Strangers in This World
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1 Migration and Spiritual Conquest Emplacing Contemporary Comparative Theology in a Hindu Theology of the “Quarters” (dik) Reid B. Locklin As a formal discipline, comparative theology is the creature of a distinctively modern and distinctively European scholarly imagination, with its regard directed to other “places”—to persons, traditions, and geographies conceived of as lying outside the boundaries of Christendom. This is certainly true of the “old” comparative theology, as the fruit of missionary encounters and colonial conquest.1 But it is arguably retained in the “new” 1. See Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism Was (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 2005), esp. Preserved in the Language of Pluralism 72–104; Francis X. Clooney, S.J., Comparative Theology: Deep Learning across Religious Borders (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 24–40; and Peter Henrici, “The Concept of Religion from Cicero to Schleiermacher: Origins, History, and Problems with the Term,” in Catholic , ed. Karl Josef Becker and Ilaria Morali Engagement with World Religions: A Comprehensive Study (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2010), 1–20. 11 STRANGERS IN THIS WORLD comparative theology articulated by Keith Ward, Francis X. Clooney, Robert Neville, James Fredericks, and their students. As just one example, the well-respected scholar of Hinduism and comparative theologian Francis Clooney writes frequently of his experiences of travel and study in India, and his comparative method privileges a model of personal transformation, in which the comparativist immerses herself in the texts and practices of another tradition so as to reinterpret texts and practices of her home tradition with new eyes.2 Though this model need not involve literal travel, it is nevertheless most easily imagined in a geographical idiom of pilgrimage across the territorial boundaries of Hindu and Christian traditions. The comparativist departs from one place of social and religious identity, immerses herself in another, and returns home, ideally transformed. It is worth noting that both Christian comparativists and theologians of religions frequently speak of globalization and new experiences of religious diversity in late modernity as the context for their work: the religious diversity that might once have existed “out there,” has become an intrinsic feature of the cities and academic circles in which most theologians find themselves, “here” and “now,” and thus demands our scholarly attention.3 One important element of such a globalized context, at least in North America, is the new religious landscape created by the loosening of restrictions on immigrants from various parts of Asia in the United States and 2. See, for example, the accounts in Francis X. Clooney, S.J., “The Transformation of the Scholar as a Factor in Hindu-Christian Studies,” 3 (1990): 1–6; idem., Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies (Albany: State University of Theology after Vedānta: An Experiment in Comparative Theology New York Press, 1993), esp. 33–35, 153–208; and idem., Beyond Compare: St. Francis de Sales (Washington, DC: Georgetown University and Śrī Vedānta Deśika on Loving Surrender to God Press, 2008), esp. 132–41, 202–12. 3. E.g., Clooney, , 3–9; Michael Barnes, S.J., Comparative Theology Theology and the Dialogue of (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 3–28; Paul F. Knitter, Religions Introducing (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002), 3–13. Theologies of Religions 12 MIGRATION AND SPIRITUAL CONQUEST Canada from the 1960s to the present. The infusion of significantly larger numbers of Hindus and Buddhists—among others—into the North American tapestry and, with it, the creation of new forms of North American Hinduism and Buddhism offer new opportunities and incentives for Hindu-Christian encounters. From a survey administered throughout Canada in the mid-1980s, for example, David J. Goa noted that particular initiatives in Hindu-Christian dialogue could often be traced to a desire among new Hindu communities for “support on a range of social and cultural issues.”4 So too a recently established national Hindu-Catholic dialogue initiated by the Canadian bishops identified pragmatic questions related to the formation of youth and fostering social cohesion as shared concerns for both communities.5 As these examples suggest, the new proximity of Christians, Hindus, and many religious others in major urban centers of North America and Europe offers a rich field for interreligious dialogue and encounters, and it does indeed call for the development of new pastoral and theological responses. At the same time, claims that such an experience is entirely new in the late twentieth and early twenty- first centuries, or that Western cities like New York, London, and Toronto stand out as uniquely pluralistic vis-à-vis the longer histories of diversity in many parts of Asia, can and should be contested.6 More 4. David J. Goa, “Hindu-Christian Dialogue in Canada,” in Hindu-Christian Dialogue: Perspectives , ed. Harold Coward (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993), 136. and Encounters 5. See Michael Swan, “Catholic-Hindu Dialogue Opens,” , 10 February 2013, Catholic Register accessed 28 April 2014, http://www.catholicregister.org/home/canada/item/15823-catholic- hindu-dialogue-opens. 