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Fruitful relationships and constructive interaction between religions have become more important than ever. But what about the issues of truth and conflicting truth claims? Is it a betrayal of one's own faith to acknowledge the truth of other religions? The current work is the first English translation of "Gott ohne Grenzen", published in 2005. In this much acclaimed study, Perry Schmidt-Leukel defends religious pluralism showing under which presuppositions Christians can accept other religions as equally valid without denying their differences. He discusses in detail how the pluralist position opens up new perspectives in Christianity's dialogue with Jews, Muslim, Hindus and Buddhists. Schm...
This collection of essays by major scholars analyze the religious diversity in Chinese religion, bringing together topics from traditional and contemporary contexts and Chinese religions' encounters with Western religion.
Perry Schmidt-Leukel has made significant contributions to the academic study of religion and religious diversity through his innovative work in Theology and Religious Studies. In his publications, he has not only overcome apologetic barriers between Buddhism and Christianity and demonstrated the potential for mutual enrichment of various religious traditions in dialogue, but also championed a pluralist Theology of Religions. On this pluralist basis, Schmidt-Leukel has developed the vision of a theology beyond boundaries, which takes the form of interreligious discourse and draws on the rich resources and insights of the global history of religions. This Festschrift in honor of Perry Schmidt...
Is the world created by a divine creator? Or is it the constant product of karmic forces? Exploring the aspects of Buddhist objections against the idea of a divine creator and Christian possibilities to meet the Buddhist critique, this work asks for the potential truth on both sides and suggests a surprising way of overcoming the barrier.
A number of people experience their own spiritual lives as being inspired by more than one religious tradition. This title looks at a number of issues involved: what it means theologically to move beyond tolerance towards a genuine appreciation of other religions, and how multi-religious identity can be assessed theologically.
The Bodhicaryavatara ("Entering the Course towards Awakening") is an Indian Mahayana Buddhist companion to the path of a Bodhisattva, someone motivated by the altruistic "spirit of awakening". Unlike many other Buddhist scriptures, much of this text is written in the very touching form of personal reflections. Despite its late composition (7th-8th cent. CE), the Bodhicaryavatara quickly gained widespread recognition and high appraisal in various parts of the Buddhist world and even beyond. Today it is one of the most widely translated Buddhist texts. The 14th Dalai Lama has emphasized the special impact of this scripture on his own spirituality, and a number of Western scholars have praised it as a true gem among the world's religious classics. After many commentaries by Buddhist scholars throughout the centuries, this is the first commentary from a Christian perspective, exploring the deep resonances between the "spirit of awakening" and the "spirit of Christ".
As an expansion of his earlier Gifford Lecture, Schmidt-Leuke argues that interreligious theology as a discipline carries the promise of being the theology of the future even though severe barriers to religious pluralism exist within each major faith tradition. He shows nevertheless that possibilities for a pluralist understanding exist in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Chinese religions.
In Theology of Religions Graham Adams maps and analyses the field of ‘theology of religions’ (ToR) and its various typologies, examining the assumptions in how religion is assessed. The purpose is to identify how contributions to ToR select and deselect material and trajectories, editing according to presuppositions and interests. Adams’ analysis consciously relies on Andrew Shanks’ Hegelian notion of ‘truth-as-openness’ (divine hospitality) as it illuminates three dynamics, or ‘scandals’, within ToR. The first, concerned with how a religion’s particularity or identity is constructed, is subdivided between ‘particularity transcended’ and ‘particularity re-centred’, along the lines of Jenny Daggers’ postcolonial insights. The second concerns the interactions when one religion engages an Other’s strangeness, and the third is concerned with how religions aim to transform socio-political systems that feign or obstruct universality, so as to effect ever greater solidarity. The text notes key trends, beyond Christianity and including deepening interdisciplinarity, and potential developments from a critical but constructive standpoint.
Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, sacramental theology has evolved as a discipline advancing comprehensive theories of sacraments and sacramentality as integral to the Christian faith while also studying the history and theology of the particular rites. Now, in the twenty-first century, the need for attention to the actual performance and specific social settings of sacramental worship has become well established. This makes the work of sacramental theology necessarily engaged with multiple, cross-disciplinary theories attentive to particular contexts, whether local, national, or global. Still, the divine human encounter at the heart of Christian symbol and ritual likewise...