Doing Theology Comparatively

01/15/2026 · Tue/Thu 12:00-1:15 PM · Brad Bannon · Boston College

📄 Synopsis

In this session, Instructor Brad Bannon transitions from personal narrative to the formal methodologies governing the course. After sharing his journey from finance to theology, Bannon distinguishes between 'Comparative Theology' and 'Theology of Religion.' Drawing on the work of Francis Clooney, he explains comparative theology as a 'sojourn' where one anchors themselves in their home tradition, travels to engage deeply with another, and returns transformed. In contrast, the 'Theology of Religion'—represented by figures like Wesley Aryaraja—seeks to understand the plurality of religions, asking why there are so many and how to make sense of them. The class then explores the Hindu concept of darshana, which involves the act of seeing, ranging from physical sight to intellectual insight. Finally, Bannon connects these concepts to the definition of theology as faith seeking understanding, emphasizing that the theological quest is a philosophical investigation of first principles anchored in sacred texts.

⚡ Key Takeaways

Theology is defined as 'fides quaerens intellectum,' or faith seeking understanding, a quest that is always seeking but never fully finding.
Comparative theology, as practiced by Francis Clooney, involves a 'sojourn' where a theologian temporarily enters a foreign tradition to gain insights that transform their understanding of their home tradition.
Theology of religion investigates the existential meaning of religious plurality, asking what to make of the fact that there are many different religions and revelations.
The Hindu concept of darshana (seeing) refers to both physical sight and intellectual or spiritual insight, often described as a 'light coming on' in the head.
Theological discourse is most effective when it is anchored in a specific canon of texts rather than attempting to mash different traditions together like welding two anchors.
Theology is a philosophical investigation of first principles—such as 'Who am I?' and 'Why am I here?'—anchored in a specific canon of sacred texts.
The course will utilize team-based learning through podcast groups and 'leadership days' where students lead class discussions.
A distinction is made between the 'ascent' to get a glimpse of divinity and the 'descent' back into the world, which involves transforming society and creating a more ethical world.

🎤 Transcript Tap any timestamp to jump the audio player

Opening Transition and Breath Meditation

Student

Howdy, y'all.

Brad

Thanks for coming back. Let's take a moment to transition.

Student

If you're struggling to clear your mind, you could focus on your breath.

Brad

Try to make your in-breath and out-breath the same. Let's take one breath together. Go ahead and breathe in and out.

Brad

Word?

Brad

Word.

Student

All right.

1:43

Reading Quiz and Logistics

Brad

All right.

Brad

Let's start off with a quiz, reading quiz.

Brad

If you have, you know, notes, you can't use screens, no screens.

Brad

But if you have handwritten notes or printed notes or something like that, feel free to use those. I'm not looking for essays, just like a sentence or two about each one of the theologians would be perfect.

2:50

Syllabus Review: Podcast Teams and Leadership Days

Student

You think I'm in?

3:34

Methodology: Comparative Theology vs. Theology of Religion

Brad

Um, Take another minute max.

7:10

Cosmology: Shiva’s Meditation and the Sustenance of Existence

Brad

I'm just gonna round off your answers. Like I said, one, one or two sentences per theologian would be ideal.

Brad

All right, all right, let's try, let's try this.

Student

Um, you done? Yeah, go, go ahead.

Student

30 seconds, let's go.

Brad

Okay, so let's divide the room in half down the middle, and you will put yours on the— well, you'll just hand it to the next person, but hand it that way, and then you'll put yours on top, right? ⚠

Brad

And you put yours on top, right?

Brad

So then we'll get to the— everybody toss them that way and then pass them forward, and just always put yours on top of the other ones, right? So that theoretically, if everybody sits in the same place every day, They should all be in the same order. ⚠

Student

You're right.

Brad

So just pass them that way and then pass them forward, please.

Brad

And for those of you that are just joining class, don't freak out, right?

Brad

You missed 2 quizzes, but plenty of time to make them up.

Brad

So, definitely opportunities to make them up.

