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Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons™
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Articles 1 - 30 of 47
Full-Text Articles in Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion
A Century Of Critical Buddhism In Japan, James Mark Shields
A Century Of Critical Buddhism In Japan, James Mark Shields
Faculty Contributions to Books
This chapter introduces the central arguments of Critical Buddhism as a lens by which to view the course of “modern” Buddhism in Japan, particularly as it relates to politics. It traces philosophical and political precedents for Critical Buddhism in the context of Japanese modernity, by focusing on several progressive Buddhist figures movements from mid-Meiji through early Shōwa, including the New Buddhist Fellowship and the Youth League for Revitalizing Buddhism. I argue that previous attempts to centralize criticism as a basic Buddhist precept were unsuccessful in part do to an inability to distinguish the Buddhistic components of their thought and practice, …
Prolegomena To A Buddhist(Ic) Critique Of Capitalism, James Mark Shields
Prolegomena To A Buddhist(Ic) Critique Of Capitalism, James Mark Shields
Faculty Contributions to Books
Not even three decades removed from Francis Fukuyama’s post-Cold War proclamation of the “End of History,” the Western world is now undergoing a crisis of conscience – at the very least – with respect to both capitalism as an economic system and neoliberalism as its less-recognized but ever-present ideological foundation. The financial crisis of 2008, the subsequent Great Recession, the Occupy movement(s) of 2011, the 2016 challenge of self-styled Democratic Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination, and growing anxiety about the fate of the planet, particularly among the young, have opened up new avenues of critique, and brought …
Zen Internationalism, Zen Revolution: Inoue Shūten, Uchiyama Gudō And The Crisis Of (Zen) Buddhist Modernity In Late Meiji Japan, James Mark Shields
Zen Internationalism, Zen Revolution: Inoue Shūten, Uchiyama Gudō And The Crisis Of (Zen) Buddhist Modernity In Late Meiji Japan, James Mark Shields
Faculty Contributions to Books
In addition to the birth and development of “Imperial Way Zen,” late Meiji Japan witnessed the emergence of a number of young lay Buddhist scholars, priests and activists who attempted, with varying success, to reframe Buddhism along progressive and occasionally radical political lines. While it is true that groups such as the New Buddhist Fellowship (Shin Bukkyō Dōshikai, 1899–1915) were made up mainly of young men associated with the two branches of the Shin (True Pure Land) sect, several of its members did affiliate themselves with Zen, such as Suzuki Daisetsu (1870–1966) and Inoue Shūten (1880–1945). While the former’s work …
From Post-Pantheism To Trans-Materialism: D. T. Suzuki And New Buddhism, James Mark Shields
From Post-Pantheism To Trans-Materialism: D. T. Suzuki And New Buddhism, James Mark Shields
Faculty Contributions to Books
In modern Western thought, pantheism remains a powerful if controversial undercurrent. Recent re-evaluations of the work of Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) point to pantheism’s radical implications for metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics. Pantheism (Jp. hanshinron 汎神論) also has significant valence within Japanese Buddhist modernism, particularly in the work of scholars and lay activists who articulated the outlines of a New Buddhism (shin bukkyō 新仏教) from the 1880s through the 1940s. For these thinkers, pantheism provided a “middle way” between materialism and idealism, as well as between theism and atheism. In the postwar period, lapsed radical turned Buddhist Sano Manabu …
Buddhist Socialism In China, 1900–1930: A History And Appraisal, James Mark Shields
Buddhist Socialism In China, 1900–1930: A History And Appraisal, James Mark Shields
Faculty Contributions to Books
Although it is only in recent decades that scholars have begun to reconsider and problematize Buddhist conceptions of “freedom” and “agency,” the various thought traditions of Asian Buddhism have for some centuries struggled with questions related to the issue of “liberation,” along with its fundamental ontological, epistemological and ethical—if not economic and political—implications. With the development of Marxist thought in the mid to late nineteenth century, a new paradigm for thinking about freedom in relation to economics, history, identity and socio-political transformation found its way to Asia, where it soon confronted traditional religious interpretations of freedom as well as competing …
Zen And The Art Of Resistance: Some Preliminary Notes, James Mark Shields
Zen And The Art Of Resistance: Some Preliminary Notes, James Mark Shields
Faculty Contributions to Books
In the Western and oftentimes Asian imagination, Buddhism generally—and Zen more specifically—is understood as being resolutely disengaged, attaching itself to a form of awakening that is not only, as the classical phrase has it “beyond words and letters,” but in the modern summation by D. T. Suzuki, perfectly compatible with any and all forms of political and economic “dogmatism,” whether capitalist, communist, socialist, or fascist. Of course, as numerous scholars have shown over the past century, on the level of historical actuality, Buddhist and Zen teachers and institutions have long participated in (usually hegemonic) economic and political structures. The …
Case Study: Religion, Socialism And Secularization In Modern Japan: The New Buddhist Fellowship, James Mark Shields
Case Study: Religion, Socialism And Secularization In Modern Japan: The New Buddhist Fellowship, James Mark Shields
Faculty Contributions to Books
No abstract provided.
