Religious booknotes

...For that reason alone any work on Gandhi is welcome, not so much for the originality of his thought (his views on Christianity were simple, straightforward, and oft repeated as this anthology shows) but for the power of his example...

...If, as is often alleged, the bridge between Buddhists and Christians is best found in the area of spiritual experience (e.g., monasticism), how much more should this be true of those who glory in the name Christian...

...He sees spiritual formation as a "process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others...

...The need for such comparative study is patent as anyone who pays attention to the shifting demographics of this country knows...

...e.g., he presents a chapter on "Instruction for Praise" and, conversely, "Praise as Instruction," etc...

...then speak about the development of eucharistic doctrine in the churches both East and West with a particular focus on the thought of the Reformers...

...The middle chapters of the book Kucharisl: Christ's Feast with the Church, by Laurence Hull Siaokey...

...the uniqueness of Christ as savior of the world...

...Like the Catholic William H. Shannon, Mulholland adds to the old monastic tradition of reading leading to meditation, prayer, and contemplation (lectio/meditatio/oratio/contemplatio)by beginning with silentio (sic...

...It is a profoundly ecumenical work...

...dialogue, not all the essays deal ex professo with that subject...

...I have two minor criticisms of the book...

...Jargon-free and wearing her erudition lightly, she possesses a crisp prose style that makes her study accessible to any intelligent reader...

...One cannot but help think of those issues while reading the selections Ellsberg has culled for this volume...

...They give an extremely sensitive and nuanced approach to the old monastic dictum semper in ore psalmus...

...His final chapter is on the psalter and Jesus Christ...

...In an earlier column I reviewed David Power's deeply learned The Eucharistic Mystery (Crossroad, 1993...

...A little goes a long way and, to my relief, the word "enneagram" never appears in this book...

...keep Christ always in the heart...

...Her book on the dialogue beEncountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Benares, by Diana Eck Beacon, $24, 266 pp...

...He came to know Christianity during his days in London when he was in touch with Christian socialists (many inspired by a Tolstoyan vision of the faith) who were convinced pacifists...

...208pp...

...The basis for Mulholland's book is a series of courses/conferences he gave to Methodist pastors on spiritual formation...

...Drawing on the classical studies of Gunkel and Mowinckel, McCann accepts the results of form criticism and the insistence that the psalms had a cultic function, but he is more interested in the final shape of the psalter as a whole (the psalter's integrity in its final canonical shape is a given for McCann) and, further, the theological world view reflected in the psalter...

...Even when he turns to an old wheezer like Adolphe Tanquerey's The Spiritual Life he has enough good sense not to cram his description of spiritual formation into rigid neoscholastic categories...

...43...

...The final chapters offer suggestions for the congregational celebration of the Eucharist...

...Gandhi had clear criticisms of Christianity...

...Second, at places, McCann the exegete gives way to McCann the preacher...

...how those who cannot attend the liturgy may communicate while having some sense of being part of a community (Stookey has some good ideas about commissioning eucharistic ministers...

...It is also not always quite accurate: Stookey somehow thinks that the notion of the Eucharist as sacrifice is explicable only in the context of the application of the sacrifice to the souls in purgatory...

...I would single out Sean 42 RELIGIOUS BOOKNOTES Freyne' s two essays in which he contrasts Jewish/Christian interaction in the first century, when Christians were a struggling minority, to the Christians of the fourth century, who had, as a group, "triumphed...

...Eck shows how well such dialogue works in the chapters where she considers how the classic doctrines of God, Christ, and Holy Spirit get enlarged by a consideration of Hindu modes of thinking about the nature of divinity, the place of the avatar, and the dynamic element in creation itself...

...The final essay, by the Maryknoll missionary (in Bangladesh) Bob McCahill, on his mission of "presence" among a largely Muslim population, is a moving and edifying description of Gandhian principles in action...

...IJ.95...

...For a more organically sustained look at the dialogue between Christians and Jews I would recommend, as a first reading, two other anthologies, from the same publisher: Overcoming Fear between Jews and Christians (1993) edited by James Charlesworth, and the collection of essays by Eugene Fisher: Faith without Prejudice (1993...

...Jiirgen Moltmann's study of Christology in the context of the Christian-Jewish dialogue and Lawrence Frizzell' s assessment of the same dialogue now that we are a generation away from Nostra aetate were helpful...

...McCann says at the beginning of his study that one should read his book with an open Bible (which is exactly the way I read it...

...If I have any substantial critique of Mulholland's insightful book it is his seeming sympathy for Jungian personality analysis and his infatuation with things like the Myers-Briggs psychological assessment...