Brad

Perfect.

Brad

Okay, so today I'm gonna do something a bit, I mean, like way different than I did the other day.

11:17

Instructor Biography: From Fundamentalism to Comparative Theology

Brad

The other day was way more atypical.

Student

Does anybody need a syllabus?

Brad

You need a syllabus?

Student

Anybody else need a syllabus?

Student

I'm not sure why I have so many extras.

Brad

So today I want to do what I normally do on day 1, which is talk about myself and just kind of help you get to know me a little bit.

Brad

I was going to say you've heard this before, but you didn't. You missed the—

Brad

right?

Brad

You added the glasses like Miguel. So who the hell am I?

Brad

I'm Brad Bannon.

Brad

We already went over that. I, so I'm just gonna tell you how I got to be here and why I teach this course and why I drive 2.5 hours each way to teach the course.

Brad

So I'm from Spartanburg, South Carolina, born and raised in upstate South Carolina.

Brad

All my family is still there, and I was raised fundamentalist Southern Baptist. I went to, I went to Furman University for college for my undergrad degree. I went there on a music scholarship, played saxophone, and then halfway through added a finance degree. So double majored in music and finance. When I graduated from Furman in 1997, I got married. I have a Bad habit of that and trying to stop. And moved to New York City. And moved to New York City without any job prospect, without any friends, without any anything. Only thing we had was a 3-month sublease. And then after that we were like, you know, on our own. But bought a little apartment and found a roommate. Got a job, got a job, just kind of hit the pavement, you know, knocking on doors and handing out resumes. ⚠

Brad

I mean, what does a 21-year-old even have on their resume?

Brad

Nothing, really. But I somehow landed a job at the premier retail brokerage branch of Morgan Stanley, which was on the 73rd floor of Tower 2 of the World Trade Center. Foreshadowing. And did pretty well, honestly. Did pretty well. My first wife was a— is a big Broadway, like, Broadway. ⚠

Brad

She's like super Broadway person.

Brad

My dad is always, you know, anytime we're just like sitting around, my dad and I, he's a little awkward and doesn't know what to talk about or whatever.

Brad

And for some reason, uh, when he spins that wheel, like, what should I ask Brad about? It's almost always one of my exes. Um, it's super awkward.

Brad

Um, so yeah, like, uh, not too long ago, he's like, you know, how's, how's your first wife doing? I'm like, well, I don't know. Like, why would I know that, you know?

Brad

Like, uh, whatever, I don't know.

Brad

But you know, since you asked, let me Google, right?

Brad

And, uh, yeah, so I Googled her and she had just the week before won a Grammy, which is, you know, great for her, cool for her.

Brad

Anyway, so after a few years in Manhattan, by the time I was 25, 26, I was a self-made millionaire, mostly from real estate investments but also from personal investments and income, but it was more from investments than anything else.

Brad

And owned a 4-unit apartment building in Manhattan.

Brad

And then on 9/11, yeah, went up on the roof, you know, of my brownstone with a couple of tenants and like watched my old office building, you know, burn and collapse to the ground.

Brad

And just kind of that experience really kind of made me reassess what I was doing with my life and confronting the reality of death makes you think about, hey, you know, if I were to die tomorrow or today or something, like, would I be satisfied with the kind of life that I had led? ⚠

Brad

And my answer was no, right? And it wasn't so much about finance. A lot of people get the wrong idea.

Brad

Certainly couldn't come to Boston College and like decry finance, right? But it wasn't so much that I was leaving finance as much as I was just drawn towards something else.

Brad

I just wasn't exactly sure. I wasn't sure what, but I just had all these questions. As I mentioned, I grew up very fundamentalist Southern Baptist and in a small, very rural neighborhood. There was only two other kids in the neighborhood, and we're not going to talk about Travis because that was a putz. ⚠

Brad

But the other kid, we became really best friends.

Brad

Spent all our time together. And I was baptized, was baptized pretty young, but for a Baptist at least. And in the Southern Baptist tradition, being baptized is like a really big deal.

