Returning Home: Christian Faith in Encounter with Other Faiths.

The 2017 Lent resource explores how Christian faith has been deepened and enriched by encounters with people of different religions. This is not a resource that necessarily emphases common ground or that is about dialogue but how Christian faith has burned brightly following an encounter with the religious other. You will find familiar Lenten themes in this material but with, what we hope, is a different approach.

Resources

This year, resources are only available as a download – there are no printed versions.

Background

The theologian John Cobb described his deep encounter with Buddhism in terms of a journey to another land and culture: the newness, sometimes strangeness of the other, can be an enriching experience. However when we return to the familiar, home is viewed with different eyes and a deeper, perhaps more profound, appreciation. This is why we have called this resource “Returning Home”.

Christians who have lived alongside, and worked with, people of other faiths, often express their surprise and appreciation that their own Christian faith has been enriched by these encounters. How is this the case? Sometimes a practice such as fasting by Muslims in Ramadan has led Christians to think again about the ancient Christian practice of fasting, or the understanding of a concept such as suffering in an Indic faith has prompted Christians to interrogate Christian understanding of redemptive suffering.