Tracing The Way Spiritual Dimensions of the World Religions

by Küng, Hans

• ISBN13: 9780826494238
• ISBN10: 0826494234
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-10-31
• Publisher: Burns & Oates Ltd

Summary

Tracing the Way is the product of a lifetime of experience. In researching and compiling this book Hans Kung has travelled to every corner of the globe in search of God in his many guises. Kung casts an analytical eye over the major world religions and offers a view of the present and what that means when measured against the past. Kung surveys, as succinctly as possible, the historical stages of each world religion and analyses their major paradigms and paradigm shifts. For the present can be understood only in the light of constellations from the past which have persisted side by side with each other. Tracing the Way attempts to understand the religions, in both text and pictures, as objectively as possible and discusses the social, political and historical contexts of the many forms of belief that exist today.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	xii
Preface	xiii
I INDIGENOUS RELIGIONS	1	(36)
The dream of a lost paradise
Native inhabitants in a false light
'Primitive man' — uncivilized?
Let's stop talking about 'primitive' cultures
The earliest traces of religion
Even 'Stone Age people' have a cultural history
Women economically independent
Men are dominant in politics and ritual
People without religion?
'Primal religion' — nowhere to be found
The art of the Aborigines
What is in heaven?
And who formed the earth?
'Dreamtime'
The eternal law: tjukurpa
The fight between the snake woman Kuniya and the snake man Liru
Why women paint their bodies
What is totem and what is taboo?
The initiation dance: primal time and primal law
Unwritten ethical norms
A primal ethic
Colonization: Cook and the consequences
Triumph for the whites — tragedy for the blacks
Aborigines in the supermarket: the conflict between two cultures
Keeping the old religion alive
A question for native inhabitants throughout the world
Primal times: Australia and Africa
Human beings come from Africa
We are all Africans under the skin
The Late Stone Age revolution
Guardian spirits — only African?
Sacrificing goats even today
Spiritual healing — not automatic
Against witchcraft
Africa's great centuries
They were black Africans
Oracle: 'What does the future hold?'
Stagnation of the black African peoples
Imperialistic colonization
'Southern Rhodesia': a prime example of colonialism
The motives of colonialism and imperialism
The churches share the responsibility
Christ Africanized
African creativity
The African Independent Churches
Land of stones
A continent with a future
Hope: the African contribution to a global ethic
II HINDUISM	37	(41)
A joyful religion
Krishna's dance
Who is a Hindu?
The eternal order
Strengths and weaknesses
Mother Ganga
Why bathe in the Ganges?
After the Indus culture, the Aryans
A structured society
Where do the castes come from?
The spirit of the Vedas still blows today
The holy scriptures of the Hindus
The ritual of fire and the eternal cycle
Reincarnation and belief in karma
The crisis of the Vedic view of the world: the Upanishads
The quest for unity
The mystery of the fig: that is what you are
Religion and eroticism
Tantrism in the twilight
The new high gods: Vishnu and Shiva
The classical epics
A Hindu trinity?
Polytheism?
How does God relate to the world? Three models
Varanasi: the most holy of pilgrimage cities
The bath of purification — not baptism
Why burn corpses in Varanasi?
Pilgrims, Brahmans, sannyasins, priests
Temple and mosque
Renewal instead of rigidity or loss of meaning
India: the model of a democratic constitution
India: economically backward and socially split
Hindu ethics
Spiritual renewal: Ramakrishna
The encounter between the religions of East and West: Vivekananda
The 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions
The Ganges of rights rises in the Himalayas of responsibilities
III CHINESE RELIGION	78	(53)
Lion dance
Singapore: modern and traditional Chinese
Men and women of different cultures live together
Ancestor worship at the centre of popular religion
Gifts for the dead
The two sides of popular religion
The question of ethical standards
Confucianism or common values?
Western criticism and the Eastern reply
Ethnic and religious harmony instead of confrontation
China: a continent in itself
A state of many peoples with a common script
Early Chinese society had a religious orientation
Shamans and soothsaying
No separation between monarchy and priesthood
The ancient Chinese world-view
Archaic elements live on in present-day popular religion
The distinction between religion and superstition
Conflict instead of harmony
A third religious river system
Ethical humanism
Confucius: one wise man among many
Comparison with another 'master'
Confucius himself
The central teaching: humanity
Explication of humanity: the Golden Rule
Basic human relationships
Humanity: the basis for a shared fundamental ethic
A single Chinese state: the first emperor
China's classical period: the Han dynasty
Confucian state religion: Confucius – the master
Acupuncture: paradigm shift in medicine
A holistic view of human beings
What does 'ciao' mean?
Daoism: the anti-Confucian opposition movement
Daoism: a religion The Daoist 'church'
Yin and yang: to intervene or not to intervene?
Daoism and Confucianism permeate each other
The advance of Buddhism
China's golden age: the Tang dynasty
Religion from outside
Buddhism Sinified
A renewed Confucianism of the 'high Middle Ages'
The end of the Chinese Middle Ages: Mongol rule
Confrontation with modernity
The strategy of an indirect mission from above
A pedagogical-diplomatic adaptation
The tragedy of Christian mission in China
Reaction against the missionaries
Five great revolutionary movements
Is there still Christianity in China?
A future for Chinese religion?
Domination of the market?
Latent religion breaks through
The Temple of Heaven: harmony between heaven and earth
The contribution of Chinese religion to a global ethic
The Great Wall
