Encountering God Julian Eck Analysis
Recreation of “We”
Multiculturalism through globalization has challenged our society to adapt with the times by thinking of world religions as more of a brotherhood of faith rather than a threat. In the last chapter of the book Encountering God, the author Diana Eck puts an emphasis on the interdependent world we live in and how we, as human beings will need to approach today’s problems as a whole if we wish to overcome life’s various hurdles. Evidence of the interdependent world we live can be seen by observing the statistics of the relatedness of population growth and the growth of poverty and illiteracy to the growth of carbon dioxide emissions and the pollution of the seas, stripping of forests, extinction of plant and animal species …show more content…
The first step into transforming the world religions into a brotherhood of faith, is taking care of the major issue that all religions face today which is the perceived “we” language of each religion that seems to divide our …show more content…
(Eck, Pg. 203, 2003). She challenges the reader to ask themselves if there use of the word we links people or divides people. According to Eck, in every tradition there seems to be at least some attempts (some more than others) to steer toward a much wider understanding of “we”. For example, Hindus believe that the whole world is a single family-Vasudhaiva kutumbakam, Buddhists speak of the sangha and the four directions, Christians with the language of Oikos (derived from the word oikoumene, translates to the household of the whole inhabited Earth), and the Muslims attempt to find different ways to interpret the Umma (Eck, Pg. 203, 2003). Even though this sort of open minded thinking we’re talking about clearly exists in each religion, it’s clear we’re not where we’d like to be considering the frequent airing of violence involving religious disputes on places like the internet and T.V. People are taking religious sides and are missing the big picture and which will only result in more bad press and casualties. In my eyes this can be attributed to ignorance formed by lack of interreligious dialogue. In order for religious dialogue to be effective, Eck leads me to believe that one must first recreate the “we”. Eck often referenced one of the most open minded and enlightening religious figures in
Multiculturalism through globalization has challenged our society to adapt with the times by thinking of world religions as more of a brotherhood of faith rather than a threat. In the last chapter of the book Encountering God, the author Diana Eck puts an emphasis on the interdependent world we live in and how we, as human beings will need to approach today’s problems as a whole if we wish to overcome life’s various hurdles. Evidence of the interdependent world we live can be seen by observing the statistics of the relatedness of population growth and the growth of poverty and illiteracy to the growth of carbon dioxide emissions and the pollution of the seas, stripping of forests, extinction of plant and animal species …show more content…
The first step into transforming the world religions into a brotherhood of faith, is taking care of the major issue that all religions face today which is the perceived “we” language of each religion that seems to divide our …show more content…
(Eck, Pg. 203, 2003). She challenges the reader to ask themselves if there use of the word we links people or divides people. According to Eck, in every tradition there seems to be at least some attempts (some more than others) to steer toward a much wider understanding of “we”. For example, Hindus believe that the whole world is a single family-Vasudhaiva kutumbakam, Buddhists speak of the sangha and the four directions, Christians with the language of Oikos (derived from the word oikoumene, translates to the household of the whole inhabited Earth), and the Muslims attempt to find different ways to interpret the Umma (Eck, Pg. 203, 2003). Even though this sort of open minded thinking we’re talking about clearly exists in each religion, it’s clear we’re not where we’d like to be considering the frequent airing of violence involving religious disputes on places like the internet and T.V. People are taking religious sides and are missing the big picture and which will only result in more bad press and casualties. In my eyes this can be attributed to ignorance formed by lack of interreligious dialogue. In order for religious dialogue to be effective, Eck leads me to believe that one must first recreate the “we”. Eck often referenced one of the most open minded and enlightening religious figures in