Jewish-Christian Dialogue: One Woman's Experience

By Mary C. Boys

Argues that serious and sustained encounter with another religious tradition is imperative for developing a healthy commitment as a Christian in a pluralistic world. +

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809137380
• ISBN13: 9780809137381
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Paulist Press
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 0.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 4.5" x 6.7"

Customer Reviews

Toward A Hermeneutic of Affection

In this small but powerful book, Professor Boys offers us the insights she delivered in the 1997 Madeleva Lecture in Spirituality. If you are new to the topic of Jewish-Christian dialogue, this is a great place to start! Even if your interest is in dialogue between religions other than Jewish and Christian, the rationale and practical examples Mary gives are of inestimable value.The reality of our postmodern situation is that we live in a world which has been made "smaller" by technology. We can talk to people of other nations and cultures with only a moment's notice. We can travel anywhere on the globe in only a few hours. And borders between nations are more and more fluid. People of other religious traditions are no longer "out there." They have become our neighbors and coworkers. How are we to relate to them? Will we maintain a attitude of superiority and triumphalism? Will there be conversation and dialogue, or only apologetics and attempts to convert those who are different in their beliefs?Mary Boys opts for authentic dialogue. She gives several examples that have radically changed the lives of their participants: Muslims, Christians, Jews and Buddhists. Getting to know the other as a person, building a "hermeneutic of affection," putting aside mistrust and false claims about the other--all of these have a place in her methodology for mutual understanding.Mary is a Roman Catholic, as I am. But her book has exciting ramifications for persons of all religious traditions. She does not call for a watering down of one's own tradition, but for an appreciation of the tradition of another in a way which enlivens one's own faith. For in learning the traditions of another, we discover the possibility of a renewed appreciation of our own.