______________________________________________________ EUROPEAN NETWORK OF BUDDHIST CHRISTIAN STUDIES ______________________________________________________ N e t w o r k I n f o - M a g a z i n e ______________________________________________________ (c) by ENBCS September 2000 ______________________________________________________ Editors: Br. Josef Goetz : josef.ottilien@t-online.de Martin Roetting: roetting@iol.ie Internet: www.buddhist-christian-studies.org ________________________________________________________ Content ________________________________________________________ 1) EDITORS NOTE 2) BUDDHISM, CHRISTIANITY AND GLOBAL HEALING International Conference of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, 5-12 August 2000 (by John D'Arcy May, Irish School of Ecumenics, Dublin) 3) NEWS ABOUT THE LUND CONFERENCE 2001 -------------------------------------------------------- 1) Editors Note -------------------------------------------------------- The NetworkInfo can celebrate its 1st birthday with this issue. We hope to get also in our second year interesting articles and news from our readers. I would like to thank You all for Your interest in the NetworkInfo. St. Ottilien/Dublin 1st Sept. 2000 All the best, Martin Roetting, Josef Goetz OSB, Editors -------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------- 2) BUDDHISM, CHRISTIANITY AND GLOBAL HEALING International Conference of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, 5-12 August 2000 (by John D'Arcy May, Irish School of Ecumenics, Dublin) -------------------------------------------------------- The conferences of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies (SBCS), held every four years, have established themselves as good indicators of the state of Buddhist-Christian relations. This year's conference, held on the beautiful campus of Pacific Lutheran University near Seattle, Washington, was smaller than its immediate predecessors in Chicago and Boston and somewhat harder to read. Participants came from Europe and Japan and from as far afield as Thailand and Australia, but the SBCS membership is predominantly American and the conference bore witness not just to the presence of Buddhism in America but to the emergence of 'American Buddhism'. A sociologist used the opportunity to interview a number of participants on 'dual belonging': can Christians be Buddhists and vice-versa? The Roman Catholic participants gathered each morning for the eucharist celebrated by priests who were also Zen practitioners. In a paper on the various Buddhisms now taking shape in America, Charles Prebish pointed out that although 80% of American Buddhists are Asian immigrants, it is the white 'converts' who display the 'arrogance of power', suggesting that the time has come to overcome this artificial distinction by practising 'serious ecumenism'. If I perceived the undercurrents running through this conference correctly, there is similar tension between 'new Buddhists' and 'old Christians', though the variety of combinations and permutations is endless. The theme of Global Healing was much the same as that of recent conferences, with speakers such as Sulak Sivaraksa, A.T. Ariyaratne and John B. Cobb addressing similar topics. Working groups on Spirituality and the Earth Charter and Engaged Buddhism and Christianity brought into focus discussions that have been going on in the SBCS for some time. A striking feature of these groups was the way contrasting personalities such as Ariyaratne and the African Methodist Episcopal minister from Los Angeles, Cecil Murray, could get the same positive results by confronting violence and injustice non-violently, though each is very differently inspired by his own tradition. A working group on the role of orthodoxy in Buddhism and Christianity produced some extremely interesting discussions which may help to point the way ahead for the Society: is it wise to base the dialogue on assumptions such as 'common ground' and 'global ethics' when doctrines such as God and emptiness, creation and dependent co-origination, sin and dukkha remain irreconcilable? While Paul Knitter focused on ethics rather than the scientific version of the creation story as the real meeting place of the traditions and Sallie King brought out the role of natural law in Buddhadasa and Phra Payutto, the Buddhist David Loy and the Catholic priest Joseph O'Leary, both living in Japan, explored further the transformations that might be brought about if the teaching of emptiness were to be taken seriously. Can emptiness become a Christian paradigm or is the degree of transcendence achieved thereby purchased at the price of historical immediacy, without which ethics becomes pointless and the spiritual way detached from mundane reality? To hear Sulak Sivaraksa speak at length on Asian alternatives to Western capitalism and John Cobb excoriate the injustices of global 'economism', one would think such fears were groundless. Yet for this participant the conference only sharpened the kinds of interrelationships and contrasts which came out, for example, in the course of Joel Smith's fascinating comparison of Tanabe and Kierkegaard. After an extremely interesting and many-sided conference, whose organisers had left plenty of time for informal discussion in congenial surroundings, I left Tacoma with the distinct impression that the SBCS is at a crossroads, as is the international Buddhist-Christian dialogue itself. Does the way ahead lie in blurring the distinctions between the two traditions and using their combined ethical potential to advance political causes, however urgent and worthy? Or does their true value, and hence the real scope of dialogue, lie in their irreducible distinctiveness? Each approach was strongly represented at this conference, and neither may be entirely excluded. As one speaker mentioned almost in passing, exclusive emphasis on Same or Other in the dialectic of relationship yields an ideology with the reassuring message, 'Because the others are absolutely the same/different, we don't need to change'. The way ahead, it seems, is the Middle Way of facing differences just as honestly as ethical challenges. John D'Arcy May, Irish School of Ecumenics, Dublin ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) NEWS ABOUT THE LUND CONFERENCE 2001 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please check our homepage regularly for news about the coming Conference in Lund, 4th to 7th May 2001. www.buddhist-christian-studies.org ---> Conferences ____________________________________________________________________________ The Networkinfo-Magazine is a free quartal published email magazine of the EUROPEAN NETWORK OF BUDDHIST CHRISTIAN STUDIES ____________________________________________________________________________ To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE this magazine, fill our networkinfo/form in the hompage: www.buddhist-christian-studies.org click NETWORKINFO at the menue bar or send a mail to roetting@iol.ie subject> subscibe magazine or unsubscribe magazine (c) September 2000 by European Network of Buddhist Christian Studies ============================================================================