Eastern Religions: A New Interest and Influence

Abstract

There is now in America a considerable scholarly and existential interest in Asian religions. A number of fea tures in the contemporary cultural scene suggest the possibility of a genuine openness to Eastern religious influences : break down of militant Christian missionary attitudes; uncertainty concerning the classical Christian teleology of a coming King dom of God on earth, as well as concerning that belief's secular form—confidence in present progress toward an American utopia; distrust of the cerebral-intellectual, and a leaning toward the visceral, values and powers; and alienation from the natural environment. The Eastern flexible (nonliteral) use of religious language, sense of organic relationship with nature, and emphasis upon the visceral-intuitive apprehension of truth by direct experience thus have a strong appeal. However, the question of whether potentiality will become actuality remains. Eastern religiosity has now become one possible option for Americans, and its study is probably a permanent part of the academic scene. But it would seem that both those supporting the dominant Christian tradition and those rejecting it still find Eastern religiosity too strange to be relevant. And it may well be that before any genuine cross-fertilization of Eastern and Western religio-cultural styles can take place, traditional East ern religiosity will have been destroyed.