Religious Naturalisms, Carol W. White
Religious Naturalisms, Carol W. White
Other Faculty Research and Publications
This article focuses on recent developments in religious naturalism in the twenty-first century, building on Jerome Stone’s 2008 study of its resurgence in the mid-twentieth century. I introduce religious naturalism as a synthesis of naturalistic ideas that often depart from traditional forms of religious thinking, defining it as a capacious, ecological religious worldview grounded in the observational conviction that nature is ultimate. I also describe different models of religious naturalism, focusing on the key ideas found in the influential publications of contemporary religious naturalists (e.g., Ursula Goodenough, Donald Crosby, Loyal Rue, among others). While acknowledging specific points of emphasis, I …
Which Politics Of Nature?: A Response To Crawford, Carol W. White
Which Politics Of Nature?: A Response To Crawford, Carol W. White
Other Faculty Research and Publications
No abstract provided.
Religious Naturalism, Myriad Nature, And Justice: A Reply To Kahn And Keller, Carol W. White
Religious Naturalism, Myriad Nature, And Justice: A Reply To Kahn And Keller, Carol W. White
Other Faculty Research and Publications
No abstract provided.
ポスト汎神論から超物質主義へ―鈴木大拙と新仏教―, James Mark Shields
ポスト汎神論から超物質主義へ―鈴木大拙と新仏教―, James Mark Shields
Faculty Contributions to Books
In modern Western thought, pantheism remains a powerful if controversial undercurrent. Recent re-evaluations of the work of Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) point to pantheism’s radical implications for metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics. Pantheism (Jp. hanshinron 汎神論) also has significant valence within Japanese Buddhist modernism, particularly in the work of scholars and lay activists who articulated the outlines of a New Buddhism (shin bukkyō 新仏教) from the 1880s through the 1940s. For these thinkers, pantheism provided a “middle way” between materialism and idealism, as well as between theism and atheism. In the postwar period, lapsed radical turned Buddhist Sano Manabu …
Skeptical Buddhism As Provenance And Project, James Mark Shields
Skeptical Buddhism As Provenance And Project, James Mark Shields
Faculty Contributions to Books
The past century and a half has seen various attempts in both Asia and the West to reform or re-conceptualize Buddhism by adding a simple, often provocative, qualifier. This paper examines some of the links between “secular,” “critical,” “sceptical,” and “radical” Buddhism in order to ascertain possibilities in thinking Buddhism anew as a 21st-century “project” with philosophical, ethical, and political resonance. In particular, I am motivated by the question of whether “sceptical” Buddhism can coexist with Buddhist praxis, conceived as an engaged response to the suffering of sentient beings in a globalized and neoliberal industrial capitalist world order. Let …
Humanism In The Americas, Carol W. White
Humanism In The Americas, Carol W. White
Faculty Contributions to Books
This chapter provides an overview of select trends, ideas, themes, and figures associated with humanism in the Americas, which comprises a diversified set of peoples, cultural traditions, religious orientations, and socio-economic groups. In acknowledging this rich tapestry of human life, the chapter emphasizes the impressive variety of developments in philosophy, the natural sciences, literature, religion, art, social science, and political thought that have contributed to the development of humanism in the Americas. The chapter also features modern usages of humanism that originated in the English-speaking world in the nineteenth century. In this context, humanism is best viewed as a contested …
Anna Julia Cooper: Radical Relationality And The Ethics Of Interdependence, Carol Wayne White
Anna Julia Cooper: Radical Relationality And The Ethics Of Interdependence, Carol Wayne White
Faculty Contributions to Books
In her range of activities as orator, scholar, community activist, and educator, Anna Julia Cooper demonstrates a basic orientation toward life that paradigmatically exemplifies a proto-feminist politics based in intersectional analysis. Addressing problematic gendered, racialized, and class power dynamics in various institutions, Cooper sought a readjustment of relationships among all Americans that would ensure the dignity and worth of each individual. A close reading of her corpus also shows Cooper consistently identifying principles that advanced nuanced approaches to justice, freedom, and equality. In this chapter, I propose that Cooper’s mature intellectual vision demonstrates a particular vision of a transformed America, …
Review: Melissa Anne-Marie Curley, Pure Land, Real World: Modern Buddhism, Japanese Leftists, And The Utopian Imagination, James Shields
Review: Melissa Anne-Marie Curley, Pure Land, Real World: Modern Buddhism, Japanese Leftists, And The Utopian Imagination, James Shields
Other Faculty Research and Publications
No abstract provided.
