Interreligious Studies

Rita D. Sherma (Routledge London, Copyright): This volume marks the first wide-ranging and multi-vocal academic survey of the major types and categories of Hindu contemplative praxis from a breadth of scholarly viewpoints that reflect both (a) the variegation in types of contemplative practices within the Hindu traditions and (b) the use of Hindu internal hermeneutical perspectives for expanding the concept of contemplation beyond definitions that-though incrementally enriched by content from Buddhism-are still normatively constrained by Christian understandings of the concept. Part of the reason that the field remains fairly unrepresentative of the breadth of religious lives across cultures lies in the dearth of academic works, from scholars of diverse religions, on the subject of contemplative studies. Contemplative Studies, as a discipline, 1 can be approached via several avenues: (a) a rigorous focus on religious practices of contemplation, their history, and function within the context of one or more spiritual traditions; (b) the secular and interdisciplinary field of the study and pedagogical application of contem-plative practice and experience which may include methods extracted from religions or developed in engagement with other areas of inquiry; (c) neuroscientific approaches that analyze the effects of contemplation, and (d) its study and therapeutic applications in the health sciences. Finally, there are programs, which call for a transdisciplinary research methodology, 2

This research will examine the position of the Christian minority in the Muslim-majority society of Pakistan. There, religious others, in the spur of a moment, become second-class citizens - de facto unequal under the sharia law. As this study is unable to focus on the whole of Pakistan, it targets the Punjab province, which is situated in the center of Pakistan and is sometimes simply called Central Pakistan.



#Pakistan #Christian Persecution in Pakistan #Social and Political status of Christians in Pakistan #Islam #Dhimmi status #Neo-Fundamentalism #Islamization of Pakistan#Blasphemy Law# Christian Mu'allim & Mutakallim#Islamization as political Motif#Militant Jihad#Inclusivism in Islam#Pluralism in Islam#Exclusivism in Islam

Jessica Kingsley Publishers, due 2016
Explores the relationship and dialogue between religion and atheism, focusing upon Christian, Islamic, Buddhist and other, e.g. Pagan, traditions in their encounter with secularism and atheism. It explores such issues as faith and reason, science and religion, gender and sexuality, 'texts of terror', and the use and abuse of arguments, evidence, and concepts.

There’s a growing belief that teachings from religious faiths belong in the discussion around environmental protection. Scientists regularly study the ongoing degradation of Earth’s environment and track the changes wrought by a warming planet. Economists warn that intensifying disasters are harming people’s quality of life. And policymakers focus on crafting rules to diminish the health and environmental effects of humanity’s growing footprint.
What is the role of philosophers and people of faith in this bigger discussion around the environment and sustainability? Professor Rita D. Sherma is Co-chair of a research initiative aimed at bringing the beliefs of religion, spirituality, and ethics to the study of sustainability. Here she explains the core ideas behind “green spirituality,” how religion and environmental protection are closely intertwined, and the role faith can play in restoring hope amid the drumbeat of discouraging environmental news.

This article analyses the debates about mixed marriages held within the Roman Curia (and especially the Roman Inquisition) between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries, integrating these debates with the normative and prescriptive literature. These authorities generally considered mixed marriages between Protestants and Catholics valid and even sacramental in virtue of the shared sacrament of the baptism, but at the same time constructed such unions as ‘carnal crimes’ to ‘abhor’. They believed that the most harmful effect of these polluting unions was that the Catholic partner might become tolerant of Protestantism, rendering the ‘heretic’ dangerously, contagiously familiar and abandoning future generations to heresy. Women were a particular concern for these authorities. Drawing upon traditional and somewhat contradictory ideas about women, they saw the wives in these marriages on one hand as particularly likely to be seduced by the ‘false faith’ because of their presumed weakness, but on the other hand they recognised women as a group with a special talent for beguiling men and so entrusted them with a missionary function towards their ‘heretical’ husbands. The role women could assume in mixed marriages therefore dynamised gender relations, but also caused social tension because of the challenge to patriarchal society, especially if they continued to practice their own faith and were entrusted with the religious education of the children.

