In this book Paul O. Ingram adds his voice to a long list of writers seeking to relate Christian tradition to the hard realities of this post-Christian age of religious and secular pluralism. As a Lutheran, Ingram thinks grace flows over this universe like a waterfall. So he brings Christian mystical theology into a discussion of the meaning of grace. Alfred North Whitehead's philosophical vision provides a language that serves as a hermeneutical bridge by which historians of religions can interpret the teachings and practices of religious Ways other than their own without falsification, and by which theologians can appropriate history-of-religions research as a means of helping Christians advance in their own faith journeys. The purpose of the journey of faith is what Whitehead called creative transformation. The contemporary theological tradition that has most systematically and coherently followed Whitehead's lead in its reflection on non-Christian Ways is process theology,which is perhaps the only liberal or progressive theological movement now active in the twenty-first century.
Memories seldom happen in straight lines with chronological precision, but occur most often in spirals. Paul Ingram’s essays collected in Faith as Remembering were created from memories. These memories, often in unpredictable ways, pushed him to new insights about the nature of Christian faith—insights often not desired, always unexpected, and always toward new directions of theological reflection. Theologians all too often write with an unintentional, and sometimes intentional, universalism. Ingram does not intend to write this way. These essays reflect his memories and are the sources of the theological conclusions he draws as a historian of religions who now finds himself a practicing process theologian. As a process theologian, Ingram does not even argue that the conclusions drawn here will be ones he will affirm in the future. All human knowledge is incomplete, and there are always new surprises for anyone practicing the art of theological reflection. But Ingram’s hope is that the essays gathered together in Faith as Remembering will inspire readers to engage their memories as the foundation for drawing their own unique conclusions.
In Passing Over and Returning Paul O. Ingram describes his particular dialogue with the world's religions, illustrated by his experience of passing over into Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism, Judaism, and Islam, and by his return to his home as a Lutheran Christian. While religious diversity is not new, neither are the questions posed by religious diversity. What is new is that more and more people are actively engaged with the world's religions because more and more people are willing to be informed by insights found in religious traditions other than their own. This is particularly true among progressive Christians. But openness does not necessarily mean rejecting one's own tradition, even though persons sometimes convert to another tradition or combine their original religious identity with the identity of another tradition. Whether one returns to the home of one's own faith tradition after passing over, or assumes a dual religious identity, or converts to another tradition, all persons engaged in interreligious dialogue undergo processes of creative transformation.
A Christian scholar of Buddhism, Paul Ingram here develops a primordial theology that deals with the key religious issues of our times, including religious ways of knowing, the character of the Sacred, our relation with nature, and the various forms of liberation--of the self, of others, and the final liberation from death--with which all religious Ways must deal.
The radical interdependency of justice, compassion, and solidarity of community working for the common good are ideals celebrated in the religious Ways of humanity. Human beings at all times and in all places have known what is good, but for reasons too numerous to count have failed to act justly and compassionately in communal harmony with one other and with the sentient beings with whom we share life on planet Earth. Today the major justice issue confronting us is human-caused environmental destruction running amok on this planet, the only place in the universe where our species is alive. Accordingly, this book offers socially engaged dialogue between persons representing the world's religious Ways. (The natural sciences are included as a third partner.) The dialogue presented in this book is a powerful resource for confronting and stopping the causes of climate change. But we must do so before it's too late.
While process philosophers and theologians have written numerous essays on Buddhist-Christian dialogue, few have sought to expand the current Buddhist-Christian dialogue into a "trilogue" by bringing the natural sciences into the discussion as a third partner. This was the topic of Paul O. Ingram's previous book, Buddhist-Christian Dialogue in an Age of Science. The thesis of the present work is that Buddhist-Christian dialogue in all three of its forms - conceptual, social engagement, and interior - are interdependent processes of creative transformation. Ingram appropriates the categories of Whitehead's process metaphysics as a means of clarifying how dialogue is now mutually and creatively transforming both Buddhism and Christianity. Drawing also on the work of theologian John Hicks and philosopher of science Imre Lakatos, Ingram develops an understanding of Buddhist-Christian dialogue in the context of a religious pluralism that is both open and dynamic and methodologically rigorous. Wide-ranging and full of insight, The Process of Buddhist-Christian Dialogue will be invaluable to scholars and students of comparative religion.