Black Lives, Sacred Humanity, And The Racialization Of Nature, Or Why America Needs Religious Naturalism Today, Carol W. White
Black Lives, Sacred Humanity, And The Racialization Of Nature, Or Why America Needs Religious Naturalism Today, Carol W. White
Faculty Journal Articles
Embedded in persistent representations of people of African descent as inferior beings or subpar humans are problematic notions of animality, race, and nature in the U.S., or a lethal combination of intimately conjoined white supremacy and species supremacy. Confronting these processes is a model of African American religious naturalism, which presupposes human animals’ deep, inextricable homology with each other and with other natural processes. Building on the ideas of Anna J. Cooper, W. E. B. du Bois, and James Baldwin, this model of religious naturalism emphasizes humans as sacred centers of value and distinct movements of nature itself where deep …
Immanent Frames: Meiji New Buddhism And The 'Religious Secular', James Shields
Immanent Frames: Meiji New Buddhism And The 'Religious Secular', James Shields
Faculty Journal Articles
The secularization thesis, rooted in the idea that “modernity” brings with it the destruction—or, at least, the ruthless privatization—of religion, is clearly grounded in specific, often oversimplified, interpretations of Western historical developments since the eighteenth century. In this article, I use the case of the New Buddhist Fellowship (Shin Bukkyō Dōshikai 新仏教同志会) of the Meiji period (1868–1911) to query the category of the secular in the context of Japanese modernity. I argue that the New Buddhists, drawing on elements of classical and East Asian Buddhism as well as modern Western thought, promoted a resolutely social and this-worldly Buddhism that …
Commentary On Against Harmony, James Shields
Commentary On Against Harmony, James Shields
Other Faculty Research and Publications
No abstract provided.
The Scope And Limits Of Secular Buddhism: Watanabe Kaikyoku (1868–1912) And The Japanese New Buddhist 'Discovery Of Society', James Shields
The Scope And Limits Of Secular Buddhism: Watanabe Kaikyoku (1868–1912) And The Japanese New Buddhist 'Discovery Of Society', James Shields
Faculty Contributions to Books
Although New Buddhism is a term sometimes employed to refer to the broad sweep of reform and modernization movements in Japanese Buddhist thought and practice beginning in the 1870s, the term shin bukkyō refers more specifically to a broadly influential movement of some two dozen young scholars and lay Buddhists active in the last decade of the Meiji period (1868–1912). Founded in February 1899 as Bukkyō Seito Dōshikai (Buddhist Pure Believers Fellowship or Buddhist Puritan Association), the group changed its name to Shin Bukkyō Dōshikai (New Buddhist Fellowship) in 1903. Notto Thelle refers to the NBF as “the most consistent …
Peasant Revolts As Anti-Authoritarian Archetypes For Radical Buddhism In Modern Japan, James Shields
Peasant Revolts As Anti-Authoritarian Archetypes For Radical Buddhism In Modern Japan, James Shields
Faculty Journal Articles
The late Meiji period (1868-1912) witnessed the birth of various forms of “progressive” and “radical” Buddhism both within and beyond traditional Japanese Buddhist institutions. This paper examines several historical precedents for “Buddhist revolution” in East Asian—and particularly Japanese—peasant rebellions of the early modern period. I argue that these rebellions, or at least the received narratives of such, provided significant “root paradigms” for the thought and practice of early Buddhist socialists and radical Buddhists of early twentieth century Japan. Even if these narratives ended in “failure”—as, indeed, they often did—they can be understood as examples of what James White calls “expressionistic …
Opium Eaters: Buddhism As Revolutionary Politics, James Shields
Opium Eaters: Buddhism As Revolutionary Politics, James Shields
Faculty Contributions to Books
There is no one, single answer to the question: What is or are ‘Buddhist politics’? Rather than seek general historical trends or broad tendencies, in this chapter I explore the meaning and implications of the modern, Western conception of ‘politics’ as understood in relation to key features of Buddhist doctrine. In particular, I pose the question of whether we might fruitfully conceive at least certain interpretations of Buddhism—or perhaps, of Dharma—as politics, rather than ‘religion’ or ‘philosophy.’ I argue that twentieth century progressive Buddhists Seno’o Girō (1889–1961) and B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956) were not so much in conflict with …
Review: Ōtani Ei'ichi, Kindai Bukkyō To Iu Shiza: Sensō, Ajia, Shakaishugi (The Perspective Of Modern Buddhism: War, Asia, Socialism) (Perikansha, 2012)., James Shields
Other Faculty Research and Publications
No abstract provided.
