Christianity and the Encounter of World Religions
byPaul Tillich
3.70 · Rating details · 20 ratings · 2 reviews
One of the Bampton lectures given at Columbia University in 61/2.
1/A View of the Present Situation--Religions, Quasi-Religions & Their Encounters: Tillich claims religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary & which itself contains the answer to the question of life's meaning. Given this definition, secularism, nationalism, communism & capitalism are seen as quasi-religions. The dramatic character of the present encounter of the world religions is produced by the attack of quasi-religions on religions proper.
2/Xian Principles of Judging Non-Xian Religions: It's natural that Xians affirm the fundamental assertion of Xianity that Jesus is the Christ & reject what denies this assertion. Tillich examines the history of Xianity's rejection & its tolerance of other religions. He concludes that Protestantism has the most intimate relation with liberal-humanist quasi-religion.
3/A Xian-Buddhist Conversation: Tillich compares & contrasts the encounter of Xianity with Buddhism, one of the most competitive proper religions. Points of convergence & divergence are shown & the whole is summed up in two contrasting symbols, Kingdom of God & Nirvana.
4/Xianity Judging Itself in the Light of its Encounter with the World Religions: How can a community of democratic nations be created w/out the religions out of which liberal democracy in the Western world originally arose? A mixture of religions destroys in each of them the concreteness which gives it its dynamic power. The victory of one religion would impose a particular religious answer on all other particular answers. But the question of life's ultimate meaning cannot be silenced. Religion cannot come to an end. A particular religion will be lasting to the degree in which it negates itself as a religion. Xianity will be a bearer of the religious answer only so long as it breaks thru its own particularity. (less)
Paperback, 105 pages
URL
http://people.bu.edu/wwildman/bce/tillich.htm
Jun 02, 2017Juan Limon rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Very quick read. Besides the occasionally orientalist picture of Buddhism and Islam, Tillich does a great job of advocating for interfaith dialogue in a way that allows both sides of a discussion to be critiqued by the other in order to better practice their own faiths.
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Feb 20, 2009Erik Graff rated it it was ok
Recommends it for: Christians
Recommended to Erik by: Howard Burkle
Shelves: religion
Not being a Christian, this series of lectures meant very little to me. A committed Christian might find this challenging.
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From the United States
David Marshall
5.0 out of 5 stars Full of interesting ideas.
Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2002
This is my first direct aquaintance with Paul Tillich. I found this book extremely thoughtful and interesting. It is quite short, just ninety pages or so, but concentrated: on dwarf stars, you get more matter per teaspoon than in a herd of elephants; so here with abstract thought, compressed and weighty compared to more glib discussions. The book is not hard to read, however.
Tillich argues as follows. First, he defines religion and "quasi-religions" such as liberal humanism and Marxism: "the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern . . . " He differentiates "religions of the spirit," such as original Christianity, Buddhism, and liberalism, from "legally organized religions," such as Medieval Catholicism, Islam, and later secular faiths. He fairly and, I think, accurately differentiates between the kind of discrimination between faiths that follows from an affirmation of the truth of one's own, from various forms of more absolute denial. He follows this question through Christian history in an interesting way, arguing that the dominant Christian approach is not to absolutely repudiate non-Christian beliefs, as is commonly thought. "They did not reject them unambiguously and of course they did not accept them unambiguously . . . they acknowledged the preparatory character of these religions and tried to show how their inner dynamics" should send pagans to Christ. I have been studying this question for some years, and while I believe in God and the whole nine yards, and I'm not sure exactly what Tillich believed, I think on this point he was quite right, and insightful. (Like the Church fathers ,I havegone further and suggested in my books -- Jesus and the Religions of Man, True Son of Heaven: How Jesus Fulfills the Chinese Culture -- that God in some way seems to have prepared world cultures for the Gospel.) Tillich traces the various competing solutions to the question of how Christianity relates to other faiths to modern times, and his own contemporaries. He offers names, but few details.
Another point that Tillich emphasizes is that "religions of the spirit" tend to lose their character when they come into contact with more authoritarian beliefs, not so much because they lose the military contest, as that they "fight fire with fire," and become too much like their opponents. His examples here are Islam and Communism. I think he is right that that is a danger, though I don't think the danger is absolute, or that it may never be necessary in fact to take up arms in defense of a free society. But he puts the problem well.
In the following chapter, Tillich discusses the encounter between Christianity and Buddhism. I think he underestimates the success of Christian missions and overestimates the importance of Buddhism to East Asian cultures (on art, for example). But that is a part of his tendancy to speak in big generalizations.
