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Re-Creating Christian Community: A Response to Rita M. Gross

Re-Creating Christian Community: A Response to Rita M. Gross BUDDHIST AND CHRISTIAN VIEWS OF COMMUNIT Y Re-Creating Christian Community: A Response to Rita M. Gross Donald W. Mitchell Purdue University In Rita M. Gross’s well-written, insightful, and provocative paper entitled “Some Reflections about Community and Survival,” Rita says: “I am challenging my Chris- tian colleagues to consider what role Western religious concepts about the individual may have played in getting us into the current hyper-individualism. I also am asking whether the Buddhist concept of interdependence might be very useful in provid- ing tools with which to think about why this hyper-individualism cannot survive.” In terms of Rita’s challenge, one could make the generalization that the notion of the individual soul being saved or on a journey to union with God has certainly played an important role in Christianity. At the extreme in this regard, Thomas à Kempis even advised solitude and the actual avoidance of other people, seen by him to be distractions to the spiritual life. However, most Christians would see this advice as an unhealthy extreme, agreeing with Rita that solitude has a “valued role...in the context of social life, not a substitute for it” (11). It is much more common for Christians to see themselves http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Buddhist-Christian Studies University of Hawai'I Press

Re-Creating Christian Community: A Response to Rita M. Gross

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Publisher
University of Hawai'I Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 The University of Hawai'i Press.
ISSN
1527-9472

Abstract

BUDDHIST AND CHRISTIAN VIEWS OF COMMUNIT Y Re-Creating Christian Community: A Response to Rita M. Gross Donald W. Mitchell Purdue University In Rita M. Gross’s well-written, insightful, and provocative paper entitled “Some Reflections about Community and Survival,” Rita says: “I am challenging my Chris- tian colleagues to consider what role Western religious concepts about the individual may have played in getting us into the current hyper-individualism. I also am asking whether the Buddhist concept of interdependence might be very useful in provid- ing tools with which to think about why this hyper-individualism cannot survive.” In terms of Rita’s challenge, one could make the generalization that the notion of the individual soul being saved or on a journey to union with God has certainly played an important role in Christianity. At the extreme in this regard, Thomas à Kempis even advised solitude and the actual avoidance of other people, seen by him to be distractions to the spiritual life. However, most Christians would see this advice as an unhealthy extreme, agreeing with Rita that solitude has a “valued role...in the context of social life, not a substitute for it” (11). It is much more common for Christians to see themselves

Journal

Buddhist-Christian Studies – University of Hawai'I Press

Published: Oct 29, 2003

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