Fire and water: Basic issues in Asian Buddhism and Christianity

·期刊原文

Fire and water: Basic issues in Asian Buddhism and Christianity

by Pieris. A.

Reviewed by Kopf, G. (REPRINT)

JOURNAL OF ECUMENICAL STUDIES

Vol.35 No.2 Pp.305-306 Spring 1998

COPYRIGHT 1998 Journal of Ecumenical Studies

Aloysius Pieris. Faith Meets Faith Series. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis
Books, 1996. Pp. 219. $20.00, paper.

In Fire and Water, Pieris argues convincingly and brilliantly that
an Asian theology must always be a liberation theology located in
the context of interreligious dialogue. He successfully negotiates
the ambiguity of Sri Lanka's Christians, whose religious and
cultural identities seem to be at odds and proposes a post-colonial
liberation theology that does justice to biblical foundation of
Catholicism as well as to the unique cultural, religious, economic,
and historical situation of today's Sri Lanka. He skillfully draws
from traditional scholarship, poetry, and Buddhist insights to
reinterpret Christian theology as liberation theology that
courageously faces the aftermath of colonialism, patriarchy,
religious sectarianism, and technocratic alienation at the end of
the twentieth century. While Pieris also touches on crucial issues
such as the significance of feminism, problems inherent in a
rhetoric of human rights, and the issue of chastity, I will focus on
his contributions to an interreligious dialogue.

Pieris is wholeheartedly dedicated to the evangelization of Asia and
the "conversion to YHWH's program of liberation" (p. 147). While
this program seems to conflict with the overall spirit of an
interreligious dialogue, Pieris radically reinterprets the
conceptions of "conversion" and "evangelization" with a brilliance
reminiscent of Erasmus's argument against the holy-war rhetoric of
sixteenth-century Europe. Pieris argues that YHWH's program is the
"dream of a contrast society," "a human community governed by love"
(p. 173); conversion is an "interreligious solidarity" beyond the
paradigms of exclusivism and inclusivism. This concern for the poor
and the downtrodden "is the common denominator between Christianity
and all non-biblical religions" (p. 149) and thus the basis for an
interfaith dialogue. As languages of the spirit, differing
theologies should neither mix nor absorb one another but coexist,
each in its particularity. The same applies to the languages of
human rights and of individual responsibilities and the languages of
inculturation and liberation.

Pieris constructs liberation theology as criticism of patriarchy,
economic exploitation, the idolatry of consumerism and, ultimately,
of theology itself. Theologies are not free from these forms of
infidelity but, rather, have to recognize the "canon within the
canon" (p. 107), which continuously denounces any form of domination
and exploitation even when it appears under the guise of theology.
Like Noriaki Hakamaya, who proposes that Buddhism has to be critical
and transformative, Pieris prefers a prophetic definition of
religion to a descriptive one. Any theology - and, subsequently,
interfaith dialogue - has to follow God's demand to listen to those
traditionally rejected and silenced: women, the poor, and those
subjected to economic, cultural, and theological imperialism. It is
Pieris's consistent emphasis on this prophetic demand and his
challenge to admit and reform the power structure and ideological
imperialism within the theological discourse that make Fire and
Water an invaluable contribution to Christian theology and
interreligious dialogue in the postcolonial era. His notions of
"symbiosis" and wholeness as well as his vision of a "third
magistratum," a tertius quid, further imply and necessitate a
radical rethinking of the fundamental paradigm on which theology and
interreligious dialogue rest.