By the late 14 th century, the Ottoman army had already crossed the Bosnian border. Having said that, the military campaign itself lasted for 60 years, up until 1463, when Bosnia eventually got conquered. During the first 200 years of the Ottoman expansion, the time of prosperity, power, trade and wealth in Bosnia was noticeable. It can be argued that the time of prosperity sized to exist at the time of the Vienna war, from 1683 to 1699. After the battle, the Bosnian principality lost most of its human resources and wealth, while becoming the last Ottoman province in the West. The year 1732 is known as the start of a new desperate episode for the Bosnian folk. That was the year when the plague first ravaged the cities and quickly moved to the countryside and villages. Although the plague first spread amongst the Bosnian Catholics, it showed no mercy to other religious groups; they all equally suffered the loss of human life. The extent of the plague was seen on a large scale in the city of Jajce, where the death of 5,000 people was recorded in one day. The number of deceased was so large that Christians, Jews, and Muslims were, at times, even buried together. The radical measures introduced by the central government, manged to weaken the plague's effects in 1736. The last case of plague was reported in 1739, which is also considered to be the last day of Bosnia's affliction. Officials in the Bosnian principality during the great plague had a set of unique regulations on how to behave in and during the pandemic. Additionally, some settling rules and criteria in cities and counties were rewritten. However, all the taken measures together with the help received from Austrian, Ottoman and independent provinces, were not enough to stop the plague. This study explores what measures were introduced to fight the plague outbreak in 1 muhamedvaljevac@hotmail.com 2

Waldorf Schools, in their history started out as schools, located in European countries with a strong Christian heritage. However, almost one hundred years later there are schools in every inhabited continent of the world. These schools have mainly been founded with European support concerning finances, materials and curricular contents. In a considerable amount of cases those European Waldorf contents and Waldorf traditions have been exported to far away countries, often not only far away concerning space and nature but also concerning culture and religion.
Modern neurosciences emphasize what already Rudolf Steiner pointed out: the importance of including into the daily educational process the natural and cultural surrounding of the child.
This ethnographic study investigates the processes that two schools in two continents have undergone in overcoming the influences of Eurocentric Waldorf festival traditions. It studies how they reconceptualised those traditions to then develop place based new forms of celebrating Waldorf annual festivals. The findings are related to literature from sociology, ritual theory, Indigenous Knowledge, Anthroposophy and to related studies in Waldorf contexts from the Middle East, Taiwan, South Africa, Germany and New Zealand. It offers profound insights into the school life and cultural surrounding of two quite different and unique Waldorf schools.

The command to love God in Deuteronomy 6:5 poses a puzzle. The verse demands love, but does not explain how to achieve it. Comparing Deuteronomy's covenant structure to other ancient Near Eastern covenant treaties, modern scholars conclude that Deuteronomy 6:5 charges Israel to perform acts of love. And yet, scholars also suggest that God's passionate love for Israel demands a reciprocal emotional response from them. In attempts to elucidate Deuteronomy's command, both the rabbis of the first few centuries of the Common Era and the Gospels single out specific actions that constitute loving God. However, the sources diverge with regard to which actions they highlight. Significantly, Deuteronomy, the early rabbis, and the Gospels all hint that God's own love for His people is the model of love toward which devotees should aspire.

The volume "New Directions in Spiritual Kinship: Sacred Ties Across the Abrahamic Religions," edited by Todne Thomas, Asiya Malik and Rose Wellman, undertakes a comparative analysis of "spiritual kinship" (such as God-parenthood) in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. My chapter, "Kinship as Ethical Relation," starts by questioning the usefulness of spiritual kinship as a category for the understanding of Judaism and expands that critique into an alternate model that might be more useful for comparative purposes. I argue that the idea of "Spiritual Kinship" emerges precisely from an a set of Christian taxonomies that are often implicitly or explicitly anti-Jewish (kinship of the flesh vs. kinship of the spirit, the letter and the spirit of the law, etc.) which makes it unsuitable as an "Abrahamic" category. Moreover, the specific ways in which it is unsuitable for comparative purposes actually demonstrate the importance of this category for understanding of Christianity and of the anthropological kinship categories (affinal, consanguineal and fictive)  that were in large measure adapted from European Christian sources. Viewing kinship as a set of ethical relations, by contrast, does indeed allow for useful comparison across these religious divides and makes better sense of the ethnographic and textual data. Examples are brought from both modern and medieval Jewish life.