Tillich closes with a chapter called "Christianity judging itself in the light of its encounter with the World Religions." Here he speaks of Christianity as the "negation of religion," and of Christ as a "symbol." He suggests a hope that Christianity will become, rather than an independent, self-enclosed religion, a "center of crystallization for all positive religious elements after they have been subjected to the criteria implied in this center." I agree with the general concept, though I am not sure I agree with what Tillich sees as the "center" of Christian faith. (I am also skeptical about the "wisdom" with which Tillich claims in this chapter that Islam has dealt with "primitive peoples." See V. S. Naiphaul.) Tillich argues "not conversion, but dialogue." Then on the very last page, when I'm hoping he will explain what he thinks people should base future faith upon, Tillich peters out into rather confused metaphors about the "depths" of a religion, a "point" of time that "breaks through (the) particularity" of a given religion and "elevates" it to freedom. I'm not at all sure what he means by that. But there are many interesting thoughts in this grand sweep of a little book, and I found it well worth reading.
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Terry Minchow-Proffitt
5.0 out of 5 stars A Thoughtful and Inviting Approach to Inter-faith Dialogue
Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2012
Four concepts are key to this fascinating book, with a chapter devoted to naming and exploring each: (i) Christianity's basic challenge today is how to encounter "quasi-religions" (such as fascism, communism and liberal humanism) and the secularism they present. (ii) Christianity has a long, constant thread of universalism that affirms the revelatory experiences of non-Christian religions. This extends from the prophets, on through Jesus, is interrupted during the Crusades' opposition to Islam and the rise of anti-Jewish impulses, but then is championed again in the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. (iii) The best way to compare different religions is by a "typological" approach that is based on looking closely as each religion's major symbols and how they manifest certain universal "polarities" (instead of "antitheses"). Doing so reveals the points where they converge and diverge. (iv) Each encounter with another religion involves Christianity judging itself. The criteria for such judgment stems from "the appearance and reception of Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ, a symbol which stands for the decisive self-manifestation in human history of the source and aim of all being." So we judge Christianity in the name of Christianity.
I was first exposed to Tillich some thirty years ago during college and seminary, and he remains among the most trusted voices for informing the understanding and expression of my faith. A few of the reasons are found in this thin, albeit dense, book. I love his universalism, how he starts with the experience of the sacred and trusts that this is much larger than any particular tradition can contain. At the same time, I love his affirmation of the particular, his sense that one should go deep within his/her own tradition rather than buy into a beg-and-borrow eclecticism. In other words, universalism can only be fully known and appreciated from a faith that honors the concrete by encouraging one to put down roots through a particular tradition. Lastly, I love Tillich's notion of the Protestant Principle, the abiding sense that the sacred, though manifest ambiguously throughout creation, ultimately lives beyond creation. This means that any attempt to elevate the finite (one's ideas, country, religion, ego, etc.) into the realm of the infinite must be challenged and deconstructed.
I find his discussion of the similarities and differences between Buddhism and Christianity to be very helpful, especially as a way to explore the conversation between Eastern and Western paths of spirituality. Tillich's language can be a bit clunky, but his insights are worth the effort. For example, I benefit greatly from his conceptual framework for addressing the questions of our culture or for understanding the faith of other religions and quasi-religions. I welcome his disarming tone, his genuine sense of welcome and openness. Tillich gives me the confidence to see questions as invitations to understanding, and the encounter of another faith as an opportunity for both community and communion. I'm encouraged to do this because of the vastness of the sacred landscape, a terrain that Tillich maps out with cognitive seriousness and depth of heart.
3 people found this helpful
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Reader From Aurora
2.0 out of 5 stars Little of Interest
Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2005
"Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions" by Paul Tillich is a short collection (approx 80 pages) of lectures given by the author in 1961. Tillich is one of the better-known liberal protestant theologians of the mid-twentieth century - with perhaps his most significant work being the multi-volume "Systemic Theology".
Although Tillich touches briefly on Buddhism, the main focus of his comments is centered on what he calls quasi-religions: communism, fascism and liberal humanism and the challenges that they pose for Christianity. Although someone familiar with the author may be able to glean insight from these lectures - those unfamiliar with Tillich and the context within which he is speaking may find his comments broad and vacuous with little value. This observation is as much a comment on transcripts of public lectures as it is on Tillich - i.e. when you translate spoken comments to the written page they often lose some of the appeal they had in the original medium.
Though it is not clearly evident in this short work, Tillich has been accused of being excessively concerned with accommodating faith to popular culture - i.e. his work seems to be strongly influenced by Late 19th and early 20th century thought (existentialism and psychology). As a result, from my perspective Tillich reads very much as a period piece - providing some historical insight into the social and intellectual influences of his time but little of lasting significance. Indeed, some critics have referred to Tillich as the last great 19th century liberal theologian - this is probably not fair, however, I think many contemporary readers when exposed to his work will be struck by its' mid-20th century continental feel.
In closing, I would only recommend for this work for serious Tillich fans. It does not provide a good entry point into his theological views - by itself, it reads as a limited period piece. Those seeking an introduction to Tillich may find one of his other works as a better entry point.
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