Debating Mission: Historical Trajectories, Contemporary Challenges, New Perspectives in Buddhism and Christianity.

logo17th International Conference of the European Network of Buddhist Christian Studies.

The conference seeks to create an interdisciplinary and interreligious platform for the comparative study of missionary thought and practice in Buddhism and Christianity. While the concept of „mission” has historically been more explicitly associated with Christianity, Buddhist traditions have likewise developed complex forms of transmission, propagation, ethical outreach, and social engagement that invite deeper comparative reflection. The conference aims to bring together scholars of Buddhism and Christianity in order to examine how both traditions have understood and enacted the communication of religious truth, compassion, liberation, salvation, and social responsibility across different historical and cultural contexts.

St. Ottilien 22 – 26 June 2028

Aloysius Pieris S.J. (1934-2026): A Personal Appreciation and Obituary

Aloysius Pieris S.J. (1934-2026)Aloysius Pieris, or Fr. Aloy, as many knew him, died at 6.00 a.m. Sri Lankan time on 22 March 2026, after a long period of increasing weakness and illness. He died, as he would have wished, at Tulana, the centre he founded in 1974 to facilitate discerning action (the meaning of the world ‘tulana’), research and interreligious encounter, particularly with Buddhism. He would have been 92 on the 9 th of April. During his life, face-to-face and through his writings, he touched the lives of thousands, as mentor, pastor, teacher, friend, academic adviser, indologist, liberation theologian and humanitarian.

Winner of the Frederick J. Streng Award: The Celestial Web

webThe Celestial Web: Buddhism and Christianity - A Different Comparison

Perry Schmidt-Leukel

Winner of the Frederick J. Streng Award (Link)

From the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies: The 2025 Frederick J. Streng Award for Excellence in Buddhist-Christian Studies has been given to Perry Schmidt-Leukel for his 2024 volume, The Celestial Web: Buddhism and Christianity—A Different Comparison. Perry Schmidt-Leukel is a Senior Professor of Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology at the University of Münster, Germany. Schmidt-Leukel's work introduces a methodological approach he refers to as a "fractal" approach to religious diversity, shifting away from a monolithic approach to Buddhist-Christian comparative studies. This work opens up avenues for the comparative study that moves past binaries and will surely have a lasting impact on the advancement of the field.

Link to the publisher

This is the English translation of the German edition "Das himmlische Geflecht"

perry

Buddhist and Christian Perspectives on the Mind

ENBC 2026

The topic of this conference is a sequel to the last one. After 2024’s “Buddhist Christian Dialogues on the Body”, the 2026 conference will present different aspects of the mind from Buddhist and Christian perspectives. Traditional conceptions of the mind, its possible transformation, its relation to ultimate reality and its role in conceptions of life after death will be discussed against the background of contemporary perspectives from neuroscience.

In addition to the invited papers there will be two sessions (with parallel groups) on Sunday morning for short presentations (20 mins) on any kind of topic related to Buddhist-Christian studies. This is an opportunity especially for upcoming scholars (but also more senior scholars) to report about their research projects. Proposals for the open presentations need to approved by the Network (please send them to Prof. Schmidt-Leukel: perrysl@uni-muenster.de).

Part of the conference will also be an open public event at the University of Hamburg in celebrating the Network’s thirtieth birthday with two presentations by Elizabeth Harris and Perry Schmidt-Leukel.

ENBCS Receives INTR°A Project Prize for Complementarity of Religions

IntraOn Saturday, October 11, 2025, during its annual conference at the Melchanthon Academy in Cologne, the Institute for Interreligious Studies (INTR°A, Schwerte) awarded this year’s Project Prize for Complementarity of Religions to two projects in the field of Christian-Buddhist dialogue, the “European Network of Buddhist Christian Studies (ENBCS)” and “Compassion in Action (MiA, Hamburg)”. The prize money totalling €5,000 will be divided equally between the two projects. On behalf of the ENBCS, the award was accepted by its chairman, Prof. Dr. Perry Schmidt-Leukel,

On the Body - the papers of our 15th conference

On the BodyOn the Body

Harris (ed.), Elizabeth Schmidt-Leukel (ed.), Perry Nehring (ed.), Andreas

In a series of dialogues, scholars and practitioners from Buddhism and Christianity address central facets of the body as perceived in both traditions: the body's impermanence, its relation to the mind, its part in ecology and social relations, its significance in concepts of gender and sexuality, its role in contemplation, prayer and ritual, and its capacity to embody transcendence. Exploring both spiritual wisdom connected to the body as well as short-comings and deficits, the dialogues inquire how both traditions may learn and benefit from the insights of the other. Human existence is embodied existence. By their reflections on the body and body-related practices, Buddhism and Christianity engage with a crucial aspect of our being. In both traditions, the spectrum of views is extremely broad, ranging from outright condemnation of the body to its highest praise as a tool of awakening or a temple of the Holy Spirit.