Brad

It's like a really, really big deal.

Brad

And so when I was baptized, it was a big deal. It was a big deal for me and for my family. And I went over to my friend's house, Judith, Judith was his name, and went over to his house for dinner as I'd done tons and tons of times before. ⚠

Brad

So it's not the first time I had dinner there.

Brad

But, you know, they were eager to ask. They were like actually saying, we want to know about this experience you had, right? You obviously— it's meaningful to you, and we want to know what it means to you, right? So we want to ask, we want to know about it, we want to hear you talk about it. But, you know, we'll talk about it over dinner first. ⚠

Brad

Let's have a a blessing, like bless the meal, like say, you know, say a blessing before the meal.

Brad

And it was during that, so then we closed our eyes, and then his mom, as we've done many times before, she sang a Sanskrit raga. ⚠

Brad

And during, as I was hearing her chant this Sanskrit raga, it was during that that it dawned on me that they were like not Christian, right?

Brad

And not just not Christian, but like something else, you know what I mean?

Brad

And I just never really thought about it before. Like, I knew it was Indian, I knew they didn't go to our church, but I just never really thought about it before, you know? And so I'd had this big profound experience personally, and then the next day went over to their house and had this other sort of epiphany.

Brad

And so then they did, like, way more than my family actually, and way more than any of my friends they really wanted to know about it. They were really asking me questions.

Brad

How did it feel?

Brad

What led you to do it?

Student

What was it like? What'd you go through?

Brad

You know, just explain all of it to them.

Brad

And as I was doing that, my friend, Judith, started telling me about an experience that he was going through at the same time.

Brad

So same age, same time.

Brad

And his was receiving a sacred thread. Which is a process of becoming a dvija, or second born, which to me sounded a whole lot like being born again, right? ⚠

Brad

So like a second being, second, I mean, right?

Brad

It's like pretty much this, it's very similar.

Brad

And so many of the things that he did and so many of the things that it meant to him and his family just seemed like not the same, but really similar, a lot of resonance, right?

Brad

And just kind of raised all these questions in my head. Questions that I was very eager to run back to my Sunday school teachers and my pastors and ask them those questions. And their response pretty much across the board was, "You just don't ask those questions. Those are the wrong questions to ask. ⚠

Brad

And they are all going to hell because they're not Christian." And that was pretty much the end of it. And I didn't really buy their answers at all.

Brad

But I also just didn't have any resources for sort of examining or pursuing those questions. So they just kind of lingered in the back of my head until after 9/11, then I guess I just really, those questions kind of resurfaced 'cause there were a lot of religious overtones to September 11th. And so I decided to go to seminary And began studying with this kid Wesley Aryaraja. I'll talk about him in a few minutes, or say more about him in a few minutes. ⚠

Brad

And he really started helping me, you know, find ways in language to explore those questions.

Brad

And so I spent 3 years— so I got divorced again.

Brad

I collect ex-wives.

Brad

And moved to—

Brad

left New York City and moved to Um.

Brad

That sort of thing.

Brad

And really started getting into eco-theology, theology of environment, theology of ecological ethics, and was really drawn towards all those kind of things.

Brad

And I did a lot of foreign study while I was in seminary.

Brad

Studied in Ghana, mostly studying religious practice and things in Ghana, and I studied in Brazil and spent some time in India as well. And then after I finished seminary, moved to India and did my second master's degree, this time in comparative philosophy.

Brad

I'm licensed by the Vatican to teach philosophy at the master's level or below. That's kind of cool, whatever.

Brad

And I wrote my first book there.

Brad

Actually, my first two books, but my first book was called The Quest for Postmodern Ethics. And it was a comparison of Martin Heidegger, who's a postmodern philosopher that we talked a bit—

Brad

well, we didn't talk, I didn't use his name, but we gave a lot of his philosophy on Tuesday's class. So it was a comparison of him and this kid Sri Aurobindo Ghosh, who's a philosopher, theologian from India around the same period of time.

