In the company of friends : exploring faith and understanding with Buddhists and Christians / John Ross Carter.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Carter, John Ross.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Christianity and other religions--Buddhism.

Christianity and other religions.

Buddhism.

Buddhism--Relations--Christianity.

Relations.

Christianity.

Physical Description:

xxxiii, 314 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, [2012]

Summary:

In this work of Buddhist-Christian reflection, John Ross Carter explores two basic aspects of human religiousness: faith and the activity of understanding. Carter's perspective is unique, putting people and their experiences at the center of inquiry into religiousness. His model and method grows out of friendship, challenging the so-called objective approach to the study of religion that privileges patterns, concepts, and abstraction.

Carter considers the traditions he knows best, the Protestant Christianity he was born into and the Theravada and Jodo Shinshu (Pure Land) traditions of the Sri Lankan and Japanese friends among whom he has lived, studied, and worked. His rich, wide-ranging accounts of religious experience include discussions of transcendence, reason, samvega, shinjin, the inconceivable, and whether lives oriented toward faith will survive in a global context with increased pressures for individualism and secularism. Ultimately, Carter proposes that the endeavor of interreligious understanding is itself a religious quest. Book jacket.

Contents:

I The Quest for Religious Understanding With Theravada, Jodo Shinshu Buddhists, and Christians

Chapter 1 On Understanding Religious Men and Women 3

Chapter 2 Truth and History in Interreligious Understanding: A Preliminary Inquiry 13

Chapter 3 Interreligious Understanding as a Religious Quest 23

II The Dynamics of Faith and Beyond: Personally and in an Ever Expanding Community

Chapter 4 Samvega and the Incipient Phase of Faith 37

Chapter 5 Shinjin: More than "Faith"? 45

Chapter 6 Celebrating Our Faith 63

Chapter 7 Colloquia in Faith 73

III Converging Affirmations from Different Perspectives

Chapter 8 "Relying Upon" or "Taking Refuge" as a Genuinely Human Activity 85

Chapter 9 Love and Compassion as Given 99

Chapter 10 Toward an Understanding of What Is Inconceivable 109

Chapter 11 The Arising of Salvific Realization as Buddhists and Christians Have Affirmed 123

Chapter 12 Relationality in Religious Awareness 135

IV Building From Our Past into Our Common Future

Chapter 13 From Controversy to Understanding: More than a Century of Progress 163

Chapter 14 Religion and the Imperatives for Development 175

Chapter 15 Getting First Things First: Some Reflections on a Response by Venerable Ananda Maitreya 181

Chapter 16 Translational Theology: An Expression of the Faith of Christians in a Religiously Plural World 187

Chapter 17 Buddhists and Baptists: In Conversation into Our Common Future 199

V The Challenge of Our Future

Chapter 18 Will There Be Faith on Earth? 217.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781438442792

1438442793

OCLC:

747385686