...In this volume...

...I like that definition (it may have been better to add a trinitarian edge to it), especially the coda: "for the sake of others...

...Eck ends her book with the image of the New City and the river of life described by John in the Book of Revelation...

...My interest was piqued because of the ecumenical ramifications implicit in the Catholic tradition of spirituality now attracting the attention of so many diverse clienteles including thoughtful Evangelicals...

...A recent newsletter of their press advertised Mulholland's book on spirituality so I wrote them for a copy...

...Works like these and other signs (e.g., the recently founded and ecumenically oriented Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality) are all harbingers of a new plateau of ecumenical labor...

...He begins with a rapid survey of the emphases of the New Testament on the Eucharist, noting, correctly, that eucharistic imagery suffuses many New Testament pericopes beyond those which provide the narrative of institution at the Last Supper...

...That is still the work I would recommend on this subject, but Stookey's more pastoral and popular book is worth reading to get a Protestant perspective on the Eucharist and valuable for the deep pastoral sense that it displays...

...In South Africa, and Gandhi on Christianity, edited by Robert Ellsberg, Orbis, $12.95,117 pp...

...A professor at Eden Theological Seminary, he combines scholarly expertise in the Old Testament with the concerns of a pastor and expertise as a Christian theologian...

...In the midst of careful readings of the text, we sometimes are handed homilies that editorialize on current affairs...

...What New Visions lacks is a coherent theme...

...This, of course, is quite wide of the mark...

...The precise focus of his approach to the psalms is that they reflect Torah, by which he means instruction and not law, as the term is too often and too narrowly defined...

...That new city is now being built, and that river now flows in this country...

...Apart from those niggling critiques, I would place this book right next to Walter Brueggemann's The Message of the Psalms (Augsburg, 1984) since both volumes combine exegetical sophistication with pastoral sensitivity...

...Ecumenism & Christian spirituality Lawrence S. Cunningham templative community...

...later in his native India, he drew deeply from the New Testament and other Christian sources (his favorite hymn was Newman's "Lead, Kindly Light") for his own spiritual enrichment...

...Both authors do full justice to the psalter as a product of God's revelation to the Jews while showing how we as Christians share in that revelation...

...In a curious—and nonsystematic—fashion he anticipated the intense contemporary discussions among Christian theologians over a whole range of issues: inculturation...

...Ahhigilmi...

...he perceived it to be a destroyer of Indian culture with its aggressive missionary work...

...hence Gandhi's interest in the meaning of the cross...

...Mulholland is at pains throughout his work to see Christian formation in tandem with the mission of the church and not merely as an individualistic exercise...

...Eck is unapologetically a Christian but one who believes in pluralism...

...I always look out for good books on the Psalms and McCann's volume is one of A Theological Introduction to the Book of Psalms, by J. Clinton McCann, Jr., Ahingdon, $16.95, 204 pp...

...He is in good company since his final step is close to the old Dominican motto of "handing on to others the fruits of what has been contemplated...

...To flesh out this rather slim collection, Ellsberg provides essays by Diana Eck (of Harvard), peace activist James Douglass, and the Indian Jesuit Ignatius Jesudasan on various aspects of Gandhi's thought in relation to Christ and Christianity...

...She is no simple New Age syncretist...

...Like most potpourris of this sort, there are some excellent things to be found...

...This judgment is, I realize, the reaction of a grumpily suspicious mind, but it seems to me that there is already too 41 RELIGIOUS BOOKNOTES much psychologizing in spiritual formation/spiritual direction...

...First, it would have been useful to have had a bibliography (I culled one from the footnotes...

...We hardly need reminding that Gandhi had an enormous influence on people like Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Cesar Chavez, and thousands of other lovers of peace and reconciliation...

...The space would have been better spent on more reflections on the psalms since the author does that so well...

...Christ was, for Gandhi, a true avatar and a Son of God but not, he insisted firmly, the Son of God...

...tween the world's religions is set in the context of a narrative describing her own Christian upbringing in Bozeman, Montana, and her long-time residence in the holy city of Benares, India (about which city she has written a wonderful book), as a student of Hindu culture, languages, and religious practice...

...Members of other Asian religions already outnumber Episcopalians and Presbyterians in some parts of the United States (e.g., New York...

...I highly recommend it...

...Robert Wilken's essay on patristic hagiography is first rate (and on a subject dear to my heart) but hardly fits under the ecumenical rubric advertised in the subtitle of this volume...