Brad

So 1930s, 1940s in India. And then I wrote my dissertation, my master's thesis, which was on environmental ethics, but again, from a comparative lens, primarily from a non-dual lens.

Brad

Then moved to get married again. I moved to Massachusetts for my doctoral studies, and then I did my 7 years of doctoral studies across the river at Harvard and wrote my dissertation on these 2 figures.

Brad

One was a Christian theologian from the 15th century named Nicholas of Cusa.

Brad

And who's super dope. And then Shankaracharya, this 8th century Hindu theologian, and who we will be discussing quite a bit this semester, particularly in the second— well, beginning with Unit 3, really.

Brad

Um, then, uh, yeah, I started having kids. My daughter was born during orientation week, my doctoral studies. And she was in the NICU, so it was quite an initiation into doctoral studies. ⚠

Brad

And then my son was born 3 weeks before my comprehensive exams, so perfect timing on both of those.

Brad

And then, yeah, then I graduated.

Brad

Actually, this semester will be my 10th year anniversary.

Brad

Of graduating, so yay.

Brad

Got divorced again and bought a, my theory is that if I don't get married anymore, I won't get divorced anymore. So I'm gonna stick with that theory, see how that works. And bought a farm, so now I live on a 9-acre farm. Homestead, probably be a better, more accurate term, but 9-acre homestead in southern New Hampshire and have, you know, a pond and a horse and a cow. She's technically not a cow, she's technically a heifer, but will hopefully become a cow in August. ⚠

Brad

You know, you're not a cow until you throw a calf. That's what they call it.

Brad

So, um, she went into heat early December and got her knocked up, I hope. I think she hasn't shown any signs of heat yet, so, um, so if all goes well, then I'll be back to milking a cow every single day beginning in August.

Brad

This will be the third time that I've trained a heifer to be a milk cow, um, and, uh, Yeah, anyway, that's a little bit about me and how I got here and why I do this. Any questions? AMA?

Brad

Yeah.

Student

Do you still play saxophone?

Brad

I do, yeah.

Brad

My son picked up sax in middle school, which was great for me because then it made me really, you know, pull it back out and in play. And he dropped it when he went to high school, unfortunately.

Brad

But so I haven't pulled it out in a while. But every time I do, I just say, yeah, I really enjoy playing it very much. I wish that I had a regular practice of playing it. I should be more disciplined about that. But yeah. Any other questions?

Student

What are your animals' names?

Brad

So the horse's name is Lola, and Dandy is the heifer because she was born, she was born on the farm, and she was born when the dandelions were all in season. Her mom's name was Buttercup, so kept sort of the flower theme going, and Yes, her name's Dandy. And yeah, then I have a 14-year-old dog named Puppy and a 1-year-old puppy named Renny. ⚠

Brad

She's a German Shepherd.

Brad

I have 3 cats.

Brad

Fairface, and although I count the kids, we all have different names for him. He has 3 different names, so I call him I call him Flurkin. If you're a Marvel fan, you know Flurkin. ⚠

Brad

And my daughter calls him Ferret Face and my son calls him Sparkles.

Brad

And then we have another cat that's really the— he runs the place because he runs me and I run the place. But his name is Baby Yoda, although my kids call him Amazon. They just got all the names wrong.

Brad

And then we have another cat named Pete, and he got his name because we thought he was a girl. I wanted another cat so we could have kittens, and for that you really need a female. Males don't have kittens on their own. So we got him as, you know, to have kittens, and then, you know, then it became undeniably clear that he was a boy.

Brad

So named him Sneaky Pete because he snuck his little peter in there. And yeah, any other questions?

Brad

Word. If you think of more, let's quickly see if you have any questions about the chapter.

Student

Actually, probably before that, any questions about the syllabus?

Brad

Let's go through the syllabus a little bit, do that sort of day one sort of thing.

Brad

I'm not going to read through it by any stretch of the imagination, but the first section had a few questions. Any questions about syllabus? Okay.

Brad

Be thinking about your podcast teams. So I do a lot of team-based learning in all of my classes.

