Master Hsuan Hua Memorial Lecture

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    Is There a Universal Grammar of Religion?

    Huston Smith

    In this provocative volume two important scholars of religion, Huston Smith and Henry Rosemont, Jr., put forth their viewpoints and share a probing conversation. Though the two diverge considerably in their accounts of religious faith and practice, they also agree on fundamental points. Huston Smith, author of the important work The World’s Religions, has long argued for the fundamental equality of the world’s religions. Describing a “universal grammar of religion,” he argues that fourteen points of similarity exist among all of the major religious traditions and that these similarities indicate an innate psychological affinity for religion within the human spirit. As Noam Chomsky has argued that humans are hardwired to use language, Smith similarly argues that humans are hardwired for religious experience. In response, Rosemont explicates his humanistic vision of the world, in which the “homoversal” tendency to contemplate the infinite is part of our co-humanity that endures across time, space, language, and culture. Rosemont also elaborates upon Noam Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar and its relevance to Smith’s ideas about the similarities among religions. This insightful exploration of the most essential basis of religion provides a new direction for comparative-religion scholars everywhere.

    Worldly Wonder

    Mary Evelyn Tucker

    History illustrates the power of religion to bring about change. Mary Evelyn Tucker describes how world religions have begun to move from a focus on God-human and human-human relations to encompass human-earth relations. She argues that, in light of the environmental crisis, religion should move from isolated orthodoxy to interrelated dialogue and use its authority for liberation rather than oppression.

    Our Spiritual Crisis

    Michael N. Nagler

    Michael Nagler argues that problems now faced by American society spring from a false way of looking at the world,based on the premise that material things are fundamental, consciousness merely derivative. He advocates a return to the ancient and Eastern spritual view that consciousness is fundamental.In developing a new conception of the universe and applying it to our social problems, Dr. Nagler explains how we can best oppose war, consumerism, commercialism, scientism, and the spiritual hollowness of modern life.Commentary by Lewis S. Mudge.