The Parliament of World's Religions met in Chicago in 1993 to commemorate the centennial of the World Parliament of Religions in 1893. One of the organizing themes of this conference, attended by around 10,000 delegates, was religious pluralism - the focus of this volume.

Here, then, is a collection of essays from a conference that meets not every year or even every ten years but once in a century. All the of contributors to the volume are well-established scholars who are known for their expertise in world religions: Julia Ching, R. Panikkar, Harvey Cox, Arvind Sharma, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Masao Abe, Clara Sue Kidwell, Samuel Ruiz, Paul F. Knitter, Donald W. Mitchell, Jeffrey Carlson, and Robert J. Schreiter.

While many books on religious pluralism focus on the plurality of religious presences in North America, this volume employs the term religious pluralism to include the plurality of perspectives present within religious traditions as well. It thus understands the term both in an internal and external sense. In addition, it extends the discussion of religious pluralism beyond North America to other theaters of the world, to Asia and Latin America.

CONTENTS

1. Living in Two Worlds: A Personal Appraisal

2. Religious Identity and Pluralism

3. "Our Religions" in a Religiously Plural World

4. Civilizing the Choctaws: Cultural Expectations and Realities

5. Religious Conflict and Christianity

6. Religion and Globality: Can Interreligious Dialogue be Globally Responsible?

7. Two Types of Unity and Religious Pluralism

8. Religion and Globality

9. A Call to Action

Arvind Sharma is Professor of Comparative Religion at McGill University in Montreal.

Kathleen Dugan is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of San Diego.