In these increasingly divisive times, how does God intend for us to live well together in the common life? Drawing from scripture as well as writings from a variety of other faith traditions and contemporary theologians, The World is About to Turn offers a practical guide for dialogue and mutual understanding for leaders of faith organizations, schools, and member of faith communities; everyone who hopes to make a positive difference in our corporate life together. Chapters include: The Failure of the American Religious Experiment; When Justice Rolls Down: Finding the Moral Courage to Do What is Right; Love One Another: Practicing Mercy and Compassion; Walking Humbly with God: Repentance and Reconciliation as a Path to a More Civil Society; Values Matter: Discovering Common Values in Many Faith Traditions; Embracing Differences: The Gift of Religious Pluralism; and Building Bridges of Hope: Ten Ways Forward with Multicultural and Inter Religious Dialogue. Discussion questions at the end of each chapter, as well as an appendix with liturgical worship resources, make this hopeful book perfect for small group study, class usage, and congregational leadership.
Wrestling With God is concerned with conceptualizing a Christian pluralist theology of religious experience primarily in dialogue with Buddhism, but also in conversation with Confucian, Daoist, Hindu, Jewish, and Islamic traditions as well as dialogue with the natural sciences. It is through such dialogue as a form of theological reflection that Christians can hope for the emergence of new forms of faith and practice that are relevant to the complexities of contemporary life. The author's style and openness make this accessible to the general reader as well as the scholar.
Pentecost celebrates the countless expressions of God’s love and wisdom. Like a skilled dancer, God’s Holy Spirit moves through all creation, bringing forth life and love and inspiration. Fire and wind are everywhere. Inspiration and revelation are just a moment away and can come either by surprise or as a result of the interplay between God’s wisdom and our intentional spiritual practices. The spirit blows where it wills, in all directions, embracing all life, human and nonhuman. In other words, Pentecost is about God’s omnipresence, which Ingram interprets through the categories of Whiteheadian process theology, as God’s ever-present “initial aim” that all things and events at every moment of space-time achieve the maximum self-fulfillment of which they are capable. Intentionally conforming our “subjective” aims for our own fulfillment with God’s initial aim for us, as the historical Jesus did, is the call of Pentecost. Omnipresence is an all-or-nothing deal. God can’t be a little omnipresent. Either God is present in, with, and under every thing and event since the beginning of creation—what theologians and philosophers call panentheism—or omnipresence makes no sense.
Raven Games is a novel focused on four characters: (1) David Elwin, who studies Grizzly bear populations in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and Canada and who is drawn into the world of Haida spirituality by (2) Jamie Bear Mother’s Daughter and (3) her Grandfather, Born of Songs, who is a Haida shaman, and (4) Jonathan Blue Heron, who is trying to escape from being a Haida by transforming himself into a white man. David Elwin and Jonathan become friends during the Vietnam War. David Elwin is drawn into the Haida world as a replacement for Jonathan Blue Heron by gradually embodying both the Haida worldview and a white culture’s worldview.
The interdependence of boundary questions and the experience of cognitive dissonance reveal that knowledge in all fields of inquiry is always incomplete and tentative. The issues are particularly acute for Christian theological reflection. Ingram illustrates the importance of boundary questions and cognitive dissonance as a means of creatively transforming contemporary Christian theological reflection through dialogue with the natural sciences and the world's religions, particularly Buddhism, filtered through the lenses of Whiteheadian process philosophy.
Glimpses of God: And Other Essays is a collection of theological reflections on seventeen interrelated subjects written by a historian of religion inspired by the work of Alfred North Whitehead and the process theological vision of John B. Cobb Jr. Each essay has its own distinctive topic while being interdependent with the other seventeen essays.
Wrestling With God' is concerned with conceptualizing a Christian pluralist theology of religious experience primarily in dialogue with Buddhism, but also in conversation with Confucian, Daoist, Hindu, Jewish, and Islamic traditions as well as dialogue with the natural sciences. It is through such dialogue as a form of theological reflection that Christians can hope for the emergence of new forms of faith and practice that are relevant to the complexities of contemporary life. The author's style and openness make this accessible to the general reader as well as the scholar.
