Living Traditions and Universal Conviviality: Prospects and Challenges for Peace in Multireligious Communities

The World Parliament of Religions adopted the view that there will not be peace in this world without including peace among religions. Yet, even with the unified force of the world’s religions and wisdom traditions, this cannot be accomplished without justice among people. In one way or another, “unity” among religions, as based on justice and the will to accept the other’s religions and even irreligiosity as means of justice, will not prevail without an internal and external, spiritual, theological, philosophical and practical investigation into the very reasons for religious strife and fanaticism as well as the resources that people, cultures, religions and wisdom traditions might provide to disentangle them from the injustices of their host regimes, and to seek the “balance” that leads to a measure of universal fairness among the multiplicity of religious and non-religious expressions of humanity. “Conviviality” expresses the depth and breadth of “living together,” which itself can be understood as a translation of a central term of Whitehead's philosophy and the process tradition—“concrescence” (growing together, becoming concrete)—as it is recently and increasingly used in different discourses to name the concrete community of difference of individuals, cultures, and religions in appreciation of the mutual inclusiveness of their lives. This book seeks to bring together experts from different religious (and non-religious) traditions and spiritual persuasions to suggest ways in which the living wisdom traditions might contribute to, and transform themselves into, a universal conviviality among the people, cultures and religions of this world for a common future. It wishes to test the resources that we can contribute to this concurrent and urgent matter, aware of Whitehead's call for a radical transformation of power and violence in thought and action as, perhaps, the ultimate theory of conflict resolution.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Conviviality in Multi-Religious Communities: Peace, Justice, Unity, and Diversities, Roland Faber and Santiago Slabodsky Part I: Multi-Religious Conversations 1. Conviviality: Particular Religions, Universalist Fellowship—Some Jewish Reflections, Bradley Shavit Artson 2. From Violence to Tolerance: Kazi Nazrul Islam’s Relevance to Discussions on Conviviality in the Muslim Tradition, Mustafa Ruzgar 3. From Tolerance to Unity: the Baha’i Faith and Conviviality, Ian Kluge 4. How Wicca Contributes to Religious Conviviality, Constance Wise 5. Conviviality with Dao: A Chinese Perspective, Meijun Fan Part II: Political Challenges and Opportunities 6. Religions’ Contribution to the Affirmation of Life and Political Agency, Helene Slessarev-Jamir 7. Political Liberalism, Conviviality, and Process Thought, Daniel A. Dombrowski 8. The Fires of Desire: Finding Conviviality in a Common Challenge, C. Robert Mesle 9. The Unspeakable Conviviality of Becoming, Catherine Keller Part III: Ecologies of Multi-Religious Futures 10. “Must ‘religion’ always remain as a synonym for ‘hatred’?” Whiteheadian Meditations on the Future of Togetherness, Roland Faber 11. Tools for Religious Conviviality: Ivan Illich, Process Thought, and Political Ecology on a Multireligious Planet, Jacob Erickson 12. The Problem of the Two Ultimates and the Proposal of an Ecozoics of the Deity: In Dialogue with Thomas Berry, Sallie McFague, Anselm, Aquinas, Whitehead, and Nishida, Toki Nobuhara 13. Architectures of Risk, The Convivial Occasion of Experiential Religious Naturalism in Tagore and Whitehead, Brianne Donaldson 14. Whiteheadian Perspective-Taking as a Basis for ‘Peace’ through Interfaith Dialogue: With Special Reference to Confucianism & Japanese Buddhism, Steve Odin Epilogue: Planetarity and Conviviality, Jay McDaniel