Essay: "“Never The ‘Twain Shall Meet: Disorienting East And West In Teaching And Scholarship.", James Shields
Essay: "“Never The ‘Twain Shall Meet: Disorienting East And West In Teaching And Scholarship.", James Shields
Other Faculty Research and Publications
No abstract provided.
From Topos To Utopia: Critical Buddhism, Globalization, And Ideology Criticism, James Shields
From Topos To Utopia: Critical Buddhism, Globalization, And Ideology Criticism, James Shields
Faculty Contributions to Books
No abstract provided.
Seno'o Giro: Life And Thought Of A Radical Buddhist, James Shields
Seno'o Giro: Life And Thought Of A Radical Buddhist, James Shields
Faculty Contributions to Books
No abstract provided.
Zen And The Art Of Treason: Radical Buddhism In Meiji Era (1868–1912) Japan, James Shields
Zen And The Art Of Treason: Radical Buddhism In Meiji Era (1868–1912) Japan, James Shields
Faculty Journal Articles
In the early decades of the twentieth century, as Japanese society became engulfed in war and increasing nationalism, the majority of Buddhist leaders and institutions capitulated to the status quo. At the same time, there was a stream of ‘resistance’ among a few Buddhist figures, both priests and laity. These instances of progressive and ‘radical Buddhism’ had roots in late Edo-period peasant revolts, the lingering discourse of early Meiji period liberalism, trends within Buddhist reform and modernisation and the emergence in the first decade of the twentieth century of radical political thought, including various forms of socialism and anarchism. This …
Introduction To Against Harmony: Radical Buddhism In Thought And Practice, James Shields
Introduction To Against Harmony: Radical Buddhism In Thought And Practice, James Shields
Faculty Journal Articles
No abstract provided.
Liberation As Revolutionary Praxis: Rethinking Buddhism Materialism, James Shields
Liberation As Revolutionary Praxis: Rethinking Buddhism Materialism, James Shields
Faculty Journal Articles
While it is only in recent decades that scholars have begun to reconsider and problematize Buddhist conceptions of “freedom” and “agency,” the thought traditions of Asian Buddhism have for many centuries struggled with questions related to the issue of “liberation”—along with its fundamental ontological, epistemological and ethical implications. With the development of Marxist thought in the mid to late nineteenth century, a new paradigm for thinking about freedom in relation to history, identity and social change found its way to Asia, and confronted traditional religious interpretations of freedom as well as competing Western ones. In the past century, several attempts …
Political Interpretations Of The Lotus Sutra, James Shields
Political Interpretations Of The Lotus Sutra, James Shields
Faculty Contributions to Books
The Sutra on the White Lotus of the Sublime Dharma (Sk., Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra; Ch., Miàofǎ liánhuá jīng; Jp., Myōhō renge kyō), commonly known as the Lotus Sutra, is arguably the most influential sutra of Mahāyāna Buddhism, and certainly one of the most revered sacred texts in East Asia. Via parables and short stories, the twenty-eight chapters of the Lotus Sutra indirectly present a number of core doctrines of the early Mahāyāna, the form of Buddhism that first emerged in India and West Asia roughly five centuries after the death of the historical Buddha Siddhartha Gautama (c. 563–486 …
Zange And Sorge: Two Models Of 'Concern' In Comparative Philosophy Of Religion, James Shields
Zange And Sorge: Two Models Of 'Concern' In Comparative Philosophy Of Religion, James Shields
Faculty Contributions to Books
The concept of Sorge, as developed in Martin Heidegger’s (1889–1976) classic work, Sein und Zeit (1927), describes an existential-ontological state characterized by “anxiety” about the future and the desire to “attend to” the world based on our awareness of temporality. In Japan, this concept was borrowed and critically developed by Watsuji Tetsurō (1889–1960). In Rinrigaku (1937–49), Watsuji argued that Heidegger’s Sorge remains overly reliant on the philosophical structures of Western individualism and subjectivism, and thus neglects the social dimension of human being. In turn, Watsuji’s contemporary, Tanabe Hajime (1885–1962), developed an alternative theory of “concern” in his reflections on …