The Center is Everywhere
Christianity in Dialogue with Religion and Science
Imprint: Pickwick Publications
194 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 x 0.39 in
- Paperback
- 9781666735567
- Published: March 2022
$29.00 / £25.00 / AU$44.00
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The most crucial task facing Christian theology today is the furtherance of dialogue with the religious traditions of the world great and small and with the scientific worldview. The starting premise of this book is that the two dialogues need to be carried on simultaneously and equiprimordially, despite the risk of undermining the traditional foundations of the Christian faith. The author argues that such a crisis can be averted by breaking through its core and opening faith to an experience of nothingness. He draws on the Buddhist philosophy of the Kyoto School philosopher Nishitani Keiji to propose new paths toward a theology of religious pluralism grounded in a Huayan Buddhist vision of reality.
Seung Chul Kim received his Dr.Theol. from the University of Basel in 1989 and taught in Korea and Japan for twenty years before joining the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture in Nagoya, Japan, where he has been Director since 2016. In addition to over twenty volumes of translations on interreligious dialogue, literature, and the natural sciences, he has published numerous works in Japanese and Korean. A recent work, Endō Shūsaku and the Detective Novel (in Japanese), received the 2020 award of the Japan Society of Mystery Writers.
“Squarely facing the challenges of science and religion, Seung Chul Kim offers an entirely original and compelling ‘theology of pluralistic pluralism’ drawing from the Huayan Buddhist understanding of reality and the self. It breaks open the staled discourse in theology of religions with new perspectives that promise to overcome the dichotomy between unity and plurality.”
—Catherine Cornille, Boston College
“Seung Chul Kim presents a radically new perspective on the understanding of Christian faith in relation to religious pluralism and science. Rather than relate to scientific worldviews and other religions externally, he proposes that Christian identity relate to them internally, with the result that faith itself becomes plural. . . . A very inspiring approach, informed by Western philosophy and theology as well as by Buddhist thinking and spirituality!”
—Reinhold Bernhardt, University of Basel
“Professor Kim, in this serene and seasoned book, offers prolegomena to any future theology. Knocking on the doors of confessional bunkers, he urges that theology, if it wants to have a future, must open its horizons still more widely. . . . Writing in the broad liberal tradition of Ernst Troeltsch and Paul Tillich, Professor Kim reveals the attractive modern face of Asian Christianity.”
—Joseph S. O’Leary, Sophia University
“This book calls into question the historical Christian approach to the relation between religion and science. Other religious traditions are considered inferior to the way that science supports the belief system of Christianity. Why not try the non-dual approach to world religions where each needs the other to be authentically itself?”
—Joseph A. Bracken, SJ, Xavier University, emeritus
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