With the emergence of quantum theory, the Newtonian idea that matter is inert, devoid of creativity and sentience, becomes questionable. Yet, physicists have by no means agreed upon an alternative understanding that can replace the Newtonian paradigm. Henry Stapp and others argue that Whitehead’s thought provides a peculiarly appropriate framework for a new understanding of matter in light ofquantum theory. The implications for a theology ofecology are manifold. No longer are matter and mind utterly discontinuous, nor is matter devoid of (...) value until assigned value by humans or by God. Even the divine reality is, in a certain sense, “material.” This calls for a new sensitivity within Western religion, in which religion itself becomes openness to, and appreciation for, physical matter. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 35.4 (2002) 297-327 [Access article in PDF] Liberal Irony A Program for Rhetoric James P. McDaniel [Figures] Seeing like a state Perhaps these famous yet simple pictures display not so much the virtuosity of photography or photographers as they statically represent fragments of Mahatma Gandhi's theosophical and political dynamism, his uncanny blend of calm and charisma, thought and play. The compositions are technically simple yet thematically (...) rich. The great leader being led by a boy, the public figure reflecting quietly in private over news reports: these modest representations key awareness of the place of overturning in Gandhi's thought, words, and deeds. A man who encouraged non-violent resistance (ahimsa) to British Imperialists, Gandhi submitted his body to great harshness (himsa). A witness to incredible atrocities committed against his people, Gandhi exhorted his followers to present their bodies before armed imperialist soldiers with full knowledge that they would be brutalized, many killed. Legally prohibited from doing so, Gandhi made salt. Exhausted and hungry, Gandhi walked hundreds of kilometers without rest and fasted for long stretches of time. Hated and feared, Gandhi loved. Perpetually reversing the "logic" of the world he knew, overturning its values to find and clarify truer values, insisting that choices be made between the received and the [End Page 297] promised, the "is" and the "ought," the actual and the possible, Gandhi was an ironist.Each picture can also be seen as an allegory, or taken together as an allegorical complex of mutually illuminating signs, and Gandhi as a political allegorist of human relations for early twentieth-century India and the globe. Allegory's signature inscriptions are everywhere about these simple photos. Personification of virtue, a stock technique of allegorical composition, abounds: Humility becomes Gandhi. Each photograph personifies humility uniquely: sparseness of setting, simplicity of garb, and other visual cues for self-abasement adorn the one; richness of natural setting, playfulness, childlikeness, and such ornament the other. Both images suggest the presence of the eternal in the temporal, but in different ways, another key fixture of allegorical design: Gandhi's stillness sitting near his spinning wheel, itself an image of eternal circuitousness, in the one, and his vigorous exertion against a vast, seemingly static, natural landscape, both "frozen" in time thanks to the technology of photography, in the other. Likewise, time's flow seems in a sense reversed in a manner that mirrors symmetrical ontological reversals: the older follows the younger, the man the boy, and the wise follow the inexperienced. Further allegorical decoding could be endeavored, for instance rearticulating the two texts on four tiers of signification: literal, figural, historical, and anagogical—the "four-level" allegorical hermeneutic initially developed for application to sacred texts and later ascendant as a critical method from the Middle Ages to some versions of poststructuralism in recent years (e.g., Fredric Jameson's Political Unconscious, Frederick Dolan's Allegories of America,Paul de Man's Allegories of Reading). Each tier reveals a unique dimension of discourse: its textual surface (literal), its embedded significations (figural), its reflexive display of placement in time and society (historical), and its alignment with archetypal or ultimate patterns of existence (anagogical).As two approaches to the same texts, irony and allegory are more complementary than exclusive. Neither renders the other invalid or uninteresting, nor do they deplete their common rhetorical resources, yet each features distinctive fixations. The first perspective fixates on a single strategy reflected in the texts and explores the ramifications of that strategy: dialectical reversal. The second fastens on and traverses across myriad textures and patterns of discursive technique displayed in the texts: allegorical personification (e.g., Gandhi as humility), temporality (e.g., fusing of public, private, and eternal time), paratactic association of images (i.e., interplay between visual signs not necessarily regulated by a single code [End Page 298] of meaning), and cosmic ornamentation (e.g., the spinning wheel that, by the way, is not spinning; like Gandhi, it is sitting still in a world of tumult, as if mirroring a moment of individual and universal arrest). Ironic strategizing and inventorying, in this light... (shrink)

Philosophers and theologians influenced by Whitehead’s philosophy see other animals as subjects of their own lives, with purposes of their own, which add beauty to the whole of life, which add value to the life of God. Other animals are deserving of respect and care. It is thus surprising that so few Whiteheadians have seen the implications of this with regard to eating animals. Deckers rightly prods these thinkers to accept the moral implications of their thought, pointing in the direction (...) of a process-oriented vegetarianism. (shrink)

Buddhist Funeral Cultures of Southeast Asia and China. Edited by Paul Williams and Patrice Ladwig. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. xiv + 296. £60.

