Theology Without Walls with John J. Thatamanil (Radical Theology)

John J. Thatamanil is Associate Professor of Theology and World Religions at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He is the author of The Immanent Divine: God, Creation, and the Human Predicament. An East-West Conversation and, most recently, Circling the Elephant: A Comparative Theology of Religious Diversity (Fordham, 2020). Presently, he is working on a book entitled, Desiring Truth: The Quest for Interreligious Wisdom. He is a past President of the North American Paul Tillich Society and the current Chair of the AAR’s Theological Education Committee. He teaches a wide variety of courses including, “Hindu Religious Thought and Practice,” “Buddhist-Christian Dialogue,” and “Paul Tillich as Public Theologian,” “Process Theology,” “Double Belonging: On Multiple Religious Participation.” Thatamanil is an Anglican/Episcopalian—a recently ordained Deacon in the Anglican Church of Canada—who also reads and practices in traditions of Hindu and Buddhist nondualism.

In this episode, we discuss:

The de-religionization of religion.

John’s cultural dislocation and how it informed his approach to theology.

Truth and desire.

What does it mean to have a multi-religious identity?

The difference between salad bar spirituality and multi-religious identity. 

3 kinds of religious wonder.

The multi-religious theologian as the embodiment of the hospitality of receiving.

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