1st Edition
The Routledge Handbook of Buddhist-Christian Studies
Buddhist-Christian dialogue has a long and complex history that stretches back to the first centuries of the common era. Comprising 42 international and disciplinarily diverse chapters, this volume begins by setting up a framework for examining the nature of Buddhist-Christian interreligious dialogue, discussing how research in this area has been conducted in the past and considering future theoretical directions. Subsequent chapters delve into:
- important episodes in the history of Buddhist-Christian dialogue;
- contemporary conversations such as monastic interreligious dialogue, multiple religious identity, and dual religious practice; and
- Buddhist-Christian cooperation in social justice, social engagement, pastoral care, and interreligious education settings.
The volume closes with a section devoted to comparative and constructive explorations of different speculative themes that range from the theological to the philosophical or experiential. This handbook explores how the study of Buddhist-Christian relations has been and ought to be done.
The Routledge Handbook of Buddhist-Christian Studies is essential reading for researchers and students interested in Buddhist-Christian studies, Asian religions, and interreligious relationships. It will be of interest to those in fields such as anthropology, political science, theology, and history.
Introduction
Carol Anderson and Thomas Cattoi
Part I: Theory and Method
1. The Variety of Methods in Buddhist-Christian Studies
Leo D. Lefebure
2. Buddhism and Christianity through Fractal Eyes
Perry Schmidt-Leukel
3. Buddhist-Christian Dialogue: A Proposal
Jim Fredericks
4. The Craft of Interfaith Curiosity
John P. Keenan
5. Dialogue as Contemplative Practice: Buddhist Contributions to Interreligious Dialogue
Judith Simmer-Brown
6. Serving Two Masters: Possibilities and Opportunities of Double Belonging
Paul Knitter
7. Meeting in kenosis
Joseph S. O’Leary
Part II: Historical Encounters
8. Christianity in early Tibet: Shreds of Evidence
Francis Tiso
9. Ippolito Desideri and Buddhist-Christian Dialogue
Trent Pomplun
10. From Competition to Collaboration: Four Hundred Years of Buddhist-Catholic Engagement in Vietnam, 1620-2020
Anh Q. Tran
11. The Christian-Buddhist Encounter in 17th century China
Thierry Meynard
12. Buddhist-Christian Relations in Colonial and Postcolonial Contexts: the case study of Sri Lanka
Elizabeth J Harris
13. Spiritualities separated at birth or accidentally related? The 'spiritual senses' traditions in Eastern Orthodox Hesychasm and Chan/Zen Buddhism
Brandon Gallaher
14. Poor, Yet Making Many Rich: Poverty as Virtue in the Franciscan and Theravada Buddhist monastic traditions Nicholas Alan Worssam
Part III: Contemporary Conversations
15. Monastic Interreligious Dialogue and its contribution to Buddhist-Christian encounter
Fabrice Blée
16. A Comparison of Aquinas and Dōgen’s Views on Religious/Monastic Life
Christina Atienza
17. Millennium World: Thomas Merton, Buddhism, & Monastic Futurism
Jack Lee Downey
18. Constructive Catholic Theology in the Light of a Buddhist Imagination
Roger Haight
19. Heaven and Sukhāvatī: Martin Luther and Shinran Shonin on Death and What Follows
Kristin Johnston Largen
20. Thich Nhat Hanh’s Buddhist-Christian "Practical Theological Vision" for Rebuilding Hope: Co-designing the Practice for Peaceful Communities that Restore Faith, Courage, and Love
Sandra Costen Kunz
21. The Buddhist Christian Encounter and the Challenges of Multiple Religious Belonging in Asia
Jonathan Seitz
22. Zen Buddhism and the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius: Toward Mutual Learning and Enrichment
Ruben Habito
Part III: Social engagement, pastoral care, and the challenge of interreligious education
23. Interreligious Solidarity for an Ecological Civilization: a Catholic and Humanistic Buddhist Conversation
John Becker
24. Towards a Buddhist Theory of Social Justice: Thich Nhat Hanh, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Just Society
Sallie B. King
25. Buddhist-Christian dialogue and inter-religious learning
Martin Rötting
26. Herding Cows and Sheep: Giving Guidance in Buddhist and Christian Spiritual Formation
Pamela Ayo Yetunde and John Chang-Yee Lee
27. Buddhist-Christian Dialogue in Art
Gudrun Löwner
28. African American and Womanist Buddhist Thought
Carolyn M. Jones Medine
29. A brief critical appraisal of the Buddhist Modernism Paradigm
Natalie Fisk Quli
Part IV: Constructive Reflections
30. A Tibetan epektasis? Gregory of Nyssa’s understanding of spiritual progress and the Gelug pa teaching on the four Buddha bodies
Thomas Cattoi
31. Aquinas and Dölpopa, searching for foundations
Scott Steinkerchner
32. Eckhart and Dōgen on Forgetting the Self: A Contemplative Studies Perspective
André van der Braak
33. Commensurable Saints? Buddhist-Christian Dialogue and Comparative Notions of Sanctity
Massimo Rondolino
34. The Composite Union of Natures: A Study Comparing the Structures of Hypostatic Union in Chalcedonian Christology and Dharmākara Bodhisattva in Shin-Buddhism
Yuichi Tsunoda
35. On Religious Engagement: Shinran and Heidegger’s Paul
Dennis Hirota
36. Creative Tensions in Buddhist and Christian Doctrine
Hugh Nicholson
37. The Paths of Purification: Buddhaghosa and John of the Cross
Peter Feldmeier
38. Irreversibility and Reciprocity in the Divine-Human Relationship
Yutaka Tanaka
39. "Being in Love": Religious Conversion in Bernard Lonergan and the Lotus Sutra
Hiroshi Munehiro Niwano
40. Buddhist-Christian dialogue and the Kyoto school
Martin Repp
41. The Deaths of Buddha and Jesus
J. Abraham Velez de Cea
42. Matchless on Their Way: Comparative Reflections on Christ and the Bodhisattva
S. Mark Heim
Biography
Carol S. Anderson is Professor of Religion at Kalamazoo College, U.S.A.
Thomas Cattoi is Associate Professor in Christology and Cultures at the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University and the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, U.S.A.