Mon but ici est d’examiner la notion d’«inter-spirituel» comme terme complémentaire (et non subordonné, ni opposé) à l’interreligieux, lorsque l’on s’arrête aux différents visages du dialogue. Plus précisément, je veux ici montrer l’intérêt et les forces – comme les limites, bien sûr – de la qualification de certains dialogues par le terme interspirituel plutôt qu’interreligieux. Pour être clair: je ne cherche pas à supprimer un terme par l’autre, mais bien plutôt à bonifier notre compréhension du dialogue, et partant, à en étoffer les dénominations possibles par d’autres termes que celui, un peu large, flou et sans doute dérangeant, parfois, de religieux. Mon intention, en proposant d’enrichir la palette des signifiants pour décrire ce travail du dialogue, est d’en relever certains aspects restés dans l’ombre: souligner, à l’aide de mots nouveaux, que d’autres types de rencontre restés un peu dans l’ombre ou ne sachant pas bien se formuler théoriquement ou politiquement, existent en parallèle et/ou à travers une démarche interreligieuse.

L’étude retrace les difficultés d’accès au concile Vatican II (1959-1965) pour les interlocuteurs juifs, qui contactent le Vatican au sujet du schéma De Judaeis. 
Ces difficultés s'expliquent par la forte asymétrie des relations, les juifs étant en position d'entrants. Vu les effets de segmentation dans ces réseaux, l’apport du moment conciliaire réside in fine moins dans les transferts d’idées entre représentants de groupes religieux distincts, que dans de nouvelles pratiques d’échange. Les relations entre représentants juifs et ecclésiastiques s'autonomisent des voies d'accès et des modes de discussion diplomatiques, pour donner naissance à une diplomatie interreligieuse. L'article se concentre ici sur les voies d'accès dont disposent ces interlocuteurs (mémorandums et discussions avec le Secrétariat pour l'Unité des Chrétiens, dont les théologiens chargés de la "question juive" étaient principalement des convertis) et revient sur les difficultés inhérentes à ce type d'échanges.

Cet article a été approuvé et publié par le comité de lecture des Éditions du CTHS dans le cadre des actes du 140e Congrès national des sociétés historiques et scientifiques tenu à Reims en 2015.

Durch das Jüdische Jahr" führt Monat für Monat durch den jüdischen Jahreskreis. Rabbinerin Dalia Marx stellt den Charakter, die Feste und Gedenktage jedes Monats vor, beschreibt wenig bekannte religiöse Traditionen, Gebete und häusliche Bräuche und fragt, welche Bedeutung sie für unser modernes, durch eine Vielfalt von Kulturen und Identitäten geprägtes Leben haben können. Perspektiven aus Geschichte und Gegenwart, aus West und Ost, Israel und der Welt verflechten sich zu einem vielfarbigen Gewebe jüdischen Lebens und eröffnen einen eigenen Zugang zum Reichtum religiöser Traditionen.
Aus dem Hebräischen übersetzt und bearbeitet von Rabbinerin Ulrike Offenberg.
https://www.hentrichhentrich.de/book-durch-das-juedische-jahr.html

Learning Interreligiously: In the Text, in the World is a fascinating series of about one hundred blog posts written from November 2008 to December 2016 by Francis X. Clooney, a global scholar known for his work in the field of Comparative Theology. Clooney was invited to write on interfaith dialogue for “In All Things," a blog hosted by America, a Jesuit journal of opinion (xi). The blog posts include a wide range of topics such as “interreligious happenings in the Catholic Church,” “Vatican documents and related controversies involving theologians,” “reports on occasional travels,” “provocative news items related to religion appearing in the American press,” “items related to teaching and programming at Harvard,” and a “few personal posts” (xi). Such is Clooney's commitment to interfaith learning that, although he is not an expert in Islamic or Mormon studies, he engages the Qur'an and the Book of the Mormon.