...InterVarsily Press, $8.99, 173 pp.________________ get refracted through, and expressed in, a Christian tradition which is not my own...

...Eck's splendid book is a guide to its mysteries and to its promises...

...Mulholland, a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky, wrote this book as a result of his experiences preparing ministers for the active ministry...

...Ellsberg's anthology draws from many of Gandhi's writings in order to sketch out what might be called a Gandhian Christology...

...what it provides is a horizon of issues more or less connected with ecumenical dialogue...

...Hindus, Buddhist, Jains, and Muslims are increasingly coming to this country, and bringing with them religious ideas that are "foreign" to most Americans...

...That is a small sign that we might find a promising area for ecumenical community at the level of prayer and conLAWRENCE S. CUNNINGHAM chairs the department of theology at the University of Notre Dame...

...Most of what he says makes eminent common sense and would be familiar territory to those conversant with Catholic forms of spiritual practice...

...Christ, in the eyes of Gandhi, is best understood in terms of his unconditional love, forgiveness, and willingness to sacrifice...

...the nature of the missionary enterprise...

...By pluralism, Eck writes in a fine chapter, she means not relativism but a commitment to one's tradition with a firm willingness to learn from others and to accept particularity while engaged in deep interreligious dialogue...

...There is a Scripture index at the end of the volume but no topical index...

...This is not a Christological reading of the psalter (McCann is too sophisticated an exegete for that), but an excursus on the way(s) in which the psalter shapes the picture of Jesus in the New Testament and, also, the warrant for the Christian use of the Hebrew psalter...

...he means silentium) and ending with incarnatio...

...Diana Eck's book is quite simply wonderful...

...New Visions reproduces a series of lectures sponsored by Tulane University's chair of Judeo-Christian Studies...

...His reading is quite ecumenical since it depends on authors like Kenneth Leech (Anglican), Parker Palmer and Richard Foster (Society of Friends), and the Catholic Henri Nouwen...

...Some estimate that there will be more Muslims than Jews in the U.S...

...indeed, only one essay in the book is by a Jew (Jacob Petuchowski's study of the Lord's Prayer from the perspective of Jewish prayer) and some of the essays are not about Judaism at all...

...within a generation...

...Stookey's interesting volume is a survey of eucharistic teaching in the Protestant tradition with special attention given to those communities which, like the Methodists, still celebrate the "Lord's Supper" with some regularity...

...His intention is twofold: to help Protestants appreciate the rich fullness of eucharistic doctrine and to suggest ways in which the Eucharist may be better celebrated in church...

...Eck is a practitioner of what my own university's theologian John Dunne has called "passing over"—a sympathetic move by which one enters into the experience of others finally to return to one's own tradition enriched...

...Given the historical complexity of this matter, one should not be surprised that this material is a bit sketchy...

...What is most encouraging, however, is that Mulholland has written this book for a broad evangelical audience and had it published by a house that serves that constituency...

...the more interesting that has come my way...

...It is affiliated with the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship which is an evangelical movement active on college campuses here and abroad...

...His individual chapters (which focus on a single psalm and cognate examples from other psalms) move dialectically...

...McCann chairs the Psalms group of the Society of Biblical Literature and his expertise shows through in his intelligent commentary...

...Gandhi is one of the most important ecumenical figures of the modern world...

...His book was most intriguing for me in seeing how some traditional themes of Catholic spirituality Invitation to a Journey: A Road Map to Spiritual Formation, by M. Robert Mulholktnd Jr...

...Drawing heavily, but not exclusively, on traditional Catholic sources, his focus is on the life of prayer, meditation on the Word of God, and appropriate asceticism...

...with what degree of formality/informality liturgies should be celebrated...

...He criticized its cultural imperialism...

...semper in corde Christus (Keep a psalm always on the tongue...

...A professor of comparative religion and Indian Studies at Harvard, she is also a committed Methodist who has been long active in ecumenical affairs, most conspicuously with the World Council of Churches...

...the Christian view of salvation...

...His constant plea was for Christians to become more Christian and, in that process, to help Muslims and Hindus to be more faithful to their own traditions...

...Catholics will soon learn that issues of interest to themselves are also very much a part of Protestant discussions: who may come to Communion (a great ecumenical problem...

...An appendix deals with the singing of the psalter in the church with a nice list of aids for the encouragement of such a practice...

...Although the subtitle advertises the Jewish/Christian New Visions: Historical and Theological Perspectives on the Jewish-Christian Dialogue, edited by Val Ambrose Mclnnes, Crossroad, $18.95, 165 pp...

...Many of his most devoted followers were Christians...