Earthing the Cosmic Christ of Ephesians--The Universe, Trinity, and Zhiyi's Threefold Truth, Volume 4

Earthing the Cosmic Christ of Ephesians--The Universe, Trinity, and Zhiyi's Threefold Truth, Volume 4
Author: John P. Keenan
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2024-02-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1666708615

In a Tiantai theology, conventional truth is conventionally arisen, which means that such truth is never set once and for all, but is to be cherished and rethought in new circumstances, whether interreligious or scientific—but always in critical consonance with its ancient embodiments. Contexts shift frameworks, but life in Christ is translatable across cultures. Christian faith and theology discourage the assumption that the point of it can be clearly pinned down. God’s appearance to Elijah out of the whirlwind is an eternal reminder of the paltriness of all human perspectives. Symbolic worlds of faith and wisdom are not themselves finished products. Because it has a past and a future, the cosmos itself is unfinished. Christian creeds ought not be defended as last-word ideological positions and bastions against relativity, but instead recognized in their cultural contexts and affirmed as grammars of communal and personal assent.

Earthing the Cosmic Christ of Ephesians--The Universe, Trinity, and Zhiyi's Threefold Truth, Volume 2

Earthing the Cosmic Christ of Ephesians--The Universe, Trinity, and Zhiyi's Threefold Truth, Volume 2
Author: John P. Keenan
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2022-09-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1666708526

This is volume 2 of a wide-ranging interfaith reading of the Letter to the Ephesians—a New Testament text whose words have inspired and enhanced Christian spiritual life and liturgy over the centuries. Unfortunately, at the same time, Ephesians has provided apparent scriptural support to those who would defend slavery, patriarchy, misogyny, and the physical power of Christ over the cosmos. How on earth are today’s Christians to receive and understand such a text as this? Earthing the Cosmic Christ of Ephesians: The Universe, Trinity, and Zhiyi’s Threefold Truth draws upon a broad array of scientific, theological, and philosophical thinkers who enable us both to marvel at today’s ever-expanding knowledge of our vast cosmos and to appreciate the importance of the Ephesian letter in the canon of our Christian scriptures, even while we acknowledge the archaic geocentric cosmology that underlies its claims about the cosmic Christ and reject its accommodation to the patriarchal, misogynistic, and slaveholding norms of its first-century culture. Throughout this reading of Ephesians, we look to Chinese Buddhist master Zhiyi and his “threefold truth” to enhance our understanding of trinity and the nascent trinitarian themes within this letter. As a whole, this work constitutes a new appreciation for Ephesians as well as a twenty-first century apologetic for doctrinal humility and for theologizing within a global theological commons.

Earthing the Cosmic Christ of Ephesians--The Universe, Trinity, and Zhiyi's Threefold Truth, Volume 3

Earthing the Cosmic Christ of Ephesians--The Universe, Trinity, and Zhiyi's Threefold Truth, Volume 3
Author: John P. Keenan
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2023-05-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1666708569

As both a scholar of Buddhism and a Christian priest, John P. Keenan engages with the New Testament letter to the Ephesians, written by a member of the Pauline school likely near the end of the first century—a time when both the cultural world and the cosmos were much narrower than for us today. In pondering this scripture’s significance for residents of the twenty-first century, Keenan looks to the work of scholars and thinkers both ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, scientists and philosophers. Particular attention is given to Chinese Buddhist master Zhiyi’s explanation of a threefold truth, which resonates with an early trinitarian theme in Ephesians and suggests the riches to be discovered upon the global theological commons.

Earthing the Cosmic Christ of Ephesians—The Universe, Trinity, and Zhiyi’s Threefold Truth, Volume 1

Earthing the Cosmic Christ of Ephesians—The Universe, Trinity, and Zhiyi’s Threefold Truth, Volume 1
Author: John P. Keenan
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2021-07-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1666708496

This is the introductory volume of a multivolume, verse-by-verse, interfaith rereading of the New Testament letter to the Ephesians. It looks to the Tiantai Buddhist master Zhiyi and his "threefold truth" to enhance our appreciation of nascent trinitarian themes in Ephesians. And it draws upon a broad array of scientific, theological, and philosophical thinkers in aid of rejecting the epistle's ancient, geocentric cosmology and its accommodations to the misogynistic, patriarchal, and slaveholding norms of its first-century surroundings. As a whole, the work constitutes a twenty-first century apologetic for doctrinal humility and for theologizing within a global theological commons.