The religious geography of Hatay, the southernmost province of Turkey, is shaped through a tapestry of sanctuaries of shared religious heritage. This chapter features four of the most prominent sites that illustrate the religious significance of water, namely a waterfall in Harbiye attributed to the Greek myth of Apollo and Daphne; a rivulet ascribed to the water of life through the legend of St. George and al-Khidr, the Green One; a sacred well in the oldest Christian cave church in Antioch associated with St. Luke and a water pool linked to a visit of the Virgin Mary. By reconstructing the legends and rituals in conjunction with the geography and environment of these sacred springs and water wells, this essay demonstrates how devotion to both deities and saints is integrally tied to the materiality and sacredness of abundant water resources providing the basis for interreligious relations in this region.

In exploring two different kinds of early modern institutional religious discourses, i.e. catechisms and exposition of discussed matters, this article highlights two modes of enunciative fading off. On the one hand, catechisms look like dialogues, but they are actually full of apparently “autonomous” utterances. On the other hand, exposition, a supposedly neutral presentation, proves to be pervaded by a subdued but clearly partial subjectivity, a chiaroscuro presence very much in tune with the mediate and transitive Christian regime of authority.

L’étude de deux types de discours religieux institutionnels, les catéchismes et l’exposition de matières controversées, permet de mettre au jour deux modes d’effacement énonciatif : les catéchismes miment le dialogue, mais multiplient les énoncés « autonomisés » ; l’exposition, qui se veut présentation neutre, s’avère constellée de marqueurs d’une subjectivité certes pacifiée mais partiale – présence en demi-teinte conforme au caractère médiat et transitif de l’autorité en régime chrétien.

In exploring two different kinds of early modern institutional religious discourses, i.e. catechisms and exposition of discussed matters, this article highlights two modes of enunciative fading off. On the one hand, catechisms look like dialogues, but they are actually full of apparently “autonomous” utterances. On the other hand, exposition, a supposedly neutral presentation, proves to be pervaded by a subdued but clearly partial subjectivity, a chiaroscuro presence very much in tune with the mediate and transitive Christian regime of authority.

El estudio de dos tipos de discusos religiosos institucionales, los catecismos y la exposición de temas sometidos a controversia, premite presentar dos modalidades de borramiento enunciativo : los catecismos miman al diálogo, pero multiplican los enunciados “autonomizados” ; la exposición, que se pretende presentación neutra, se presenta constelada por marcadores de una subjetividad, a su vez pacificada pero parcial – presencia esbozada conforme al caráter mediato y transitivo de la autoridad bajo un regimen cristiano.

* People identified with being "spiritual but not religious (SBNR)" now comprise around a quarter of American adults and their number keeps growing. Despite the ambiguity of their spiritual states which defy easy characterization, SBNRs are consistent in their tendency of dabbling in or seeking spiritual resources outside traditional institutional boundaries of religions. As a research program organized in the American Academy of Religion, Theology Without Walls (TWW) aims to pursue theology as an open inquiry into ultimate reality untethered to institutional restrictions of religions, from whatever tradition a theologian may start her inquiry. Are SBNRs amenable to TWW? How do we look at the phenomenon of SBNR from the perspective of TWW and other related viewpoints of inter-or trans-religious studies? This special issue gathers scholarly contributions in areas such as sociology, pastoral care, pedagogy, psychology, political science, theology, and religious studies in order to shed light on these questions.
* The full issue is available: https://irstudies.org/index.php/jirs/issue/view/45.

The author explores the differences in the ways of knowing God, with a particular focus on the rational proofs of God’s existence as perceived by noteworthy authors from Christian and Hindu traditions. He deepens the study with insights put forth by Raimundo Panikkar in his seminal work on the encounter between both religions. A possible blend of the two traditions is proposed.

