scholarly journals Interfaith Chaplaincy as Interpretive Hospitality

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Youngblood
Keyword(s):  
Spiritual Care ◽  
The Other ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Hospital Chaplaincy

Hospital chaplaincy must reconcile competing epistemologies of health and salvation (Christian, clinical, holistic, etc.), but when done in interfaith situations this task becomes more difficult. As current models of spiritual care are insufficient, this paper proposes a paradigm based on Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of translation, as adapted for comparative theology by Marianne Moyaert. In particular, it looks at his idea of linguistic hospitality as a way to structure relations, spiritual assessments, and pastoral interventions in interfaith chaplaincy without reducing the unique strangeness of “the Other”. Furthermore, a practical, performative (ritual) hospitality can overcome the epistemological and soteriological obstacles that have frustrated systematic theologies of religion.

scholarly journals Comparative Theology and Scriptural Reasoning: A Muslim’s Approach to Interreligious Learning

Religions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 297
Author(s):  
Betül Avcı
Keyword(s):  
Interreligious Dialogue ◽  
The Other ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Transformative Power ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Learning Practices ◽  
Depth Study ◽  
Scriptural Reasoning ◽  
Transformative Journeys ◽  
Initial Results

In this paper, I examine Comparative Theology (CT) and Scriptural Reasoning (SR), two distinctive interreligious learning practices, in relation to each other. I propose that these practices, with respect to their dialogical features and transformative power, represent two of the most noteworthy current modes of interreligious dialogue. They achieve this by their ability to explicitly understand the “other.” This is also because they serve not only as tools in service of understanding in academic circles, but also as existentially/spiritually transformative journeys in the exotic/familiar land of the “other.” In respect to religious particularity and (un)translatability, I argue that both CT and SR have certain liberal and postliberal features, as neither of them yields to such standard taxonomies. Finally, I deal with Muslim engagement with CT and SR and present some initial results of my current comparative questioning/learning project. Consequently, I plan for this descriptive work to stand as a preliminary to, first, an SR session that focuses on some Qur’anic verses and biblical accounts with a probable progressivist view of history and, second, an in-depth study of the Islamic tradition in that light.

How to Do Comparative Theology

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Spiritual But Not Religious ◽  
Younger Generation

How To Do Comparative Theology contributes to the maturation of method in the field of comparative theological studies, learning across religious borders, by bringing together essays drawing on different Christian traditions of learning, Judaism and Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, the wisdom of senior scholars, and also insights from a younger generation of scholars who have studied theology and religion in new ways, and are more attuned to the language of the “spiritual but not religious.” The essays in this volume show great diversity in method, and also—over and again and from many angles—coherence in intent, a commitment to one learning from the other, and a confidence that one’s home tradition benefits from fair and unhampered learning from other and very different spiritual and religious traditions. It therefore shows the diversity and coherence of comparative theology as an emerging discipline today.

The Alimentary Forms of Religious Life

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 21-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Malara
Keyword(s):  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Spiritual Care ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Anthropology Of Religion ◽  
Technologies Of The Self ◽  
Ethiopian Orthodox

Focusing on the practice of fasting, this article traces the ethical efforts and conundrums of Ethiopian Orthodox Christians who take their religion seriously, but do not necessarily see themselves as disciplined believers. I argue that the flexibility and lenience of the Orthodox system allow for morally ambivalent disciplinary projects that, in order to preserve their efficacy, must be sustained by an array of intimate relationships with more pious individuals who are fasting for others or on others’ behalf. By examining this relational economy of spiritual care, its temporalities and divisions of labor, I ask whether recent preoccupations with ‘technologies of the self’ in the anthropology of religion might have overlooked the relevance of ‘technologies of the other’.

scholarly journals Interreligious Dialogue, Comparative Theology and the Alterity of Hindu Thought

2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ankur Barua
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Interreligious Dialogue ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
British India ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Crucial Difference ◽  
The One

A key question at the heart of contemporary debates over interreligious dialogue is whether the Christian partner in such conversations should view her interlocutors through the lens of Christian descriptions or whether any such imaging amounts to a form of Christian imperialism. We look at the responses to this question from certain contemporary forms of ‘particularism’ which regard religious universes as densely knit, and sometimes incommensurable, systems of meanings, so that they usually deny the significance, or even the possibility, of modes of bible preaching such as apologetics. While these concerns over the alterity of other religious traditions are often viewed as specifically postmodern, two Scotsmen in British India, J. N. Farquhar (1861–1929) and A. G. Hogg (1875–1954), struggled exactly a hundred years ago with a version of this question vis-à-vis the religious universe of Vedāntic Hinduism and responded to it in a manner that has striking resemblances to ‘particularism’. We shall argue that Hogg can be seen as an early practitioner of a form of ‘comparative theology’ which emerges in his case, on the one hand, through a textual engagement with specific problems thrown up in interreligious spaces but, on the other hand, also seeks to present a reasoned defence of Christian doctrinal statements. We shall note a crucial difference between his comparative theological encounters and contemporary practitioners of the same – while the latter are usually wary of speaking of any ‘common ground’ in interreligious encounters, Hogg regarded the presuppositions of the Christian faith as the basis of such encounters. The writings of both groups of theologians are structured by certain ‘dilemmas of difference’ that we explore.

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