{"id":1376,"date":"2004-01-28T11:28:17","date_gmt":"2004-01-28T15:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2004\/01\/28\/respondin-to-the-sanskrit-boy\/"},"modified":"2004-01-28T11:28:17","modified_gmt":"2004-01-28T15:28:17","slug":"respondin-to-the-sanskrit-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2004\/01\/28\/respondin-to-the-sanskrit-boy\/","title":{"rendered":"Respondin’ to the Sanskrit Boy"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Back about a month ago, Ryan over at SanskritBoy<\/a> responded<\/a> to my Episcopal\/RC post<\/a> by talking about the religious pluralism aside, and one of his interlocutors said the following:<\/p>\n

“You can call the old-fashioned approach to religious others
\n‘exclusivism’–others will be excluded from salvation. Its opposite
\nnumber is ‘inclusivism’, which comes in two kinds. ‘Closed exclusivim’
\nholds that adherents of other religions may obtain salvation, but only
\nin spite of the imperfections of their religion, which offers no
\nimprovements to our own. (For example, Karl Rahner wrote famously of
\nthe “anonymous Christian,” a person outside the Church nonetheless
\nlived the life of a de facto Christian. Such a person might receive
\nsalvation, but not because the religion she professed had much to
\nrecommend it.) On the other hand, an ‘open inclusivism’ holds that the
\nother may have something to teach us.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What I’m holding to in my previous post is probably something more like the open inclusivism mentioned.<\/p>\n

But my religious pluralism probably regards the belief in the existence
\nof something larger as a requisite for discussion (though not for
\nexistence as a fellow religionist).  I realize that I am going to
\nhave a very hard time talking with the people Ryan mentioned:<\/p>\n

“There are some types of Buddhists whose views are so incompatible I
\njust couldn’t imagine them joining an interfaith discussion table where
\nthe common underlying link is assumed to be God. God, after all, is
\njust another schmuck- subject to eventual fall from heaven once he’s
\nused up his store of good karma, destined to be reborn as a lowly king
\nor administrator or even a peasant or (gasp, the horror!) a woman one
\nday. God probably got to where he is today by doing ascetic practices
\nfor a few aeons, and finally he attained rebirth in a really pimpin’
\nparadise. But God still doesn’t really get it- and as soon as he does
\nget it, he will have ceased to exist.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At least in terms of “God” (expansively defined) as an underlying
\nconcept, we’ll have a difficult time talking to one another.  It’s
\na prior that I can’t really get away from.  And the Buddhists that
\nRyan mentions probably can’t get away from their prior that
\n“understanding” leads to non-existence.<\/p>\n

But here’s where we might come in together, an approach I learned when
\nmy small faith community was trying to do some intra-faith dialogue a
\nfew years back.  We didn’t start with questions of belief, as
\nwould be a natural approach in Western Christianity and Western
\nsociety.  We started experientially, asking what religion and
\nfaith meant in the day to day lived experience of life.  “How does
\nliving your religion help your daily life?”  “How does your
\nreligion hinder your daily life?”  “What about your life compels
\nyou to practice your religion?”<\/p>\n

I did this with a group of Episcopalians (ranging from conservative to
\nliberal) who figured out that we found it easier to talk about faith
\nwith Jews and Buddhists than with other Christians, like Mormons,
\nevangelicals, and some of the Orthodox.  We spent more time
\ngetting to know the non-Christians than we did the Christians, and our
\nown understanding of our own faith had some holes, as a result. 
\nBut it’s always hard to get to know and get along with your family,
\noften harder than with strangers.<\/p>\n

And I think process-oriented conversation will likely be more fruitful
\nin terms of finding common ground.  In talking to a Buddhist,
\nMuslim, or another Christian, it’s probably just a dead-end to discuss
\n“belief” (especially since “belief” may not be the most fundamental
\nrequisite of the above in all cases).  But what we do <\/span>probably provides a lot more range to the conversation.<\/p>\n

I’ve heard that the above approach is one that many monks have found
\nuseful when talking to one another.  According to some reports
\nI’ve heard from interreligious monastic conversations, the monastic
\ncommitment to a life of prayer and contemplation, no matter what the
\nparticular religion, provides an entree into interfaith understanding
\nthat non-monastics have a much harder time accessing.  In other
\nwords, if you spend your days praying and contemplating, you’re already
\ndoing such a lot that’s similar that you’ve got a good place to start
\ntalking, and the discussion of differences leads not to belief but to
\nhow different groups pray and contemplate differently.<\/p>\n

And in the end, that may bring us back to the “open inclusivism”
\nabove.  When the discussion centers on action and practice and
\nprocess, the “other” may indeed have something to teach us, as the
\nprocess of another faith can find a situation in one’s own, becoming a
\nthing that’s really not the exclusive domain of one or the other but
\nsomething that’s a bit of both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back about a month ago, Ryan over at SanskritBoy responded to my Episcopal\/RC post by talking about the religious pluralism aside, and one of his interlocutors said the following: “You can call the old-fashioned approach to religious others ‘exclusivism’–others will be excluded from salvation. Its opposite number is ‘inclusivism’, which comes in two kinds. ‘Closed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rayleejun"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-mc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}