Passing Over and Returning: A Pluralist Theology of Religions

In Passing Over and Returning Paul O. Ingram describes his particular dialogue with the world’s religions, illustrated by his experience of passing over into Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism, Judaism, and Islam, and by his return to his home as a Lutheran Christian. While religious diversity is not new, neither are the questions posed by religious diversity. What is new is that more and more people are actively engaged with the world’s religions because more and more people are willing to be informed by insights found in religious traditions other than their own. This is particularly true among progressive Christians. But openness does not necessarily mean rejecting one’s own tradition, even though persons sometimes convert to another tradition or combine their original religious identity with the identity of another tradition. Whether one returns to the home of one’s own faith tradition after passing over, or assumes a dual religious identity, or converts to another tradition, all persons engaged in interreligious dialogue undergo processes of creative transformation.

Paul O. Ingram is Professor Emeritus of History of Religions at Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, Washington. He is he author of Buddhist-Christian Dialogue in an Age of Science (2008), The Process of Buddhist-Christian Dialogue (Cascade Books, 2009), and Theological Reflections at the Boundaries (Cascade Books, 2012).