Catholic theologian to speak at SJU about interfaith encounters in India
October 7, 2014
Bradley Malkovsky, associate professor of comparative religion at the University of Notre Dame, will present "God's Other Children: Personal Encounters with Faith, Love, and Holiness in Sacred India" at 4:15 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 28, in Room 264 of the Quadrangle Building at Saint John's University.
The lecture, sponsored by the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning, is free and open to the public.
Drawing from his recently published book with the same title as his lecture, Malkovsky will explain how years of first-hand encounters with Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims in India caused him to develop a more expansive understanding of God's presence outside his own Catholic tradition. He will give special attention to questions raised through interfaith experience about the universal significance of Christ.
Malkovsky earned his master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Tübingen in Germany and he studied Sanskrit and Hindu thought at the University of Poona in Pune, India.
In his teaching at Notre Dame Malkovsky focuses on doctrinal and spiritual issues in the relationship of Christianity with Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. Specializing in the field of Hindu-Christian dialogue, he has been the editor of the Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies for thirteen years.
The 2013 book on which the lecture will be based won the Huston Smith Publishing Prize. Huston Smith, one of the world's preeminent scholars of the comparative religion, called God's Other Children "the most interesting and inspiring book that I have read in a very long time."
Commenting on the same book, the renowned Hindu scholar Anantanand Rambachan said that "Malkovsky takes us on a journey that illumines both heart and mind as he invites our own reflection on the significance of our encounters with people of other faiths."
Prominent Jesuit scholar of Hinduism Francis X. Clooney said that "Malkovsky has written a classic for our time, a testimony matching our best efforts to keep the faith and celebrate the diversity around us.