Trinity And Religious Pluralism

The doctrine of the Trinity is one of the most distinguishing marks of Christian faith. This is the first book to present an overview of the role of the Trinity in Christian theology in relation to religious pluralism and other religions. Approaching the study of the relationship between Christianity and other religions from the perspective of the Trinity, this book surveys all the major contributions to the topic by leading theologians at the international and ecumenical level. Veli-Matti Karkkainen points to future challenges and areas in need of development, examining in detail a case study exploring how the Catholic Church has responded to Islam from the perspective of the Trinity. Students of theology and religious studies will find this an invaluable text for courses that discuss religious pluralism and Christianity's relation to other religions. Pastors, other Christian workers, and academics will also find it a handy reference tool for teaching and further study.

The doctrine of the Trinity is one of the most distinguishing marks of Christian faith. This is the first book to present an overview of the role of the Trinity in Christian theology in relation to religious pluralism and other religions. Approaching the study of the relationship between Christianity and other religions from the perspective of the Trinity, this book surveys all the major contributions to the topic by leading theologians at the international and ecumenical level. Veli-Matti Karkkainen points to future challenges and areas in need of development, examining in detail a case study exploring how the Catholic Church has responded to Islam from the perspective of the Trinity. Students of theology and religious studies will find this an invaluable text for courses that discuss religious pluralism and Christianity's relation to other religions. Pastors, other Christian workers, and academics will also find it a handy reference tool for teaching and further study.

Founding his argument on a close reading of St. Augustine?s De Trinitate, Keith Johnson critiques four recent attempts to construct a pluralistic theology of religions out of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.

This provocative collection of papers from an international array of theologians explores the Christian doctrine of the Trinity in the context of twentieth-century cultural and religious pluralism. How should Christians think about their faith in relation to other faiths and in relation to culture in general? Can the Trinity fit into a global religion? These essays — originally presented at the Fifth Edinburgh Dogmatic Conference — show how a full-orbed Trinitarian doctrine, with a proper emphasis on both the One and the Three, provides the necessary resources for successfully addressing the problems and the possibilities of contemporary pluralism. Gary Badcock Richard Bauckham Henri Blocher Gerald Bray Colin Gunton Trevor Hart Lesslie Newbigin Roland Poupin Kevin J. Vanhoozer Stephen Williams

A constructive new proposal for Christian dialogue with other faiths. Religious pluralism is today the most challenging issue facing traditional Christianity. This constructive work by a leading voice on the subjects of religious pluralism and interfaith relations probes the Christian understanding of God and salvation and offers a new perspective on religious pluralism that affirms unique salvation in Christ while also recognizing the religious ends of other faiths. The questions explored here are both difficult and enlightening. What is the distinctive nature of salvation? Is there a place in Christian theology for recognizing other religious ends in addition to salvation? In pursuit of meaningful answers, S. Mark Heim uses the classical doctrine of the Trinity to develop a theology that allows Christians to respect the possibility that alternative relations with God exist in other religions.

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.

Named by the International Bulletin of Missionary Studies as an Outstanding Book of 2014 for Mission Studies Over the last four decades, evangelical scholars have shown growing interest in Christian debates over other religions, seeking answers to essential questions: How are we to think about and relate to other religions, be open to the Spirit, and at the same time remain evangelical and orthodox? Gerald R. McDermott and Harold A. Netland offer critiques of a variety of theologians and religious studies scholars, including evangelicals, but also challenge evangelicals to move beyond parochial positions. This volume is both a manifesto and a research program, critically evaluating the last forty years of Christian treatments of religious others and proposing a comprehensive direction for the future. It addresses issues relating to the religions in both systematic theology and missiology, taking up long-debated questions such as contextualization, salvation, revelation, the relationship between culture and religion, conversion, social action, and ecumenism. It concludes with responses from four leading thinkers of African, Asian, and European backgrounds: Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Vinoth Ramachandra, Lamin Sanneh, and Christine Schirrmacher.

In contrast to the popular notion that the doctrine of the Trinity hinders Christians from engaging with the reality of religious diversity, this book argues that the doctrine is the best way of constructing contemporary theology of religions. An Imaginative Glimpse reexamines three prominent Trinitarian theologians of religions (Raimundo Panikkar, Gavin D'Costa, and S. Mark Heim) and proposes a fresh and creative model by bringing the classical idea of perichoresis to its present-day multifaith situation. Opening a new alternative in both Trinitarian theology and theology of religions, Adiprasetya's approach adds a distinctive contribution to the ongoing and challenging discussion in both fields. By using perichoresis imaginatively as a multidimensional category for multiple religious participations within the Trinity, Adiprasetya argues that the model is able to respect all religions on their own terms, while at the same time being faithful to the Christian standpoint.