Jyri Komulainen, PhD, Department of Systematic Theology,
University of Helsinki
E-mail: jyri.komulainen@helsinki.fi
Abstract
Is a Multi-Religious Identity Theologically Plausible?
Some Post-Liberal Reflections
My study deals with the issue of multi-religiosity, and especially pursues a
theological assessment of the possibility of a Hindu-Christian identity. Even
though different traditions have intertwined throughout the history, the issue
is more urgent in the light of contemporary scene of globalization and
migration.
My argument is the following: First, I observe that setting the concept
‘religio’ in general into the context of questions of truth-value is an
inheritance of early Christian thinking. The original meaning of concept,
however, referred to the manifold ritual traditions among peoples.
It may be legitimately asked to what extent these rituals have some cognitive
content or truth-value, if any. Since ‘religion’ is intrinsically a Western
concept, it cannot be straightforwardly imposed on other cultures. What we call
‘religions’ are open-ended cultural traditions. My
stance rests on recent post-colonialist literature, e.g. Richard King’s
Orientalism and Religion (1999).
Secondly, I highlight the fact that religious traditions are indeed pursuing
different goals. Therefore, a naïve pluralistic claim of the ultimate sameness
of different religions is disputable. With my critical stance, I adhere to an
emerging “post-pluralistic” theology of religions as it is developed in recent
literature such as J.A. DiNoia’s The Diversity of
Religions (1992), S. Mark Heim’s Salvations (1995), and Gavin D’Costa’s The
Meeting of Religions and the Trinity (2000).
The joint feature of theologies that could be labeled post-pluralistic is that,
once the impossibility and incoherence of pluralism has been proved, they defend
the rights of religions to hold on to their own, mutually inconsistent truth
claims. Consistently with their critical stance towards pluralism,
post-pluralistic theologians themselves are not afraid of
committing themselves to their own religious tradition. Being deconstructive
towards the pluralistic way of theologizing and defending the coexistence of
different and mutually conflicting world- views, post-pluralism could be, in a
sense, considered parallel to different postmodern ways of thinking. It seems to
have many similarities with so-called post-colonial theory, which aims to
deconstruct the stereotypical and paternalistic representations that have been
an essential part of colonial thinking. On the other hand, post-pluralism could
not be
classified unambiguously as a postmodern way of thinking, since the idea is to
make room for traditional self-understanding of religions. Nonetheless,
post-pluralism could be defined as a certain branch of postmodern thinking,
which Terrence W. Tilley has labeled as “postmodern religious thought”.
Moreover, it could be viewed as an application of so-called post-liberalist
theology in the field of the theology of religions.
Following these initiative observations that highlight the ambiguity of
‘religion’ as well as the diversity of religious traditions, I explore the
possibility of delineating Christian identity amid cultural and religious
dynamics. If there is a need to find some lowest common denominator of Christian
traditions, in my view, this may be found Jesus of Nazareth. This means that
Christianity focuses first and foremost on a historical person, not on a
doctrine. Christianity could be defined as movement or historical dynamics
inaugurated by Jesus of Nazareth.
If the theological idea of incarnation is also taken into account, the most
vital tenets of Christian faith entail a constant call for contextualization.
Since all cultures display also religious dimensions, i.e. a fundamental
openness to transcendence, this contextualization
embraces also those traditions that have been labeled traditionally as
‘religions’.
In addition to these theoretical observations, I present two instances of
Hindu-Christianity—Brahmabandhav Upadhyaya (1861-1907) and Raimon Panikkar (b.
1918)—and make brief assessments of their work.
My conclusive argument is that, from the point of view of Christian theology,
Christian faith can adopt also such forms that could be labeled ‘multi-religious’.
The decisive factor is, however, whether the Christian narrative may provide the
meta-narrative of multi-religious
identity, i.e. the one that transforms other narratives in conflict situations.