In this book Paul O. Ingram adds his voice to a long list of writers seeking to relate Christian tradition to the hard realities of this post-Christian age of religious and secular pluralism. As a Lutheran, Ingram thinks grace flows over this universe like a waterfall. So he brings Christian mystical theology into a discussion of the meaning of grace. Alfred North Whitehead's philosophical vision provides a language that serves as a hermeneutical bridge by which historians of religions can interpret the teachings and practices of religious Ways other than their own without falsification, and by which theologians can appropriate history-of-religions research as a means of helping Christians advance in their own faith journeys. The purpose of the journey of faith is what Whitehead called creative transformation. The contemporary theological tradition that has most systematically and coherently followed Whitehead's lead in its reflection on non-Christian Ways is process theology,which is perhaps the only liberal or progressive theological movement now active in the twenty-first century.
Raven Games is a novel focused on four characters: (1) David Elwin, who studies Grizzly bear populations in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and Canada and who is drawn into the world of Haida spirituality by (2) Jamie Bear Mother’s Daughter and (3) her Grandfather, Born of Songs, who is a Haida shaman, and (4) Jonathan Blue Heron, who is trying to escape from being a Haida by transforming himself into a white man. David Elwin and Jonathan become friends during the Vietnam War. David Elwin is drawn into the Haida world as a replacement for Jonathan Blue Heron by gradually embodying both the Haida worldview and a white culture’s worldview.
The interdependence of boundary questions and the experience of cognitive dissonance reveal that knowledge in all fields of inquiry is always incomplete and tentative. The issues are particularly acute for Christian theological reflection. Ingram illustrates the importance of boundary questions and cognitive dissonance as a means of creatively transforming contemporary Christian theological reflection through dialogue with the natural sciences and the world's religions, particularly Buddhism, filtered through the lenses of Whiteheadian process philosophy.
In these increasingly divisive times, how does God intend for us to live well together in the common life? Drawing from scripture as well as writings from a variety of other faith traditions and contemporary theologians, The World is About to Turn offers a practical guide for dialogue and mutual understanding for leaders of faith organizations, schools, and member of faith communities; everyone who hopes to make a positive difference in our corporate life together. Chapters include: The Failure of the American Religious Experiment; When Justice Rolls Down: Finding the Moral Courage to Do What is Right; Love One Another: Practicing Mercy and Compassion; Walking Humbly with God: Repentance and Reconciliation as a Path to a More Civil Society; Values Matter: Discovering Common Values in Many Faith Traditions; Embracing Differences: The Gift of Religious Pluralism; and Building Bridges of Hope: Ten Ways Forward with Multicultural and Inter Religious Dialogue. Discussion questions at the end of each chapter, as well as an appendix with liturgical worship resources, make this hopeful book perfect for small group study, class usage, and congregational leadership.
While process philosophers and theologians have written numerous essays on Buddhist-Christian dialogue, few have sought to expand the current Buddhist-Christian dialogue into a "trilogue" by bringing the natural sciences into the discussion as a third partner. This was the topic of Paul O. Ingram's previous book, Buddhist-Christian Dialogue in an Age of Science. The thesis of the present work is that Buddhist-Christian dialogue in all three of its forms - conceptual, social engagement, and interior - are interdependent processes of creative transformation. Ingram appropriates the categories of Whitehead's process metaphysics as a means of clarifying how dialogue is now mutually and creatively transforming both Buddhism and Christianity. Drawing also on the work of theologian John Hicks and philosopher of science Imre Lakatos, Ingram develops an understanding of Buddhist-Christian dialogue in the context of a religious pluralism that is both open and dynamic and methodologically rigorous. Wide-ranging and full of insight, The Process of Buddhist-Christian Dialogue will be invaluable to scholars and students of comparative religion.
Memories seldom happen in straight lines with chronological precision, but occur most often in spirals. Paul Ingram’s essays collected in Faith as Remembering were created from memories. These memories, often in unpredictable ways, pushed him to new insights about the nature of Christian faith—insights often not desired, always unexpected, and always toward new directions of theological reflection. Theologians all too often write with an unintentional, and sometimes intentional, universalism. Ingram does not intend to write this way. These essays reflect his memories and are the sources of the theological conclusions he draws as a historian of religions who now finds himself a practicing process theologian. As a process theologian, Ingram does not even argue that the conclusions drawn here will be ones he will affirm in the future. All human knowledge is incomplete, and there are always new surprises for anyone practicing the art of theological reflection. But Ingram’s hope is that the essays gathered together in Faith as Remembering will inspire readers to engage their memories as the foundation for drawing their own unique conclusions.
