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Don Cupitt: Christian Buddhist?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
Extract
In a number of ways, western Christianity has taken a genuine interest in the thought-world and practice of Buddhism over the last few decades. Process theologians have found much to enthuse them in the Buddhist rejection of substance as a fundamental category and Christian mysticism has discovered common ground with Buddhist understandings of ultimate Reality. Buddhist–Christian dialogue has been occurring at many levels, initiated for the most part by Christians.
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References
1 Rouner, Leroy (‘Theology of Religions in Recent Protestant Theology’, in Hans, Küng and Jürgen, Moltmann [eds], Christianity Among World Religions [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1986], 109)Google Scholar offers several suggestions to account for western activism in pursuing dialogue.
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5 See Almond, Philip C., The British Discovery of Buddhism (Cambridge: University Press, 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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7 Cowdell, Scott, ‘Buddhism and Christianity’, Asia Journal of Theology, IV (1990), p. 190.Google Scholar Cf. Cupitt, Don, Radicals and the Future of the Church (London: SCM, 1989), pp. 53–4.Google Scholar
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17 Taking Leave of God, p. 8. In Radicals (p. 73) Cupitt criticizes the concentration of spiritual power in male clergy, ‘with their orthodoxy, their franchise on forgiveness, their chain of command and their proper channels of Grace’.
18 Taking Leave of God, p. 8.
19 ‘The Sangha’, p. 177.
20 Zen, p. 105.
21 Griffiths, Paul J. in a work edited by him, Christianity Through Non-Christian Eyes (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1990), p. 137.Google Scholar This view is expressed in the Buddhist parable of the raft: a raft is useful for crossing the river, but it becomes an unnecessary burden and a hindrance if you strap it to your back for the rest of the journey.
22 The Long-Legged Fly (London: SCM, 1987), p. 151.Google Scholar See also Radicals, pp. 59–60.
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24 Quoted in Williams, Paul, ‘Some Dimensions of the Recent Work of Raimundo Panikkar: A Buddhist Perspective’, Religious Studies, XXVII (1991), p. 514.Google Scholar
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41 What is a Story?, p. 81. On differentiation through language, see The Long-Legged Fly, chapter 4.
42 Radicals, p. 58.
43 Ibid. p. 86. In After All Cupitt discusses the scientific vision of the world in some detail.
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49 Radicals, p. 39.
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59 Quoted in Mellor, p. 51.
60 From the Udāna, quoted in Conze, p. 112.
61 ‘Spurious Parallels’, p. 113.
62 See, for example, The Time Being, pp. 120–4.
63 Scott Cowdell's description of the attitude of Cupitt and fellow radical Christians in ‘Radical Theology, Postmodernity and Christian Life in the Void’, Heythrop Journal, XXXII (1991), p. 66.Google Scholar
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66 Zen, p. 182. Cf. also pp. 94 and 211.
67 The Time Being, p. 182.
68 Ibid, p. 164. See also Radicals, pp. 61 and 145. Streng (p. 50) notes that from the Madhyamaka point of view, time is inescapable – but this is because there is no such reality to escape from. In Cupitt's view, (The Time Being, pp. 135 and 178–82) time is a reality but it cannot be parted or distinguished from who we are: time is being, being just is time.
69 The Time Being, p. 148.
70 Ibid. p. 149. While Cupitt's point concerning an active and passionate involvement in life is taken, he does perhaps misrepresent the Buddhist case. Masao Abe, for example, (p. 111) declares ‘free creative activity’ to be the result of the realization of total Nothingness.
71 See The Time Being, pp. 159 and 163.
72 Zen, pp. 9–10 and 202.
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77 See After All, pp. 80–3.
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79 From the Vigraha-vyāvartanī, quoted in Streng, p. 93.
80 Jackson, pp. 569–71.
81 Ibid. pp. 575 and 585.
82 See Radicals, p. 43; The Time Being, pp. 115 and 121; and What is a Story?, pp. 131–8.
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84 See David Jenkins' review of Radicals and Clark's, Steven R. L. review of Creation Out of Nothing (Religious Studies, XXVII (1991)).Google Scholar Clark (p. 561) finds Cupitt's claims ‘simply maddening’.
85 Zen, p. 215.
86 The Time Being, p. 177. See also Cupitt's discussion of ‘affirming the Now’ in After All, pp. 56–7.Google Scholar