Buddhist-Christian Dialogue: Past, Present and Future

Abstract

LONG: I am Bruce Long, Director of The Blaisdell Institute in Claremont, California. I will be serving today as the interviewer to attempt to lead a conversation between Professor Masao Abe of the Claremont Graduate School and ProfessorJohn Cobb of the School of Theology at Claremont on the past, present, and future status of Christian-Buddhist dialogue, with particular focus on activities in Japan, Hawaii and the mainland United States. First, then, How did the current Buddhist-Christian conversation get started? Where and what sort of cultural conditions gave rise to it? ABE: An interest in comparative study of Eastern and Western thought and religion has been very strong inJapan, even before the Second World War. This is simply becauseJapanese had eagerly introduced Western thought and culture from the time of the Meiji restoration (1868). Japan is often compared with a bridge between East and West. And with this background, shortly after the end of the Second World War, the dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity began, particularly in Kyoto. The National Council of Churches (NCC) (that is the branch center of the World Council of Churches in Japan) was one of the centers of this dialogue. I think as early as 1948, Dr. Tetsutaro Ariga, as the director of the NCC center, began this kind of dialogue. But in a more organized form, Dr. Masatoshi Doi, who is the successor of Dr. Ariga, started the Conference on Religion and Modern Society in 1971. This conference has been taking place twice a year and includes not only Buddhist-Christian scholars, but also scholars of Comparative Studies and some representatives of the New Religions. Every meeting has been attended by about fifty people.