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Book Review: Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies Volume 7 Article 12 January 1994 Book Review: "Hinduism and Christianity" Anand Amaladass Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs Part of the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Amaladass, Anand (1994) "Book Review: "Hinduism and Christianity"," Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies: Vol. 7, Article 12. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7825/2164-6279.1100 The Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies is a publication of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. The digital version is made available by Digital Commons @ Butler University. For questions about the Journal or the Society, please contact [email protected]. For more information about Digital Commons @ Butler University, please contact [email protected]. Amaladass: Book Review: "Hinduism and Christianity" BOOK REVIEWS Hinduism and Christianity. John Brockington. London: Macmillan, 1992, xiii +215pp. IN A SERIES of monographs on themes in both. So juxtaposing the development of a theme comparative religion under the general editorship in two traditions will reveal this factor. But the of Glyn Richards the first published title is lack of development of a particular theme in a Hinduism and Christianity by John Brockington. given tradition does not mean much in This volume contains a selection of themes from comparison with another where this theme is Hinduism and Christianity. It is intended for well developed. Hence some statements of such many Christians in Europe and America whose comparative nature do sound ambiguous in this everyday experience does not include the book. For instance, it is said that "there is existence of several major religions. Obviously virtually no trace within Hinduism of the in a volume of about 200 pages one cannot fellowship at a common meal found in many expect a detailed discussion on the selected other religions" (p.122), the author adds themes. But still it tries to focus on the central however that there is a limited exception to this concerns of both religions. in the distribution to worshippers of prasada. Both in the introduction and in the It is true that the concept of table fellowship concluding paragraph of the book the author is well developed in the Judaeo-Christian states that his style of treatment is intended to worldview. But it is not quite right to say that illustrate how both these religions reveal a there is no trace of it in Hinduism. The idea of substantial degree of internal diversity and community consciousness, common fellowship adaptability, which is part of their strength. This and sharing has found different expressions at is more and more coming to the foreground due different times in the Hindu traditions. For to the increased awareness of each other and it example the bhakti movements brought in a new will become mutually enriching to the extent the consciousness of a community of believers who partners in dialogue are ready to learn from each accept. each other and share freely .what they other. The approach of the author is quite have. balanced since he is aware of the earlier studies Secondly, in chapter five on meditation and with a rather unb,alanced comparison between asceticism the history of Christian monastic the two, usually to the detriment of Hinduism. tradition is quite systematic and succinctly The themes' treated in this book are: the presented. But the Hindu side stops with nature of the Divine; divine interaction with Sankara, with a casual mention of contemporary humankind; authority and mediation; Sankaracaryas. Later developments of the devotionalism and personal piety; meditation and ashram tradition within Hinduism such as the asceticism; social values and morality; teleology: Ramakrishna mission or the Brahma kumaris do meaning and ends. The final chapter provides a not fmd their due place (though both are summary survey of the contacts over the mentioned in the later chapters in different centuries between the two religions. contexts). However, one has to admit that in such One should keep in mind that Hindu religion attempts of comparison one cannot do full justice is a living tradition with all the possible varieties to two traditions, since the themes themselves within that framework and a Hindu of today have their own background. A particular theme does not always think in traditional categories. may take priority in one tradition while the same The position of women in India is complex and theme may not be fully developed in another includes the history of protest movements as tradition, even if it is of central concern for found among the women of bhakti traditions. i' Hindu-Christian Studies Bulletin 7 (1994) 48-55 I Published by Digital Commons @ Butler University, 1994 1 Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, Vol. 7 [1994], Art. 12 Hindu-Christian .Studies Bulletin 49 Today's women's organization for liberation, for However, this book will be a handy volume example, shows the progression from Manu's for people who would like to enter into the time. The caste issue has to be situated within world of two major religious traditions. It is the context of liberation struggle through the informative and written with sensitivity and dalit movements where the voice of the dalits openness, without any claim to newer insights (oppressed people) cannot be ignored in Indian into the meeting of two major religions from the politics of today. Without such a historical perspective of theological or philosophical perspective a study of a few themes in two hermeneutics . religious traditions may not enable an impartial reader to appreciate the origin and growth of the Anand Amaladass themes with their respective historical contexts. Madras Religion in a New Key. M. Darrol Bryant. New Delhi, Bangalore, etc.: Wiley Eastern Ltd., 1992. Tms SERIES OF lectures given in India by the religions, understood as converging pathways Darrol Bryant of the Department of Religious to the experience of God/the Sacred/ultimacy. In Studies of Waterloo now appears as a booklet this latter fundamentally religious approach to proposing a distinctive approach to the study of the study of religion Bryant acknowledges the religion. "The living dialogue emerging in our tutelage of Mircea Eliade, Huston Smith, time", declares Bryant, "is a suitable vibrant key Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Ursula King and not only for living our respective faiths and lives Raimundo Panikkar. The contemporary stUdent but also for the study of the religious heritage of of religion, instructed by such precedents, must humanity" (PA). "cultivate an ear for the Mystery of the Beyond" The metaphor is musical. The new key (p.70). offered is "a tone that will permeate the study of No doubt there is a mystery at the centre of religion" (p.56). One can now be inspired, the study of religion; and no doubt also that a enlightened and instructed by livLllg contact with reductionist scientism is to be deplored, adherents of religious traditions other than one's especially in the study of religion: it does not own, . sharing experiences and attempting follow that an uncritical identification of dialogue - a term for meeting preferred by spirituality with religion ought to shape the study Bryant since it expresses "the encounter of a of religion. A thorough scholarly objectivity will speaker and a liste~er, a listener and a speaker, be required precisely to assess the influence of in the process of communing one with another in various spiritualities. Objectivity is clearly relation to a ground that precedes and sustains necessary on the part of thost( who confront and them" (PA2). analyse religion in its more oppressive and The evolution of the study of religion is oppressing manifestations. One thinks, for schematized, in this view, as "traditional", example, of some implications of spirituality and "modern". and "post-modern". "Traditional" religion for the situation of Dalits in India; or study is described as that of a scholar within a one considers the involvement of religion with religious tradition, "explicating the content of a consumerism in North America. given religious tradition by immersing himself in Does the experience of dialogue show the (its) sacred literature" (p.7). "Modern" study of way? In Hindu-Christian Dialogue (Orbis, 1989) religion is the scientific attempt to understand Robert D. Baird squarely faced the question of religions phenomenologically and comparatively, the relation of dialogue, to the academic study of a study that emerged as Comparative Religion or religion. He carefully distinguished the two. the History of Religions. "Post-modern" study, "The academic study of religion", he wrote, for Bryant, now proceeds with a commitment. to "places a high premium on clarity of analysis ... https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol7/iss1/12 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1100 2.
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