Martin Luther and Buddhism: Aesthetics of Suffering carefully traces the historical and theological context of Luther's breakthrough in terms of articulating justification and justice in connection to the Word of God and divine suffering. Chung critically and constructively engages in dialogue with Luther and with later interpreters of Luther such as Barth and Moltmann, placing the Reformer in dialogue not only with Asian spirituality and religions but also with an emerging global theology of religions.
In the past, while visiting the First World War battlefields, the author often wondered where the various Victoria Cross actions took place. He resolved to find out. In 1988, in the midst of his army career, research for this book commenced and over the years numerous sources have been consulted. Victoria Crosses on the Western Front: Second Battle of Bapaume is designed for the battlefield visitor as much as the armchair reader. A thorough account of each VC action is set within the wider strategic and tactical context. Detailed sketch maps show the area today, together with the battle-lines and movements of the combatants. It will allow visitors to stand upon the spot, or very close to, where each VC was won. Photographs of the battle sites richly illustrate the accounts. There is also a comprehensive biography for each recipient, covering every aspect of their lives warts and all: parents and siblings, education, civilian employment, military career, wife and children, death and burial/commemoration. A host of other information, much of it published for the first time, reveals some fascinating characters, with numerous links to many famous people and events.
The radical interdependency of justice, compassion, and solidarity of community working for the common good are ideals celebrated in the religious Ways of humanity. Human beings at all times and in all places have known what is good, but for reasons too numerous to count have failed to act justly and compassionately in communal harmony with one other and with the sentient beings with whom we share life on planet Earth. Today the major justice issue confronting us is human-caused environmental destruction running amok on this planet, the only place in the universe where our species is alive. Accordingly, this book offers socially engaged dialogue between persons representing the world's religious Ways. (The natural sciences are included as a third partner.) The dialogue presented in this book is a powerful resource for confronting and stopping the causes of climate change. But we must do so before it's too late.
A Christian scholar of Buddhism, Paul Ingram here develops a primordial theology that deals with the key religious issues of our times, including religious ways of knowing, the character of the Sacred, our relation with nature, and the various forms of liberation--of the self, of others, and the final liberation from death--with which all religious Ways must deal.
The International Library of Politics and Comparative Government is an essential reference series which compiles the most significant journal articles in comparative politics over the past 30 years. It makes readily accessible to teachers, researchers and students, an extensive range of essays which, together, provide an indispensable basis for understanding both the established conceptual terrain and the new ground being broken in the rapidly changing field of comparative political analysis. These two volumes include articles which examine the system, the structure, the function and the future of the United Nations.
An honest, unflinching tale of re-finding one's faith, from one of the world's most famous theologians Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian narrates how esteemed theologian, Paul F. Knitter overcame a crisis of faith by looking to Buddhism for inspiration. From prayer to how Christianity views life after death, Knitter argues that a Buddhist standpoint can encourage a more person-centred conception of Christianity, where individual religious experience comes first, and liturgy and tradition second. Moving and revolutionary, this book will inspire Christians everywhere.
Religion is the most fundamental, comprehensive of all human activities. it tries to make sense out of not simply one or another aspect of human life, but of all aspects of human experience. At the core of every civilization lies its religion, which both reflects and shapes it. Thus, if we wish to understand human life in general and our specific culture and history, we need to understand religion. What is religion? Religion is an explanation of the ultimate meaning of life, and how to live accordingly; based on a notion of the Transcendent. Normally it contains the four "C's": Creed, Code, Cult, Community-structure. CREED refers To The cognitive aspect of a religion; it is everything that goes into the "explanation" of the ultimate meaning of life. CODE OF BEHAVIOR, or ethics, includes all the rules and customs of action that somehow follow from one aspect or another of the Creed. CULT means all the ritual activities that relate the follower to one aspect or another of the Transcendent, either directly or indirectly, prayer being an example of the former and certain formal behavior toward representatives of the Transcendent, such as priests, of the latter. COMMUNITY-STRUCTURE refers To The relationships among the followers; this can vary widely, from a very egalitarian relationship, As among Quakers, through a "republican" structure as Presbyterians have, To a monarchical one, As with some Hasidic Jews have with their Rebbe. THE TRANSCENDENT, As the roots of the word indicate, means "that which goes beyond" the everyday, The ordinary, The surface experience of reality. it can mean spirits, gods, a Personal God, An Impersonal God, Emptiness, etc. This volume looks at the ways we humans have developed to study religion. However, a new age in human consciousness is now dawning: The Age of Global Dialogue, a radically new consciousness which fundamentally shifts the ways we understand everything in life, including religion. This global dialogical way of understanding life does not lead to one global religion, but it does lead toward a consciously acknowledged common set of ethical principles, a Global Ethic. The book looks at these two movements—the Age of Global Dialogue and inchoative Global Ethic—in order to help readers understand what is going on around them, So they might make informed, intelligent decisions about the meaning of life and how to live it. Author note:Leonard Swidleris Professor of Religion at Temple University.Paul Mojzesis Academic Dean and Professor of Religious Studies at Rosemount College.
