premier transpersonal theorists of our time. Building on the key essays written after the publication of his seminal work, Revisioning Transpersonal Theory, Ferrer shows us how his compelling and extremely fertile participatory model can be applied, with intriguing and rewarding results, to multiple, highly distinct fields of discourse. Read this book if you want your worldview to be both challenged and enriched.” — G. William Barnard, author of Living Consciousness: The Metaphysical Vision of Henri Bergson “Ferrer is a leading figure in transpersonal psychology. His participatory perspective explains both the deep commonalities and the creative diversity of spiritual traditions. It provides a way to understand the general phenomenon of spirituality without falling prey to ideological dogmatism or the tendency to privilege one’s own spiritual tradition or practice over others. Ferrer’s work deserves to be widely read.” — Michael Washburn, author of Transpersonal Psychology in Psychoanalytic Perspective “This is an important collection of essays from one of the leading contemporary thinkers in transpersonal studies. Ferrer’s participatory approach represents the most significant development in transpersonal theory and practice to have emerged this century, and this book is the ideal introduction to Ferrer’s work. It will become required reading for all students of transpersonal psychology, as well as for anyone seeking to deepen their understanding of transformational practice, transpersonal education, spirituality, and religion.” — Michael Daniels, author of Shadow, Self, Spirit: Essays in Transpersonal Psychology “Rich and thought-provoking, this book ranges widely through Ferrer’s reflections on the participatory worldview in relation to psychology, education, and religion.” — Andrew O. Fort, Texas Christian University