John D'Arcy May Seminar, Arts, Monash University

11 November 2009, 2:00 - 4:00pm

John D'Arcy May
Associate Professor of Interfaith Dialogue
Irish School of Ecumenics, Dublin

It is often overlooked that ‘universal’ or ‘high’ traditions such as Buddhism and Christianity themselves began as ‘indigenous’ traditions in very particular cultures and societies, which they then transcended as they engaged with cultures very different from those of their contexts of origin. It has been suggested that there are more commonalities between the Buddhist story and the Dreaming stories of Aboriginal Australia than initially meet the eye, and there is much to be learnt – both negatively and positively – from Buddhism’s extraordinary adaptability to its host cultures through the centuries. Christianity, too, has developed its own techniques for adaptation to cultures that are foreign to it, though its missionary history shows that it has also transformed cultures in its own image. In addition, both Buddhist and Christian traditions are increasingly confronted by a secularity whose exclusive humanism seems to portray them both as optional life choices rather than compelling truths.

This poses a challenge to emerging Christology and Buddhology in Australian and Asia-Pacific contexts. Are they capable of recovering the intense relationship to earth and cosmos, land and place that marked their origins without losing their absolute transcendence of an impermanent phenomenal world? Can traditions such as Australian Aboriginal religion help to ‘earth’ them, thus enhancing their contribution to ecological ethics, environmental sustainability and socio-economic justice? Is a fundamental re-interpretation of central teachings such as creation and incarnation, emptiness and interconnectedness feasible? What effects would such a re-interpretation have on ethics in a ‘time of many worlds’, of religious pluralism in the multi-cultural public sphere of an emerging global civil society? These are some of the questions to be addressed.

John D'Arcy May Seminar

Buddhism and Christianity as Indigenous Religion

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