Subversive Spirituality links the practice and study of Christian spirituality with Christian mission. It develops a twofold thesis: grace, spiritual disciplines, and mission practices are inseparably linked in the mission of Jesus, of the early church, and of several historical renewal movements, as well as in a contemporary field research sample; and amidst the collapse of space and time evidenced by our culture's increasingly hurried pace of life, more time and space are needed for regular solitary and communal spiritual practices in church, mission, and leadership structures if Christian mission is to transform people and culture in our time. This requires a subversion of the collapsed spatial and temporal codes that have infected our Christian institutions. Jensen employs methods and approaches from a variety of academic disciplines to explore both spirituality in terms of space and time and mission in terms of deed and word. Specifically, Jensen examines the spirituality and mission of Jesus, the early church, the apostolic fathers, Origen, the Devotio Moderna, the early Jesuits, David Brainerd, and several women in 19th century Protestant missions. He considers the spirituality and mission that have arisen within the postmodern generations born after 1960. Based on the theological, historical, cultural, and field analyses of this study, a model for spirituality and mission is proposed. The model addresses the contemporary collapse of space and time and appears to have widespread applicability to diverse cultures and eras. Jensen's model is applied to the pluralistic and postmodern milieu of North America with recommendations for spirituality and mission in church, mission, and educational structures. A derivative model for teaching and practicing spirituality and mission in the academy, which also has application for non-formal leadership development structures, is also proposed.
The notion of 'view' or 'opinion' (ditthi) as an obstacle to 'seeing things as they are' is a central concept in Buddhist thought. Through its argument this book makes a valuable addition to the study of Buddhist philosophy.
Offers essays and dialogues by well-known Buddhist and Christian scholars on topics that were of primary interest to Frederick J. Streng, in whose honour the volume was created. Topics include interreligious dialogue, ultimate reality, nature and ecology, social and political issues of liberation, and ultimate transformation or liberation.
In Passing Over and Returning Paul O. Ingram describes his particular dialogue with the world's religions, illustrated by his experience of passing over into Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism, Judaism, and Islam, and by his return to his home as a Lutheran Christian. While religious diversity is not new, neither are the questions posed by religious diversity. What is new is that more and more people are actively engaged with the world's religions because more and more people are willing to be informed by insights found in religious traditions other than their own. This is particularly true among progressive Christians. But openness does not necessarily mean rejecting one's own tradition, even though persons sometimes convert to another tradition or combine their original religious identity with the identity of another tradition. Whether one returns to the home of one's own faith tradition after passing over, or assumes a dual religious identity, or converts to another tradition, all persons engaged in interreligious dialogue undergo processes of creative transformation.
Glimpses of God: And Other Essays is a collection of theological reflections on seventeen interrelated subjects written by a historian of religion inspired by the work of Alfred North Whitehead and the process theological vision of John B. Cobb Jr. Each essay has its own distinctive topic while being interdependent with the other seventeen essays.
Pentecost celebrates the countless expressions of God’s love and wisdom. Like a skilled dancer, God’s Holy Spirit moves through all creation, bringing forth life and love and inspiration. Fire and wind are everywhere. Inspiration and revelation are just a moment away and can come either by surprise or as a result of the interplay between God’s wisdom and our intentional spiritual practices. The spirit blows where it wills, in all directions, embracing all life, human and nonhuman. In other words, Pentecost is about God’s omnipresence, which Ingram interprets through the categories of Whiteheadian process theology, as God’s ever-present “initial aim” that all things and events at every moment of space-time achieve the maximum self-fulfillment of which they are capable. Intentionally conforming our “subjective” aims for our own fulfillment with God’s initial aim for us, as the historical Jesus did, is the call of Pentecost. Omnipresence is an all-or-nothing deal. God can’t be a little omnipresent. Either God is present in, with, and under every thing and event since the beginning of creation—what theologians and philosophers call panentheism—or omnipresence makes no sense.
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