In developing theologies and spiritualities of ecology, Christians can learn from the Nobel laureate Barbara McClintock and from process theology. That “feeling for the organism” of which McClintock speaks can be understood within a process context as a distinctive mode of spirituality. The feeling is an intuitive and sympathetic apprehension of another creature in a way which mirrors God’s own way of perceiving. It involves feeling the other creature as a fellow subject with intrinsic value. A subjective capacity of this (...) sort is by no means sufficient for a spirituality of ecology, but by all means necessary. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 67-76 [Access article in PDF] Double Religious Belonging:A Process Approach Jay McDaniel Hendrix College Increasingly, Christians in the United States are turning to Buddhism for spiritual insight and nourishment. Many are reading books about Buddhism, and some are also meditating, participating in Buddhist retreats, and studying under Buddhist teachers. As they do so, they approach what might be called "dual religious belonging."The phrase itself can (...) suggest at least three metaphors. We can imagine them (1) as people crossing a bridge into the world of Buddhism and who then return to Christianity with fresh insights; or (2) as people with two intravenous tubes in their arms, one providing fluid from a Buddhist lineage and one providing fluid from a Christian lineage, for the sake of a more complete life; or, shifting to a more organic metaphor, (3) as people with primary roots in Christian soil but with secondary roots in Buddhist soil, who receive anchorage and sustenance from both kinds of soils.Shortly I will draw upon the third metaphor to suggest the desirability of a "taproot" as opposed to a "fibrous" approach for such double belonging, at least in its initial stages. First, a word is in order about the philosophical backdrop for my approach, which draws upon the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and its theological counterpart, process theology. Toward this end, I will draw upon the first metaphor: the bridge. A Bridge for Double Belonging Process theology emerged in the 1930s at the University of Chicago and has since been used by many Christians and some Buddhists, mainly but not exclusively Pure Land Buddhists, to interpret their respective religious perspectives. I myself have used this theology in several books to try to show how Christians can draw deeply from the wells of Buddhist insight and practice in ways that enrich and deepen Christian life.Process theology draws upon the "philosophy of organism" developed by the late philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead. Whitehead's philosophy is unique in that it has deep similarities with numerous Buddhist points of view even as it also offers a rich way of interpreting and appreciating core Christian insights. [End Page 67] It is no accident that process theologians such as John Cobb suggest that process theology is a way of seeing things—a theological bridge—that can help a Christian cross over into Buddhism, learn from it in deep ways, and return with fresh insights that enrich a walk with Christ; and that can also help Buddhists cross over into Christianity, learn from it in deep ways, and return with fresh insights for practicing the dharma.What, then, are the core teachings of process theology? If we imagine process theology as a wooden bridge, here would be ten of its planks:There are many worlds beyond words, which can be known in many ways, including prayer and meditation, empathy and imagination, intuition and mindful perception.Human life consists of a series of moments of experience, each of which includes, and is dependent on, the whole of the universe.The universe is an unfolding process that is never the same at two instants.Humans and other living beings have no substantial or permanent self that separates them from the surrounding world.Ultimate reality is a nonstatic and nondualistic Emptiness of which all things are manifestations: with Emptiness referring to (a) the emptiness of words and concepts as adequate descriptions of things as they are, (b) the sheer presence of things as they are in their suchness, (c) the absence of a self-contained substantiality or "own being" within things, (d) the sheer interconnectedness of all things, (e) the pure becoming of all things.There is a womblike presence—God—who shares in the joys and sufferings of each living being, and who is herself an example of no-self, interdependence, pure becoming, of the Emptiness described above.God is present within each living being an in-dwelling lure toward wisdom and compassion.God's presence is also found between humans, when they live in community with one another in a... (shrink)

Family Matters in Indian Buddhist Monasticism. By Shayne Clarke. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2014. Pp. xvi + 275. $52; Family in Buddhism. Edited by LIz WILsON. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2013. Pp. 298. $85.

Christianity is best understood not as a set of timeless doctrines, but as a historical movement capable of change and growth. In this respect, Christianity is like a science. Heretofore, most instances of Christianity have exhibited certain ways of thinking that, taken as a whole, have led to the subordination of women (and the Earth and animals as well) to men in power. This article describes these ways of thinking, then contrasts six ways of thinking and acting that can inform (...) postpatriarchal Christianity and science. (shrink)

Alfred North Whitehead and Emmanuel Levinas are not often considered together in the contemporary philosophical literature. There are clearly sensible reasons for this. While Whitehead is a systematic thinker who explicitly engages in metaphysical philosophy within the tradition of process thought and who does not focus primarily on ethics, Levinas is resistant to systematic metaphysics and works within the phenomenological tradition in order to argue that ethics is first philosophy. Despite these significant points of contrast between Whitehead and Levinas, in (...) this paper we argue that the two might stand as resources for each other in various ways. Since this paper is meant to be explorative and suggestive rather than comprehensive and conclusive, we argue for just two possible points of resonance between these important philosophers: (1) Both Levinas and Whitehead develop an account of selfhood that is intrinsically relational and concerned with responsibility—we term this account “Ethical Subjectivity;” and (2) Both Levinas and Whitehead operate according to what we call a “Hermeneutics of the Other” that stresses epistemic humility and dialogical openness. (shrink)

Historical Dictionary of Thailand, 3rd ed. Edited by Gerald Fry, Gayla Nieminen, and Harold Smith. Historical Dictionaries of Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, Rowman & Littlefield, 2013. Pp. xlviii + 662. $140, £90 ; $139.99, £85.