The Human Is Not Bound: Buddhist-Christian Thought, Spiritual Care, and Complex Religious Bonds

As people with complex religious bonds become more visible in US congregations and in public life, their presence promises to shape worship, ritual, teaching, preaching, fellowship, and spiritual care across religious traditions. Spiritual care providers, especially chaplains and pastoral counselors...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Buddhist Christian studies
Main Author: Bidwell, Duane R. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: University of Hawaii Press 2021
In: Buddhist Christian studies
Year: 2021, Volume: 41, Pages: 151-161
Further subjects:B Practical Theology
B Aquinas
B Spiritual care
B complex religious bonds
B Emptiness
B Nagarjuna
B divine incomprehensibility
B Multiple Religious Belonging
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Summary:As people with complex religious bonds become more visible in US congregations and in public life, their presence promises to shape worship, ritual, teaching, preaching, fellowship, and spiritual care across religious traditions. Spiritual care providers, especially chaplains and pastoral counselors working in pluralistic institutional contexts, need new practices and theologies to engage more effectively and faithfully with the gifts and sufferings of religiously multiple people. Yet scant literature addresses practical, pastoral questions about complex religious bonds. Using John J. Thatamanil's framing of religion as both an interpretive scheme and a therapeutic regimen, this paper illustrates the value of intersectional analysis in understanding and responding to complex religious bonds. It does so by documenting the effects of religious multiplicity, culture, family crises, migration, and relational dynamics on a Buddhist-Muslim-Christian man. It then considers his experience in light of the comparative theologies of Thatamanil and James L. Fredericks to suggest that Buddhist emptiness and the Christian doctrine of God's incomprehensibility could function as useful resources for care. Finally, it identifies resource needs of spiritually fluid people that could be addressed by scholars of Buddhist-Christian studies.
ISSN:1527-9472
Contains:Enthalten in: Buddhist Christian studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1353/bcs.2021.0015