6. Despite Diana Eck’s oft-repeated claim that the United States has become the world’s “most religiously diverse country,” a recent Pew Survey gave it a rather modest religious diversity score, particularly vis-à-vis such Asian states as Singapore and Taiwan; see Diana L. Eck, A New Religious America: How a “Christian Country” Has Now Become the World’s Most Religiously (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), and Pew Research Center, “Global Diverse Nation Religious Diversity: Half of the Most Religiously Diverse Countries Are in Asia-Pacific Region,” , 4 April 2014, accessed 12 May 2014, Pew Research Religion and Public Life Project http://www.pewforum.org/2014/04/04/global-religious-diversity/. 13 STRANGERS IN THIS WORLD importantly for my purposes in this essay, the increasing presence of distinctively North American forms of Hinduism also complicates any easy vision of “departure” and “return” for contemporary comparative theology. What kind of departure is effected when the “other” text or tradition is nearer to hand than the geographic center(s) of one’s own “home” tradition? The impact of questions such as these on the shape of the discipline has yet to be explored in a sustained way.7 As Raymond Williams wrote at the end of the last century, “Hindu-Christian dialogue in the United States has become a trialogue of American Christians, Indian Hindus, and American Hindus, with the latter a silent partner.”8 Of course, the most significant impact on contemporary comparative theology from the North American Hindu diaspora will be the construction of comparative theologies by North American Hindus, and this important work is underway.9 But Christian 7. There are, of course, welcome exceptions. Kristin Johnston Largen refers directly to the experience of the diaspora Hindu community in the construction of her comparative theological reflections, and Mara Brecht has recently drawn on the ethnographic study of a North American interreligious dialogue group to inform her work in the theology of religions. See Kristin Johnston Largen, Baby Krishna, Infant Christ: A Comparative Theology of Salvation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2011); and Mara Brecht, Virtue in Dialogue: Belief, Religious Diversity, (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2014), esp. 61–88. and Women’s Interreligious Encounter 8. Raymond B. Williams, “Immigrants from India in North America and Hindu-Christian Study and Dialogue,” 11 (1998): 24. Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies 9. See, for example, Parimal G. Patil, “A Hindu Theologian’s Response: A Prolegomenon to ‘Christian God, Hindu God,’” in Hindu God, Christian God: How Reason Helps Break Down , ed. Francis X. Clooney, S.J. (Oxford/New York: Oxford the Boundaries between Religions University Press, 2001), 185–95; Jeffery D. Long, A Vision for Hinduism: Beyond Hindu (London: I. B. Tauris, 2007); idem., “(Tentatively) Putting the Pieces Together: Nationalism Comparative Theology in the Tradition of Sri Ramakrishna,” in The New Comparative (London/New York: T. & T. Clark, Theology: Interreligious Insights from the Next Generation 2010), 151–70; Steven J. Rosen, (Nyack, Christ and Krishna: Where the Jordan Meets the Ganges NY: Folk, 2011); Madhuri Yadlapati, Against Dogmatism: Dwelling in Faith and Doubt (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2014); and many works of Anantanand Rambachan, including particularly “Hinduism,” in , ed. Miguel The Hope of Liberation in World Religions A. De La Torre (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008), 113–29. A more polemical, but still engaged and constructive approach to Hindu-Christian theology can be found in Rajiv Malhotra, (New Delhi: Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism HarperCollins India, 2011). 14 MIGRATION AND SPIRITUAL CONQUEST comparativists can also seek out paths to engage diasporic and transnational Hindu traditions as resources for Christian theological reflection. Thus, in this essay, I briefly explore the transformation of in the theological imagination of immigrant Hindu traditions, place particularly as this project has been taken up in the theology of the contemporary Chinmaya Mission. One oft-cited example of such transformation is Pittsburgh’s Śri Veṅkateśwara Temple, where the sacred geography of southern India