IV BUDDHISM	131	(32)
Archery: an exercise in attentiveness
The Buddha: one of the great guides for humankind
The Buddhist creed
Gautama's way to enlightenment
The tree of enlightenment
The wheel of teaching
An ethic of unselfishness
An answer to primal questions: Four Noble Truths
Striking parallels
Buddhist and Christian monasticism: similarities
Monasticism: central only to Buddhism
A community made up of monks and lay people
Monastic schools: learning and debating
Helps towards meditation: mandalas
The basic obligations of Buddhists
The first paradigm shift: original community to mass religion
The Emperor Ashoka – the model Buddhist ruler
Buddhism – a religion of state and cult: the 'Little Vehicle'
The split in the Sangha
The 'southern route' of Buddhism: Sri Lanka and lower India
A Buddhist 'Middle Ages': justification by works
The 'northern route' of Buddhism: China–Korea–Japan
The second paradigm shift: the 'Great Vehicle'
A tension between monastic and lay existence
From the religion of an elite to a two-class religion
Buddhism becomes Japanese, Shinto is 'Buddhified'
The more-than-earthly Buddha
Several eternal Buddhas
Confrontation with modernity
Three Buddhist options
Calligraphy: 'Zen'
Buddhist meditation: sitting in contemplation (Zen)
Discipline, work, everyday life
The Zen garden: the emptiness of all things
Buddhist faith: trusting invocation of the name of Buddha (Shin)
Buddhist liturgy
Social and political Buddhism: establishment of the Buddha kingdom (Nichiren)
Social commitment lived out
Buddhist ethic and global ethic
Transition to a new global constellation
Archery: a demand on the individual
V JUDAISM	163	(32)
A Jewish wedding in New York
The riddle of Judaism
Jewish dress?
A community of fate
The homeland of the Jewish people
A people which did not always exist
Abraham: an immigrant
Abraham: the first leading figure of the prophetic religions
Strife over Abraham
Against commandeering Abraham
The hour of the birth of the people of Israel: the exodus
Moses: a second leading figure of the prophetic religions
The covenant on Sinai: the centre of Jewish religion
The solution to the riddle
The Sinai covenant presupposes a covenant with humankind
The Decalogue – the basis for a shared fundamental ethic
Israel: first of all a tribal society
Israel becomes a state
David: a third leading figure of the prophetic religions
The prophets in opposition to priests and king
The downfall of both kingdoms: the end of the monarchy
Israel becomes a theocracy
The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple
Why Judaism survived
The Jewish Middle Ages
The formation of Orthodox Judaism
Anti-Judaism in the Christian church
The Jews in medieval Germany: Worms
Jewish secret teaching: Kabbala
Jewish Enlightenment: Moses Mendelssohn
Exit from the ghetto
Modern Reform Judaism
The dispute over trends
Every individual has a name
A future for Jews in Germany
The complicity of Christians
The rebirth of the state of Israel
The Palestine question
Two olive branches
Judaism between secularism and fundamentalism
The Decalogue as an ABC of human behaviour
What will the future be?
VI CHRISTIANITY	195	(39)
Is Christianity to be despaired of?
A living Christian community
Liturgy and social commitment
What is the essence of Christianity?
Witnesses of faith
A joyful message
A dramatic fate
Appointed son of God
The common roots of Judaism, Christianity and Islam
The great dispute in the earliest church
The loss of Jewish roots
Christianity becomes Greek
The hierarchy is established
A silent revolution 'from below'
Constantinople: the second Rome
From Christian faith to orthodox dogma
The Slavonic world: religious and cultural split
Moscow: the third Rome Subjection of the church to the state
A disputed church
The Orthodox Easter feast
The cult of images and monasticism
The dangers and the hopes of Orthodoxy
Rome's primacy of honour in the early church
The papacy becomes established
The split between the Eastern and Western churches
A revolutionary new church constitution
The Roman system
Can the papacy be reformed?
Martin Luther: the Reformer
Return to the gospel
The Western church is split
Ambiguous results of the Reformation
Christianity confronted with the revolution of modernity
Christianity on the defensive
Modernity in crisis
In the transition to the new global era
The vision of hope
For the sake of the children
VII ISLAM	234	(33)
Muslims in Marseilles
Call to prayer: muezzin, minaret, mosque
The Muslims – our neighbours
Daily ritual prayer – the essential symbol of Islam
Islam as a threat
Self-critical questions for Christians
Islam: at the same time the newest and the oldest religion
Calligraphy instead of descriptive arts
The foundation of Islam: the confession of faith
The distinctive feature of the three monotheistic religions
The Qur'an: a book
The Qur'an: made present by reading
For Muslims the way, the truth and the life
Who is really a Muslim?
Arabia: the birthplace of Islam
A prophet arises
A provocative message
Medina: the formation of a community
Muslim practice: the five pillars of Islam
Mecca: the destination of the great pilgrimage
Who will succeed the Prophet?
The first Arab expansion: the power of the new religion
Kairouan: the oldest mosque in north Africa
An ethical high religion
Jerusalem: a sanctuary of the God of Abraham
Islam split
The Arabian empire of the Umayyads: the second expansion
Religion and violence
A turning point: the Abbasids
Classical Islam
Islamic law
Islamic theology
An Islamic paradigm without a caliph?
Tunis: the teaching places of Islam
The power of the Ulama
The mystical path of the Sufis
Sufism as a mass movement
A religion of the heart instead of a religion of reason?
The confrontation between Islam and modernity
A crisis of identity for Islam
Modernization and secularization: Atatürk Istanbul: between chador and Western dress
For or against the veil
The revival of Islam: doubt in the modern paradigm
Is a reformed postmodern Islam possible?
Who will prevail?
We need bridge-builders
No survival for the world without a global ethic
Epilogue	267	(4)
Index	271