Earthing the Cosmic Christ of Ephesians--The Universe, Trinity, and Zhiyi's Threefold Truth, Volume 4

Earthing the Cosmic Christ of Ephesians--The Universe, Trinity, and Zhiyi's Threefold Truth, Volume 4
Author: John P. Keenan
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2024-02-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1666708593

In a Tiantai theology, conventional truth is conventionally arisen, which means that such truth is never set once and for all, but is to be cherished and rethought in new circumstances, whether interreligious or scientific—but always in critical consonance with its ancient embodiments. Contexts shift frameworks, but life in Christ is translatable across cultures. Christian faith and theology discourage the assumption that the point of it can be clearly pinned down. God’s appearance to Elijah out of the whirlwind is an eternal reminder of the paltriness of all human perspectives. Symbolic worlds of faith and wisdom are not themselves finished products. Because it has a past and a future, the cosmos itself is unfinished. Christian creeds ought not be defended as last-word ideological positions and bastions against relativity, but instead recognized in their cultural contexts and affirmed as grammars of communal and personal assent.

Earthing the Cosmic Christ of Ephesians--The Universe, Trinity, and Zhiyi's Threefold Truth, Volume 4

Earthing the Cosmic Christ of Ephesians--The Universe, Trinity, and Zhiyi's Threefold Truth, Volume 4
Author: John P Keenan
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2024-02-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781666708608

In a Tiantai theology, conventional truth is conventionally arisen, which means that such truth is never set once and for all, but is to be cherished and rethought in new circumstances, whether interreligious or scientific--but always in critical consonance with its ancient embodiments. Contexts shift frameworks, but life in Christ is translatable across cultures. Christian faith and theology discourage the assumption that the point of it can be clearly pinned down. God's appearance to Elijah out of the whirlwind is an eternal reminder of the paltriness of all human perspectives. Symbolic worlds of faith and wisdom are not themselves finished products. Because it has a past and a future, the cosmos itself is unfinished. Christian creeds ought not be defended as last-word ideological positions and bastions against relativity, but instead recognized in their cultural contexts and affirmed as grammars of communal and personal assent.

The Meaning of Christ

The Meaning of Christ
Author: John P. Keenan
Publisher:
Total Pages: 328
Release: 1989
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

The Meaning of Christ reinterprets Christian tradition in the light of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy. Mahāyāna theology declares Christ to be "empty of essence," defined only in the "dependently co-arisen" course of his life, death, and resurrection. Kenan uses Buddhist thought to unveil "facets of meaning in Christ not focused on in western thinking," and to enable western Christians to reclaim their mystic tradition. Part I examines the meaning of Christ as developed in the early church. Through primary sources, Keenan brings to lifht the cumulative research, interpretations and historical understanding of a broad host of Christian scholars. He argues that the Christian West has failed to relate its own mystic thinkers to its doctrinal, theoretical thinking. Part II outlines Indian Buddhist thought from the early Nikāyas through the Abhidharma theorists, the Prajn̄āpāramitaā and Mādhyanuja thinkers, to the development of critical theory in Yogācāra. Keenan then develops the Yogācāra concept of consciousness, addresses some of the objections to the adoption of Mahāyāna philosophy in Christian theology, and applies the Mahāyāna approach to the doctrines of Incarnation and Trinity.

Beside Still Waters

Beside Still Waters
Author: Harold Kasimow
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2016-05-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0861719034

A compelling question for people of faith today is how to remain committed to one's own religious tradition while being open to the beauty and truth of other religions. For example, some fear that Buddhism is a threat to Western faith traditions and express grave doubts about interreligious and cross-cultural encounters. Yet, many who have actually broadened their experience profess to have developed a deeper understanding of and a deeper commitment to their tradition of origin. This is what makes Beside Still Waters: Jews, Christians, and the Way of the Buddha such a new and meaningful contribution. Rather than offering research or lectures, Beside Still Waters takes a deeply personal approach, allowing the reader to delve into the individual experiences of fourteen Jews and Christians whose encounters with Buddhism have truly impacted their sense of religious identity. As Jack Miles, author of God: A Biography, says in the book's foreword, "The Buddhist presence in the religious world is far larger than a head-count of Buddhists can reveal." Beside Still Waters upholds this point by way of the diverse and eloquent authors who lend their perspective in its pages; these include Sylvia Boorstein, John B. Cobb, Norman Fischer, Ruben Habito, and other important members of the Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, and scholarly communities. Their collected anecdotes and interviews amount to an unprecedented and enduring work, sure to deepen our ability to understand each other, and therefore, ourselves.