This volume arises from deliberations at the first International Academic Conference in the United States to explore the life and legacy of the Hindu visionary, liberative theologian, and great modern exponent of Ādvaita Vedanta, Swami Vivekananda. The conference took place in Los Angeles on October 18th-19th, 2013, marking the 150 th centenary of the birth of Swami Vivekananda, an advocate of interreligious dialogue and foremost disciple of the modern era's most influential Hindu mystic, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa. The conference was sponsored by the School of Religion of the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles. Over 150 years since his birth and some 120 years after his momentous plenary address at the World Parliament of Religion in Chicago (1893), numerous aspects of Swami Vivekananda's life and work have begun to attract renewed attention. Vivekananda's philosophical, religious and social ideas, especially the manner in which they were extended, applied, or appropriated in recent times have been widely discussed, critiqued, and presented. His legacy, however, is being re-appraised within these pages in terms of its continuity as well as its discontinuity from tradition, and from postcolonial, feminist, hermeneutical, and ethical perspectives. This volume offers a multi-layered exploration of the contributions of Swami Vivekananda to a range of discursive and practical engagements that cut evenly across the Hindu traditions of philosophy, theology, ethics, and social justice. There are historical questions as well as exegetical or scholastic questions about the connection Swami Vivekananda claimed or is perceived to have had with the deeper recesses of

This paper addresses the relationship of the modern Orthodox and Conservative movements to halachah.  It will explore the basic attitudes of each movement to halachic authority while attempting to show what possibility exists for change within halachah itself.  Since both of the movements are monolithic, there are a variety of approaches to such a central concept as halachah.  This variety of different approaches will be briefly addressed and necessitates choosing an individual theologian from each movement so as to see how their ideas reflect the consensus of their respective movement.  This will be done with Rabbis Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) and Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903-1993).  Each theologian’s individual approach to the halachic permissibility of interreligious dialogue will serve as an adequate example of how the Conservative and Modern Orthodox movements relate to Halachah.

The purpose of this study is to analyze, from a critical perspective, the contribution to peace and
development of “Fez Process” in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, considering
the role of diplomacy and religion in the construction of spaces for peace and conflict prevention
derived from perceptions about religion, in a geographical space dominated by an orientalist vision of "Culture of War". For this purpose, the methodology used is qualitative, with an exploratory study based on literature review and interviews with key informants.

The paper analyzes material on Persians and their beliefs as presented in the 7-th century universal history “The Book of the Main Points, of The History of the Temporal World” by the East Syriac monk John bar Penkaye.
The first part deals with so-called Zurvan myth in Syriac literature: its documentation, perception, sources, interpretations, and significance for the students of the religious landscape of Sasanian Iran. When Syriac authors write about Persian beliefs, it is usually the myth of Zurvan that they retell: a story how certain Zurvan engendered two sons, Ohrmazd and Ahriman, who created the world, the former -- all that is good and beautiful, and the latter -- all that is malign. Does this story that we find in Syriac sources reflect the actual religious practices of Sasanian Iran; can it be regarded as an example of the intercommunal relationship; how is it related to Theodore of Mopsuestia's lost tractate "Contra Magos": do they share a common source, or the tractate itself is the source? These and related questions are discussed in the first part of the paper.
The second part presents excerpts from the History on Cyrus II and Shapur II.

In adopting Christianity, a foreign religion, the pre-twentieth-century Asian Christian converts needed to interiorize the new faith and reconcile varied traditions. At times they needed to negotiate the tension between con icting claims.  eir “dual belonging” is usu- ally ignored in their home traditions, since Asians do not render it problematic, whereas present scholarly discourse on “dual belonging” in the West tends to focus on European missionaries in Asia. By the study of Wang Zheng, a Confucian Christian in the seven- teenth century, and a brief comparison between Wang and a Hindu convert, Brahmaband- hab Upadhyay, I propose that these converts are also pioneers of “dual belonging.”  e tensions and struggles in their lives and thoughts provide particular resources and in- sights for current research, thereby illuminating the phenomenon of dual belonging.

