Review of Kurian Kachappilly (ed.), 2009, Process, Religion, and Society.

Abstract

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) proposed one of the boldest and most thoroughgoing efforts to rethink cosmology of the last century. His philosophy of organism has had a strong, though controversial, influence on Christian theology in North America and beyond, with interest growing in some circles in South and East Asia. While Whitehead is strongly rooted in the Western philosophical tradition, including Plato, the British and American empiricists, and the English Romantic poets, his thought also has strong resonances with aspects of Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist thought. The two volumes under review are collections of essays that were presented at the Seventh International Whitehead Conference that took place in India in January 2009. In his keynote address at the beginning of volume 1, John B. Cobb, Jr., a Methodist Christian who is one of the most influential process theologians of the last halfcentury, sets the tone for the entire discussion by stressing the primacy of relationships in process and the implications of Whitehead's philosophy for envisioning God and shaping society