Bücher von Professor Paul O (Professor of Religion Pacific Lutheran University) Ingram

A Christian scholar of Buddhism, Paul Ingram here develops a primordial theology that deals with the key religious issues of our times, including religious ways of knowing, the character of the Sacred, our relation with nature, and the various forms of liberation--of the self, of others, and the final liberation from death--with which all religious Ways must deal.This elegantly written, wide-ranging discussion of core topics in religion is filled with provocative insights on many topics. --Rita M. Grossauthor of 'Buddhism after Patriarchy'Paul Ingram is exploring a new genre of religious writing, one that is based on long study and teaching of the writings of another tradition but which approaches these, openly and intentionally, with the questions that arise in our own Western, Christian experience. Readers learn much about Buddhism, but they do so in a way that responds ot their own existential questions and thereby teaches them still more about themselves. History of religions here becomes a theological discipline in the sense that it is put to use to help Christians advance in their own faith journey. --John B. Cobb, Jr.author of Beyond DialogueOne of the most novel, creative, and accessible takes on the question of what to make of the many religions. Ingram tests his model out within the practical world and its cries for ecological, social, and gender liberation. And all this with a casual, colorful, down-to-earth style.--Paul Knitterauthor of Introducing Theologies of ReligionsPaul O. Ingram is Professor of Religion Emeritus at Pacific Lutheran University (Tacoma, Washington). He is the author of 'Wrestling with the Ox', 'The Modern Buddhist-Christian Dialogue', and 'The Dharma of Faith'.

In Passing Over and Returning Paul O. Ingram describes his particular dialogue with the world's religions, illustrated by his experience of passing over into Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism, Judaism, and Islam, and by his return to his home as a Lutheran Christian. While religious diversity is not new, neither are the questions posed by religious diversity. What is new is that more and more people are actively engaged with the world's religions because more and more people are willing to be informed by insights found in religious traditions other than their own. This is particularly true among progressive Christians. But openness does not necessarily mean rejecting one's own tradition, even though persons sometimes convert to another tradition or combine their original religious identity with the identity of another tradition. Whether one returns to the home of one's own faith tradition after passing over, or assumes a dual religious identity, or converts to another tradition, all persons engaged in interreligious dialogue undergo processes of creative transformation.

The interdependence of boundary questions and the experience of cognitive dissonance reveal that knowledge in all fields of inquiry is always incomplete and tentative. The issues are particularly acute for Christian theological reflection. Ingram illustrates the importance of boundary questions and cognitive dissonance as a means of creatively transforming contemporary Christian theological reflection through dialogue with the natural sciences and the world's religions, particularly Buddhism, filtered through the lenses of Whiteheadian process philosophy.

In this book Paul O. Ingram adds his voice to a long list of writers seeking to relate Christian tradition to the hard realities of this post-Christian age of religious and secular pluralism. As a Lutheran, Ingram thinks grace flows over this universe like a waterfall. So he brings Christian mystical theology into a discussion of the meaning of grace.Alfred North Whitehead's philosophical vision provides a language that serves as a hermeneutical bridge by which historians of religions can interpret the teachings and practices of religious Ways other than their own without falsification, and by which theologians can appropriate history-of-religions research as a means of helping Christians advance in their own faith journeys.The purpose of the journey of faith is what Whitehead called ""creative transformation."" The contemporary theological tradition that has most systematically and coherently followed Whitehead's lead in its reflection on non-Christian Ways is process theology, which is perhaps the only liberal or progressive theological movement now active in the twenty-first century.