With contributions by Kajsa Ahlstrand, Raquel Bouso, Michael von Brück, Thomas Cattoi, Sybille Fritsch-Oppermann, Shodhin Geiman, Ruben Habito, Elizabeth Harris, Claudia Jahnel, Amy Paris Langenberg, David Loy, Andreas Nehring, Carola Roloff, Markus Rüsch, Perry Schmidt-Leukel, Peter Tyler, Werner Vogd and Fabian Völker.

 

Link to the Publisher

Beyond Boundaries

BeyondBeyond Boundaries

Essays on Theology, Dialogue, and Religion in Honor of Perry Schmidt-Leukel

Melanie Barbato, Mathias Schneider, Fabian Völker (Editor) with the assistance of Madlen Krüger

Perry Schmidt-Leukel has made significant contributions to the academic study of religion and religious diversity through his innovative work in Theology and Religious Studies. In his publications, he has not only overcome apologetic barriers between Buddhism and Christianity and demonstrated the potential for mutual enrichment of various religious traditions in dialogue, but also championed a pluralist Theology of Religions. On this pluralist basis, Schmidt-Leukel has developed the vision of a theology beyond boundaries, which takes the form of interreligious discourse and draws on the rich resources and insights of the global history of religions.

The Celestial Web: Buddhism and Christianity - A Different Comparison

webThe Celestial Web: Buddhism and Christianity - A Different Comparison

Perry Schmidt-Leukel

Winner of the Frederick J. Streng Award (Link)

In his ground-breaking Gifford Lectures, published as Religious Pluralism & Interreligious Dialogue, Perry Schmidt-Leukel introduced his “fractal” theory of religions, challenging the tendency to distinguish religious traditions as discrete entities without acknowledging the wide variety within them, varieties essentially reproduced in different religious traditions.

After offering an introduction to this new methodology to comparative religion, Schmidt-Leukel, in The Celestial Web, applies this method to a comparison between Buddhism and Christianity. Some of the points of comparison include their respective approaches to the world, ultimate reality, the “dark side” of human existence, and salvation/liberation in terms of the figures mediating it.

Stereotypical approaches often treat these traditions as opposites, for instance, positing that Buddhism embraces an impersonal absolute, whereas Christianity affirms the primacy of one’s relationship with a personal God. Yet the fractal approach, which examines “intra-religious” varieties within the two traditions, reveals surprising points of congruence.

Euro-Buddhism and the Role of Christianity

EuroEuro-Buddhism and the Role of Christianity

Papers from the 13th Conference of the European Network of Buddhist-Christian Studies

Kurt Gakuro Krammer (ed.)  John O'Grady (ed.) Martin Rötting (ed.)

In the late nineteenth century Buddhism began to be practised in Europe and was often presented by its European followers as a persuasive alternative to Christianity. Buddhism in Europe was less a result of missionary activities from Asian countries than the consequence of propagation by Europeans, who studied Buddhism through various literary sources. However, these European Buddhists sought connections to Asian countries from a comparatively early stage onwards, and organizations such as the Mahābodhi Society came to play an important role in the early days. In the twenty-first century, new configurations of the dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity are being formed, always in relation to developments within the larger faith-traditions out of which individual Buddhist and Christian denominational forms have come.

Link to the publisher

In memory of Abbot Notker Wolf OSB

NotkerVery unexpectedly, Abbot Notker Wolf OSb of St. Ottilien died on April 2nd 2024. He was a pioneer in the dailogue of religions. As a young archabbot of St. Ottilien in 1979 he had invited a large group of buddhist monks and shintoist priests. This turned out to be a beginning of a long friendship between various Buddhist groups from East Asia and Ottilien, which continues til today. He also had generiously supported the work of the European Network of Buddhist Christian Studies. See also the obituary and more information at https://erzabtei.de/abt_notker_wolf

dialogue

Völlig unerwartet verstarb Abt Notker Wolf am 2. April 2024. Er war ein Pionier des Dialogs der Religionen. Im Jahr 1979 hatte er als junger Erzabt von St. Ottilien eine große Gruppe buddhistischer Mönche und shintoistischer Geistlicher aus Japan nach St. Ottilien eingeladen. Es war der Beginn einer langjährigen Freundschaft zwischen verschiedenen buddhistlschen Gruppierungen in Ostasien, die bis heute Bestand hat. Auch die Arbeit des Europäischen Netzwerkes für buddhistisch-christlichen Dialog hat er immer großzügig unterstützt.

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