Friendship and Hope: Hospitality and New Solidarity
Doing theology comparatively together is inviting us to live with the avoidable tension between “the commitment to the Christian tradition” and “openness to the truths of non-Christian religions.” The tension creates a double commitment when doing theology comparatively. We need to go beyond religious tolerance to take the steps interreligious engagement in order to build a deeper interreligious friendship and bring new hope in hospitality and new solidarity.
After having discussed the complexities of religious doctrines and theologies, Fredericks leads his audiences to a very foundation of a human person: love your neighbors. Love is not a new virtue for all Christians but the love that …show more content…
Second, a new paradigm for comparative theology must be so formulated that the interpretations of a tradition can no longer be grounded in older, classicist bases but must rely on new foundations that incorporate both past tradition and the present religious pluralism. Third, in keeping with the demands of an emerging globalism and a pluralistic world, theologians in all traditions must risk addressing the questions of religious pluralism on explicitly theological grounds. Fourth, it follows from these first three premises that contemporary theologians must engage in two complementary kinds of interpretation of a tradition—those now known as the “hermeneutics of retrieval” and the “hermeneutics of critique and suspicion.”
In the broad sense amid religious diversity, theology does not “necessarily imply a belief in God;” thus, the nontheistic traditions also have their kinds of “theology.” The Christian “‘comparative theology’ is like any explicitly intellectual interpretation of a religious tradition that affords a central place to the fact of religious pluralism in the tradition’s self-interpretation.” Holding the elements in mind, let us explore how the theologian Francis Clooney does his comparative theology.
Inter-textual Approach: “Learning to See” with Francis
Doing theology comparatively together is inviting us to live with the avoidable tension between “the commitment to the Christian tradition” and “openness to the truths of non-Christian religions.” The tension creates a double commitment when doing theology comparatively. We need to go beyond religious tolerance to take the steps interreligious engagement in order to build a deeper interreligious friendship and bring new hope in hospitality and new solidarity.
After having discussed the complexities of religious doctrines and theologies, Fredericks leads his audiences to a very foundation of a human person: love your neighbors. Love is not a new virtue for all Christians but the love that …show more content…
Second, a new paradigm for comparative theology must be so formulated that the interpretations of a tradition can no longer be grounded in older, classicist bases but must rely on new foundations that incorporate both past tradition and the present religious pluralism. Third, in keeping with the demands of an emerging globalism and a pluralistic world, theologians in all traditions must risk addressing the questions of religious pluralism on explicitly theological grounds. Fourth, it follows from these first three premises that contemporary theologians must engage in two complementary kinds of interpretation of a tradition—those now known as the “hermeneutics of retrieval” and the “hermeneutics of critique and suspicion.”
In the broad sense amid religious diversity, theology does not “necessarily imply a belief in God;” thus, the nontheistic traditions also have their kinds of “theology.” The Christian “‘comparative theology’ is like any explicitly intellectual interpretation of a religious tradition that affords a central place to the fact of religious pluralism in the tradition’s self-interpretation.” Holding the elements in mind, let us explore how the theologian Francis Clooney does his comparative theology.
Inter-textual Approach: “Learning to See” with Francis