Elizabeth J. Harris

Buddhism and International Aid: A Case Study from Post-tsunami Sri Lanka

When a tsunami hit Sri Lanka in two merciless waves between 9.30 and 10.30 a.m. on December 26, 2004, an estimated 30,000 were killed, 800,000 were made homeless, and 70 percent of the island’s coastline was devastated.1 Two distinct areas of the country were affected: the predominantly Sinhala and Buddhist south coast, and the predominantly Tamil and Muslim north and east coasts, the east being the worst devastated. It sparked the largest international aid programme in modern Sri Lankan history in an already charged situation of ethnic conflict and interreligious tension.

Memory, Experience and the Clash of Cosmologies: The Encounter between British Protestant Missionaries and Buddhism in Nineteenth Century Sri Lanka

This paper examines the encounter between Protestant missionaries and Buddhists in nineteenth century Sri Lanka as a case study that illustrates the importance of situating twentieth century postcolonial inter-faith tensions against their nineteenth century precedents. The central question within this encounter concerns how Buddhists and Christians in nineteenth century Sri Lanka could reach a point where mutual demonization was deemed acceptable and appropriate. This paper argues that the key to this lies in a clash of cosmologies, codes of conduct and affective frameworks, informed by memory and experience, within the power relationships of imperialism. Using these categories, the paper examines what Buddhists and Protestant missionaries brought to their encounter with each other and then surveys the contours of the encounter throughout the century. It concludes that the Protestant missionaries enlivened within Buddhism, rather than created, a competitive paradigm of inter-religious relationships that continued into the postcolonial period. Resume L’article analyse la rencontre entre missionnaires protestants et Bouddhistes au dix-neuvieme siecle au Sri Lanka, une etude de cas qui souligne la necessite de resituer les tensions interreligieuses du vingtieme siecle par rapport a leurs precedents du dix-neuvieme siecle. La question centrale concernant cette rencontre est de comprendre comment les Bouddhistes et les Chretiens au Sri Lanka du dix-neuvieme siecle ont pu en arriver a considerer comme acceptable et opportune leur diabolisation reciproque. Cet article defend l’idee que l’explication doit etre trouvee dans la confrontation des cosmologies, des codes de conduite et des cadres affectifs (informes par la memoire et l’experience) qui s’est instauree dans le cadre des rapports de force de l’imperialisme. En recourant a ces categories, l’article etudie ce que les Bouddhistes et les missionnaires protestants ont investi dans leur rencontre mutuelle, avant d’examiner les contours de cette rencontre tout au long du siecle. Il conclut que les missionnaires protestants ont avive (plutot que cree) au sein du Bouddhisme un paradigme de competition interreligieuse qui a perdure durant la periode postcoloniale.

Introduction: Theologies of Religions in the Twenty-First Century

The question of the theology of religions has become a key part of discussions over the last thirty or so years. We should note that this is a discussion that began in, and is still dominated by, the Christian tradition. As such, the fact that this text reflects this is seen as more a survey of the situation than a normative situation we would wish to perpetuate. Indeed, as discussed below, we have attempted to widen the debate into the context of, and in relation to, other religions. From a fringe interest it has become something that has to be addressed. We should note that we speak very much from a Western (European-North American) context here. The relation of Christianity to the religious Other has been of central concern in other parts of the world for far longer, but for better or worse the Western context still has a certain global hegemony despite the shift in demographics to the Global South. Christian systematic theology now seems incomplete without a discussion on both the religious Other and the changing demographics of Christianity and what this means. Introductions to Christianity or theology will address religious Others as an area of concern, while ecclesial communities have committees and forums to address and engage the religious Other. Over that time a central focus of those discussions has been the typology of exclusivisms-inclusivisms-pluralisms1 (often now with particularities added as a fourth paradigm), which was first introduced by Alan Race in his classic 1983 book Christians and Religious Pluralism: Patterns in the Christian Theology of Religions. It was, indeed, the thirtieth anniversary of that book which saw two initiatives come together which led to the current volume. On one side, Elizabeth Harris and Shanthikumar Hettiarachchi were putting together an edited book. On the other, Paul Hedges, with Alan Race, was planning a conference with a follow up publication. Inevitably, the two ventures started to call on the same people and the organisers of each (and the contributors) soon saw the merits of combining forces to produce the current volume. However, the result is far from a simple paean to the typology or a festschrift to Alan Race, although we offer this volume in honour of his landmark contribution. Rather, it marks the deep and growing conversation around the