The Jesuit father Nicolas Pimenta's report mentions one of the first Christian missions to Bengal (1598–1604). Based on fresh translations of the chapters in the report describing the Bengal mission, this article examines interreligious relations in contemporary Bengal characterised by the dialectic of coexistence and disjunction. Local kingship or lordship was the keystone in the structure of interreligious coexistence in Bengal. The Christian preachers carried an incompatibilist and exclusivist approach to interreligious relations that was at odds with the inclusivist and com-patibilist approach prevalent among the Bengal lords. The welcome accorded to the preachers by the lords reflected the inclusive approach. The eventual persecution and expulsion of the fathers was due to political exigencies rather than interreligious antagonism.

Healing, in conjunction with dream and vision requests at sacred sites, is a well-documented phenomenon in Turkey and the Middle East, and plays a major role in local Muslim traditions. This article presents an ethnographic account of dreaming and healing traditions, focusing on the worship of Hızır and Şeyh Yusuf el-Hekim commonly practised at pilgrimage sites in Hatay, Turkey. It demonstrates how Muslims and Christians visit these pilgrimage sites for the purpose of both vows and dream-quests. I argue that visits to local pilgrimage sites – including dreaming and healing as key elements of these visits – lead to a virtual encounter with the saint and a ritual transformation of agency for the worshipper. In reference to the work of Bakhtin, I utilize the concept of the chronotope to analyze oral traditions about Muslim saints and the interrelatedness between temporal and spatial dimensions of visits to these pilgrimage sites. I link this approach with Kapferer’s concept of virtuality so as to account for the personal testimonies of those who visited these sites and experienced virtual encounters with Muslim saints through dreaming and healing. In conclusion, I present details from one of my own experiences at a site and discuss how this changed my relationships with my interlocutors.

This essay demonstrates how "Interfaith and Interreligious Pedagogies: An Assessment" by Katherine Janiec Jones and Cassie Meyer represents a significant step in the development of Interreligious/Interfaith Studies-particularly, how it contributes an answer to the question of "What is Interreligious/Interfaith Studies?"-an issue that is of interest to the audience of this journal, as well as to those involved in Religious Studies, senior higher education leadership, and funding agencies and foundations.

The Christian tradition’s core theological assertion is the embodiment of God in the person of Jesus Christ. Yet, even while asserting God’s incarnation in space and time, the tradition has usually denied embodiment unto the Godhead itself. Theologians have based this denial on Jewish iconoclasm, Greek idealism, and inferences from God’s omnipresence, transcendence, and infinity. This speculative essay will argue that Hindu Śrīvaiṣṇava theologian Rāmānuja successfully addresses these concerns. He argues for the embodiment of an omnipresent, transcendent, and infinite personal God. Rāmānuja largely derives his arguments from the Hindu scriptures. Nevertheless, their rational explication and internal coherence render divine embodiment a legitimate theological option for the Christian tradition, whose scriptures present both anthropomorphic and iconoclastic concepts of God. Since Godhead embodiment is ontologically coherent and rationally defensible, Christians must accept or reject it based on axiological grounds, by evaluating the felt consequences of the doctrine in Christian life. For embodied beings, any pastoral theology should commend embodiment within the Godhead.

In this paper it is argued that the typology in the theology of religions is not usefully constructed in strictly demarcated boundaries, but that the fluidity of the boundaries needs to be recognised. Employing previously expounded ideas a new vision for the typology as reflecting both theological positions with different agendas as well as representing four different ideal types (in a Durkheimian sense is argued) of tendencies. The tendencies are named as radical discontinuity, radical fulfilment, radical openness, and radical difference (respectively: exclusivisms, inclusivisms, pluralisms, particularities). The paper concludes by arguing that the typology is often wrongly criticized for not doing things it is not intended to, as it is an analytic tool rather than an aid to dialogue, but notes it can be usefully used in theological reflection.

