World Religions / Interfaith Dialog

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are known to privilege words over images. This book shows however that the reality is more complex. Figuration and Sensation of the Unseen explores the complex procedures used to render the invisible as visible and the elusive as tangible in these three traditions. Working from different disciplinary angles, contributors bring reflect on figuration and sensation in biblical culture, medieval Jewish culture, the imagination of the unseen in Islamic settings, Christian assaults on 'idolatry' in Africa, baroque and modern Church art, contemporary Eastern Orthodox tradition, photography on the Swahili coast, European opera and literature, and more.The book shows that the three religious traditions have formed sensorial regimes: embodied habits, traditions and standards for seeing, sensing, displaying, and figuring that which could not, or should not, be seen. So, the desire for seeing the invisible and experiencing the beyond are paradoxically confirmed, contested and controlled, by the sensorial regimes in vogue. This carries over even into secularized use of religious figurations in arts and literature. This is an important book for scholars of anthropology, religious studies, Jewish studies, Christian studies, Islamic studies, art history, cultural studies, biblical studies and archaeology.

Religion can play a dual role with regard to conflict. It can promote either violence or peace. Religion and Conflict Attribution seeks to clarify the causes of religious conflict as perceived by Christian, Muslim and Hindu college students in Tamil Nadu, India. These students in varying degrees attribute conflict to force-driven causes, namely to coercive power as a means of achieving the economic, political or socio-cultural goals of religious groups. The study reveals how force-driven religious conflict is influenced by prescriptive beliefs like religious practice and mystical experience, and descriptive beliefs such as the interpretation of religious plurality and religiocentrism. It also elaborates on the practical consequences of the salient findings for the educational process.

Humanity: Texts and Contexts is a record of the 2007 Singapore "Building Bridges" seminar, an annual dialogue between Muslim and Christian scholars cosponsored by Georgetown University and the Archbishop of Canterbury. This volume explores three central questions: What does it mean to be human? What is the significance of the diversity that is evident among human beings? And what are the challenges that humans face living within the natural world? A distinguished group of scholars focuses on the theological responses to each of these questions, drawing on the wealth of material found in both Christian and Islamic scriptures. Part one lays out the three issues of human identity, difference, and guardianship. Part two explores scriptural texts side by side, pairing Christian and Islamic scholars who examine such themes as human dignity, human alienation, human destiny, humanity and gender, humanity and diversity, and humanity and the environment. In addition to contributions from an international cast of outstanding scholars, the book includes an afterword by Archbishop Rowan Williams.

Death, Resurrection, and Human Destiny: Christian and Muslim Perspectives is a record of the 2012 Building Bridges seminar for leading Christian and Muslim scholars, convened by Rowan Williams, then Archbishop of Canterbury. The essays in this volume explore what the Bible and Qurʾān--and the Christian and Islamic theological traditions--have to say about death, resurrection, and human destiny. Special attention is given to the writings of al-Ghazali and Dante. Other essays explore the notion of the good death. Funeral practices of each tradition are explained. Relevant texts are included with commentary, as are personal reflections on death by several of the seminar participants. An account of the informal conversations at the seminar conveys a vivid sense of the lively, penetrating, but respectful dialogue which took place.

Prayer: Christian and Muslim Perspectives is a rich collection of essays, scriptural texts, and personal reflections featuring leading scholars analyzing the meaning and function of prayer within their traditions. Drawn from the 2011 Building Bridges seminar in Doha, Qatar, the essays in this volume explore the devotional practices of each tradition and how these practices are taught and learned. Relevant texts are included, with commentary, as are personal reflections on prayer by each of the seminar participants. The volume also contains a Christian reflection on Islamic prayer and a Muslim reflection on Christian prayer.

Communicating the Word is a record of the 2008 Building Bridges seminar, an annual dialogue between leading Christian and Muslim scholars convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Featuring the insights of internationally known Christian and Muslim scholars, the essays collected here focus attention on key scriptural texts but also engage with both classical and contemporary Islamic and Christian thought. Issues addressed include, among others, the different ways in which Christians and Muslims think of their scriptures as the "Word of God," the possibilities and challenges of translating scripture, and the methods--and conflicts--involved in interpreting scripture in the past and today. In his concluding reflections, Archbishop Rowan Williams draws attention to a fundamental point emerging from these fascinating contributions: "Islam and Christianity alike give a high valuation to the conviction that God speaks to us. Grasping what that does and does not mean . . . is challenging theological work."

Tradition and Modernity focuses on how Christians and Muslims connect their traditions to modernity, looking especially at understandings of history, changing patterns of authority, and approaches to freedom. The volume includes a selection of relevant texts from 19th- and 20th-century thinkers, from John Henry Newman to Tariq Ramadan, accompanied by illuminating commentaries.

Over the last few decades historians and other scholars have succeeded in identifying diverse patterns of connection linking religious communities across Asia and beyond. Yet despite the fruits of this specialist research, scholars in the subfields of Islamic and Buddhist studies have rarely engaged with each other to share investigative approaches and methods of interpretation. This volume was conceived to open up new spaces of creative interaction between scholars in both fields that will increase our understanding of the circulation and localization of religious texts, institutional models, ritual practices, and literary specialists. The book's approach is to scrutinize one major dimension of the history of religion in Southern Asia: religious orders. "Orders" (here referring to Sufi ṭarīqas and Buddhist monastic and other ritual lineages) established means by which far-flung local communities could come to be recognized and engaged as part of a broader world of co-religionists, while presenting their particular religious traditions and their human representatives as attractive and authoritative to potential new communities of devotees. Contributors to the volume direct their attention toward analogous developments mutually illuminating for both fields of study. Some explain how certain orders took shape in Southern Asia over the course of the nineteenth century, contextualizing these institutional developments in relation to local and transregional political formations, shifting literary and ritual preferences, and trade connections. Others show how the circulation of people, ideas, texts, objects, and practices across Southern Asia, a region in which both Buddhism and Islam have a long and substantial presence, brought diverse currents of internal reform and notions of ritual and lineage purity to the region. All chapters draw readers' attention to the fact that networked persons were not always strongly institutionalized and often moved through Southern Asia and developed local bases without the oversight of complex corporate organizations. Buddhist and Islamic Orders in Southern Asia brings cutting-edge research to bear on conversations about how "orders" have functioned within these two traditions to expand and sustain transregional religious networks. It will help to develop a better understanding of the complex roles played by religious networks in the history of Southern Asia.

Holy Russia, Sacred Israel examines how Russian religious thinkers, both Jewish and Christian, conceived of Judaism, Jewry and the 'Old Testament' philosophically, theologically and personally at a time when the Messianic element in Russian consciousness was being stimulated by events ranging from the pogroms of the 1880s, through two Revolutions and World Wars, to exile in Western Europe. An attempt is made to locate the boundaries between the Jewish and Christian, Russian and Western, Gnostic-pagan and Orthodox elements in Russian thought in this period. The author reflects personally on how the heritage of these thinkers - little analyzed or translated in the West - can help Orthodox (and other) Christians respond to Judaism (including 'Messianic Judaism'), Zionism, and Christian anti-Semitism today.

This volume contains scholarly essays on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and offers analysis for understanding and addressing the issue.

A majority of the world's population professes to a faith tradition of their ancestors, their country, or both. More than ever, we live in times calling for knowledge and respect for traditions of other people. Multiple speakers, panelists, and paper presenters spoke on how religions and libraries are changing the nature of interfaith dialogue through their services and activities.