Tag Archives: Progressive Christainity

Interreligious Dialogue, Shallow and Deep

Contemporary Religion, Progressive Christianity, Realistic Pointers 2015, ,

We live in a time in which dialogue with religions other than our own is almost unavoidable.  Such dialogue can be nurturing to us and can also build cooperative relations for social action among the most progressive practitioners of this wide array of very different religions.

The downside of this opportunity is what I call “religion hopping”—jumping from the most shallow portions of one of these grand religious traditions to the next, to the next, to the next, but never following any religious practice to the depths of that profound humanness that valid religions come into being to express.

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Religion and Quasi-Religion

Contemporary Religion, Progressive Christianity, Realistic Pointers 2015, ,

Success with interreligious dialogue and with interreligious mission depends upon an agreed upon definition of “religion.” We must not define “religion” in such a way that Christianity is a religion and Buddhism is not. Therefore, belief in a Person-like Supreme Being cannot be our definition of religion. Let me suggest, therefore, the following definition of religion:

Religion is a temporal, humanly-created, down-to-Earth practice that points beyond itself in expression of an ultimate devotion to that which is Ultimate.

This definition requires understanding what we mean by “Ultimate,” but first a few examples of practices that are an expression of an ultimate devotion to that which is not ultimate. Nationalism is an example of an ultimate devotion to a nation, a reality that is not ultimate. Similarly, humanism is an example of an ultimate devotion to the human, a reality that is not ultimate. Communism is an example of an ultimate devotion to a theory of economic history—again an ultimate devotion to something not ultimate. These three widespread devotions might be called quasi-religions, for what they do takes the place of religion, if religion is defined as an ultimate devotion to that which is Ultimate.

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