This dissertation examines the role of twentieth-century performing arts in the transformation of Protestant/Hindu relations in Bali. More specifically, it demonstrates how the regional tourist economy produced a largely artificial sacred/secular musical binary and how this distinction in turn fostered newly hybridized genres of Christian gamelan music and dance. Religiously mixed gamelan groups of Balinese Protestants and Hindus now regularly perform this repertoire, a stark contrast to the strict religious segregation of the early and mid-twentieth century. Through such interaction a shared, interreligious aesthetic discourse has emerged. I utilize aspects of social network analysis, and material culture studies to illustrate how one particular Protestant denomination, known colloquially as the Bali Church (or Gereja Kristen Protestan di Bali, GKPB), has established and maintained this discourse vis-à-vis Protestant/Hindu music networks based on shared concerns regarding ethnic (Balinese) identity, described locally as “kebalian.”

The main body of the dissertation is divided into two main sections, each consisting of two chapters. The first section establishes the historical development and narrative upon which the second proceeds. Chapter one examines the development of contextual practices within the Bali Church from 1972 onward, including biographical details of key church builders and artists, and the establishment of institutions within GKPB that have played a pivotal role in promoting contextual art. Chapter two looks at the expansion of tourism in Bali and the important role this new economy played in creating a legitimated sphere for church participation in Balinese performing arts.

The second major section is more analytic in nature and illustrates some of the important social implications arising from the intersection of contextual art with touristic practice and ideology. Chapter three explores the contemporary association between localized musics, Hinduism, and constructs of Balinese identity. Finally, in chapter four theories of capital and social networks are explored as interpretive devices for understanding the social function of these interreligious interactions and the driving forces behind them. In particular, the notion that key actors in a given network may act as brokers between groups is explored as a model for understanding Christian/Hindu relations in Bali.

La «Teología del pluralismo religioso» es una rama de la teología (muy reciente, menos de 60 años) que reflexiona preguntándose por/sobre la «pluralidad religiosa»: ¿que significa que haya varias religiones? ¿No debería ser sólo una religión? ¿Por qué hay tantas, incluso muchísimas religiones? ¿Qué me dijo mi religión cristiana cuando me educaron?
      ¿Me dijeron que en realidad sólo la religión cristiana es válida, verdadera, y todas las demás son «simplemente humanas», no válidas, que no salvan...? O quizá sigo pensando lo que, imcomprensiblemente, todavía hoy, en la tercera década del tercer milenio todavía la doctrina oficial de la Iglesia Católica (Declaración 'Dóminus Iesus', del card. Ratzinger –no Benedicto XVI–) sigue proclamando que las otras religiones también tienen alguna cosa buena, pero que esas cosas buenas que tienen, les vienen del cristianismo precisamente: sólo Jesús, sólo él es el mediador único entre Dios y los seres humanos, ya sea en esta tierra o en cualquier exoplaneta en que descubramos vida humana...
    Sólo si estudiamos a fondo este tema «nuevo», podremos hacer avanzar la Iglesia, las Iglesias, las religiones, la sociedad, la humanidad. Mientras, no es posible que haya verdadera paz y colaboración y unidad en la Humanidad, porque las religiones mismas, a cada pueblo, le incapacitan para colaborar en pie de igualdad y de fraternidad, porque le enseñan que él es «el pueblo elegido», el «escogido para salvar a los demás», evangelizándolos, sustituyendo sus religiones y sus culturas...
    En realidad, sólo habrá paz en el mundo si cambiamos nuestras mentes religiosas con una nueva «teología del pluralismo religioso». Mientras sigamos en el exclusivismo o en el inclusivismo, seguiremos haciendo y haciéndonos daño.
    Este es un libro de teología «sistemática» que dialoga también con la Academia, pero que está dirigido al creyente común, a la persona sencilla, a las parroquias y grupos de estudio, a las comunidades de base, y a la persona individual estudiosa, para plantear esta necesaria reflexión como un estudio organizado, documentado, aplicado, con ejercicios y reflexiones, y de hecho ha sido estudiado en multitud de parroquias y comunidades cristianas, facultades de teología, universidades... Este libro está publicado en 5 idiomas distintos (español,  portugués, italiano, alemán e inglés) y disponible pública y gratuitamente, en este mismo portal de internet.