Description
Book SynopsisChristian theologians have for some decades affirmed that they have no monopoly on encounters with God or ultimate reality and that other religions also have access to religious truth and transformation. If that is the case, the time has come for Christians not only to learn about but also from their religious neighbors. Circling the Elephant affirms that the best way to be truly open to the mystery of the infinite is to move away from defensive postures of religious isolationism and self-sufficiency and to move, in vulnerability and openness, toward the mystery of the neighbor.
Employing the ancient Indian allegory of the elephant and blind(folded) men, John J. Thatamanil argues for the integration of three often-separated theological projects: theologies of religious diversity (the work of accounting for why there are so many different understandings of the elephant), comparative theology (the venture of walking over to a different side of the elephant), and constructi
Table of Contents
Preface: Autobiography and Comparative Theology | xi
Note on Transliteration | xix
Introduction: Revisiting an Old Tale | 1
1 Religious Difference and Christian Theology: Thinking About,
Thinking With, and Thinking Through | 21
2 The Limits and Promise of Exclusivism and Inclusivism:
Assessing Major Options in Theologies of Religious Diversity | 41
3 No One Ascends Alone: Toward a Relational Pluralism | 70
4 Comparative Theology after Religion? | 108
5 Defining the Religious: Comprehensive Qualitative Orientation | 152
6 The Hospitality of Receiving: Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther
King, Jr., and Interreligious Learning | 193
7 God as Ground, Singularity, and Relation: Trinity and Religious Diversity | 213
8 This Is Not a Conclusion | 249
Acknowledgments | 259
Notes | 263
Index | 289
