John D'Arcy May

Pluralism and Peace - The Religions in Global Civil Society

John D'Arcy May

This headline goes to the heart of religiously fuelled conflict. At a time when democracies are under pressure and authoritarian regimes are on the rise, the world’s religions find themselves challenged in new and unfamiliar ways, with opportunities to co-operate in new ways.

Die Religionen in der globalen Zivilgesellschaft
Eine Asien-Pazifik-Perspektive

John D'Arcy May

Die Rettung der Demokratie im asiatischpazifischen Raum bedarf einer globalen Zivilgesellschaft, die den Globalisierungsprozess in gemeinsamer ethischer Verantwortung gestaltet, die Unterdrückungsmaßnahmen autoritärer Regierungen unterläuft und sich so als Forum internationaler Meinungsbildung und politischen Engagements behauptet.

Imagining the Ecumenical: A Personal Journey

John D'Arcy May

Starting from the observation that theology is essentially narrative, and assuming that biography is a fundamental theological genre, the book presents a biography of the ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue movements in the form of the autobiography of an 'accidental ecumenist', whose life took him to religious contexts as diverse as Rome, Germany, Papua New Guinea and Ireland. At its centre is the encounter with Theravada and later Mahayana Buddhism and the indigenous traditions of Australia and the Pacific.

Buddhologie und Christologie - Unterwegs zu einer kollaborativen Theologie

John D'Arcy May

In the light of increasing co-operation between Buddhists and Christians in areas such as meditation practice and social justice, the book explores the possibility of a theological basis for such co-operation, now that Buddhists too are prepared to use the term 'theology'. Both traditions have erected impressive doctrinal structures over the centuries. The question is whether, over and above dialogical and comparative theology, there could be a genuinely 'collaborative' Buddhist-Christian theology.

Transcendence and Violence: The Encounter of Buddhist, Christian and Primal Traditions

John D'Arcy May

The first two parts of this book present four detailed historical studies, filled with Geertzian "thick description," of the encounters of Christianity and Buddhism (universal religions with a high quotient of "transcendence") with various primal religious traditions ("biocosmic" or "immanentist") of the Asian-Pacific region, namely, Aboriginal Australia and Melanesia (Christianity) and Sri Lanka and Japan (Buddhism). In each case, the encounters represented a failure of the "great" traditions. In the third, constructive and theological part of the book, the author shows how an acknowledgment of these failures may provide a back door to dialogue.

After Pluralism
Towards an Interreligious Ethic

John D'Arcy May

Do the religions cause war, or is their tendency to intensify violence outweighed by their potential for peace? Are multicultural societies, as Huntington thinks, condemned to ethnic conflict, or is a specifically interreligious ethic emerging from their new patterns of relationships? This book examines the liberal agenda of dialogue and pluralism and finds that we need a more radical approach involving indigenous peoples, women and the poor if we are to find solutions - together - to the problems of economic injustice and the threat of ecological degradation. It contains the Ethel Hayton Lectures delivered at the University of Wollongong, Australia, in 1994.

Meaning, Consensus and Dialogue in Buddhist-Christian Communication
A Study in the Construction of Meaning

John D'Arcy May

There is no lack of phenomenological literature on both Buddhism and Christianity, nor of theological literature on the «dialogue» between them. There is need, however, of a theory of communication between such communities of belief. Analyses of Buddhist and Christian canonical texts reveal the linguistic patterns underlying the «construction» of meaning in the earliest communities; a theory of consensus formation provides a broader framework for understanding the development and interaction of social meaning systems; and in this framework the problems posed by Buddhist-Christian communication are formulated and analysed.