Toward Universal Religion: Voices of American and Indian Spirituality

Using the 1893 and the 1993 World's Parliament of Religions as a focus for probing intercultural religious communication, this study describes more than a century's preoccupation with a provocative phenomenon called universal religion. It presents 12 enduringly significant speakers whose rhetorical effectiveness, combined with their concepts of universal religion, forge an intercultural synthesis combining Eastern religions and Western thought. This volume will interest scholars and students of both religion and rhetoric as well as the general public. It provides a deeper appreciation of such well-known communicators as Emerson and Thoreau, as well as an introduction to the significant contributions of thinkers such as Roy, Sen, Besant, Vivekananda, Tagore, Radhakrishnan, Gandhi, Jenkins Lloyd Jones, John Haynes Holmes, and Preston Bradley.

The 1893 Parliament of The World's Religions and the 1993 World's Parliament of Religions are described by contemporary historians as watersheds in human history and turning points in humanity's spiritual progress. These parliaments are the two occasions when the world's religious leaders have gathered, and the events symbolize a growing preoccupation with an emerging universal religion evolving through interreligious communication. The 1893 Parliament is recognized for commencing interreligious dialogue and encouraging comparative religion; the 1993 Parliament is remembered for networking the worldwide religious and spiritual communities. This volume describes a little-known but highly important minority movement in which a comparatively few communicators in India and the United States have progessively synthesized Eastern religion and Western thought. The work examines these speakers and their speeches by placing this distinctive rhetorical discourse within their historical times and cultural contexts; specifying the concepts about universal religion proposed by each speaker; and indicating their contributions to an emerging and evolving religion that is universal.

DANIEL ROSS CHANDLER is an ordained minister of the United Methodist Church who holds affiliate membership in the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Fellowships. For 20 years he held academic appointments in the state and city universities of New York and at Rutgers University. In 1986 a Fulbright Fellowship permitted him to travel widely in India and study Indian literary traditions. He created and coordinated the international interdisciplinary academic conference (The Academy) that was a central component of the 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions. For publication, he compiled a compendium containing the offical proceedings, The 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions. In 1991-1993, he was appointed a post-doctoral reseach scholar in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, where research was completed on Toward Universal Religion.