Meeting of Religions and the Trinity
Publisher: T. & T. Clark Publishers
Published: June 2000
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 192
ISBN-13: 9780567087300
Subjects: Spirituality; Christian Theology - General; Comparative Religion; Pluralism; Religion - World Religions
First sentence: In this chapter I want to analyze two influential "pluralist" Christian theologians who suggest overlapping strategies for engaging with other religions.
Description: "One of the most discussed topics of our time is Christianity's relation to other religions. In this important new book, one of Britain's leading contemporary theologians develops a sharp and penetrating critique of the pluralist position. In the tradition of Alasdair MacIntyre and John Milbank, D'Costa shows that too often it masks a secularizing agenda, traceable to the worst apects of Enlightenment modernity. Even by its own criteria, pluralism does not succeed. D'Costa demonstrates this by exploring the 'meeting of the religions' in its leading exponents from Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism. He discovers the influence of Western modernist thought or else a veiled exclusivism not only in Hick, Knitter, Cohn-Sherbok and Panikkar, but even in Radhakrishnan and the Dalai Lama. He then goes on to establish an alternative Trinitarian approach to interreligious prayer and tolerance, drawing on recent discussions of other religions as 'vehicles of salvation'. The final section of the book represents the first major systematic theological study of interfaith prayer."--Bloomsbury Publishing

One of the most discussed topics of our time is Christianity's relation to other religions. In this important new book, one of Britain's leading contemporary theologians develops a sharp and penetrating critique of the pluralist position. In the tradition of Alasdair MacIntyre and John Milbank, D'Costa shows that too often it masks a secularizing agenda, traceable to the worst apects of Enlightenment modernity. Even by its own criteria, pluralism does not succeed. D'Costa demonstrates this by exploring the 'meeting of the religions' in its leading exponents from Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism. He discovers the influence of Western modernist thought or else a veiled exclusivism not only in Hick, Knitter, Cohn-Sherbok and Panikkar, but even in Radhakrishnan and the Dalai Lama. He then goes on to establish an alternative Trinitarian approach to interreligious prayer and tolerance, drawing on recent discussions of other religions as 'vehicles of salvation'. The final section of the book represents the first major systematic theological study of interfaith prayer