Encountering God
Edition: New Ed edition
Publisher: Penguin Books,India
Published: March 30, 2003
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 259
ISBN-13: 9780140255331
Subjects: Nature & existence of God; Religions of Indic & Oriental origin
Description: In the summer of 1965, as young Americans everywhere struggled to come to terms with the war in Vietnam and the crises of the civil rights        movement, Diana Eck was a college student learning Hindi in preparation for her first visit to India.

It was a trip that would change her life, bringing her into       relationships with non-Christians such as the former freedom fighter Achyut     Patwardhan and the philosopher Krishnamurti, whose insights challenged her to   examine her own Christian faith from a radically new perspective. Now in the    1990s the challenge of responding to the problem of religious difference is     virtually universal. Is only one religion true? Is there a way ahead in a world of interreligious strife?

Today most Americans have encountered religions not their own: a  neighbor practices Buddhist meditation, one's child has a Muslim classmate, or  a friend extends an invitation to a Christmas Eve service or a Passover seder.  In Encountering God, Eck reflects on the questions posed by her own ongoing     encounter with Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims. Her vivid story reminds us that  interfaith dialogue "does not usually begin with philosophy or theory, but with experience and relationships.".

Eck considers the spiritual questions that perplex each of us,    Hindu or Christian, devout or not: Who is God? How are we to pray? What are we  to believe in the face of inexplicable suffering and death? Eck insists as a    Christian that her relations with people of other faiths have helped her to     think about these questions and deepened her own faith.

Above all, Encountering God instructs us in the urgent need for   dialogue among the world's faiths as we enter the twenty-first century. Eck     believes understanding between Christians and people of other faiths is not     only possible but essential to our common future.

As we confront our growing interdependence in a global community, she argues that we must all reach beyond mere "tolerance" of other religions    toward a genuine pluralism based on respect for religious differences and       openness to mutual transformation.