Brad

And so we'll form teams of, you know, 4. 32 people in the room, so nicely divisible by 4. So we'll have groups of 4.

Brad

And then after we form the groups, which will be in the next, probably next week, we'll aim to have teams formed by the end of next week.

Student

That's the goal at least.

Brad

Then after that, we can settle on leadership days.

Brad

Although actually we don't need to settle on leadership days, because once we settle on the teams, you can discuss leadership days within your team.

Brad

The idea is that each person for each unit, beginning with Unit 2, each person should have should lead one day in the unit. So each person on your team should choose one day. And however you divide it up, however you want to switch off or whatever, it's totally up to you.

Brad

I only need to know, you know, I need to know basically on the day of.

Brad

So I'll ask, you know, who are the leaders for today?

Brad

And then the idea of the leadership is that, you know, I generally expect all students to spend about 1 hour Definitely not more than that typically, but, and I would say it's usually less than that, but up to 1 hour preparing for every single class.

Brad

That's just across the board.

Brad

Everybody should do that.

Student

When it's your leadership day, maybe you spend like 15 minutes extra, right?

Brad

So like an hour and 15 minutes, right?

Brad

So not a lot of extra preparation for leadership days.

Brad

It's just basically your normal amount of preparation plus plan what you're going to say, right?

Brad

Some sort of discussion topic or something like that. And the idea is that, you know, a lot of times when you have a participation grade in a class, it's really ambiguous and unclear, like, am I participating enough? Am I not participating enough?

Brad

That sort of thing.

Brad

This kind of solves that a little bit.

Student

So we don't have a regular participation grade in this class. You'll have the quizzes, which is mostly to prepare, see if you're present and if you're prepared with the readings.

Brad

And then the leadership day is really your day for class participation, you know, more so than those.

Brad

So if it's not your leadership day and you're one of those people that really likes to talk in class, maybe take a step back on the leadership day.

Brad

When it's not your leadership day.

Brad

Make sense?

Brad

Give space to the leaders to take a lead.

Brad

And if it is your leadership day, my usual way of doing it is to kind of let things go organically.

Brad

That's my preference, to kind of just, you know, start class and kind of see how things go.

Brad

If we get to about, you know, 20 minutes left in class and it's Jaroslava's day for leadership and, If you haven't talked yet, then I might say, hey, you know, Jaroslava, what do you think? ⚠

Brad

But generally I'll only cold call on you like that if it's your leadership day and you haven't said anything yet.

Student

Make sense?

Brad

So that's pretty much how I do the leadership days and the podcasts.

Brad

Somebody emailed me, I don't know who, but about doing a podcast team across sections.

Brad

Who was that? Earlier section.

Brad

It is possible.

Brad

So if—

Brad

yeah, we got to figure out because it is nicely divisible by 4.

Brad

But we could still— I'm sure it could still work out. Yeah, good.

Brad

So no questions about syllabus? The earlier section had a question about the midterm.

Brad

The midterm, I haven't created it yet, but one of my top priorities in the midterm will be that it should be really easy to grade.

Student

That's my priority.

Brad

So it will mostly be—

Brad

it's going to be mostly vocabulary. I really want you to know the vocabulary.

Brad

I've taught this class many times before, and I sometimes get really frustrated when I get to the end of the course and people have not even learned some of the basic vocabulary.

Brad

So I want to make sure that you're learning the basic vocabulary, so we're going to do really a lot of vocabulary sort of work in the first half of the semester. Not going to do, you know, as much in the second half of the semester.

Brad

But the more, the better you learn the vocabulary, then the better you'll be able to engage meaningful ways with the texts and that sort of stuff, right? In fact, this handout that I gave you at the beginning of class, this is something that I created a few years ago and need to elaborate upon, but pretty much everything on here is things that I want you to to know. So the midterm will probably cover a lot of the things that are on here. ⚠

Student

In addition, in addition to—

Brad

I mean, there will be some other things in addition to these. But I think what you could do, what I did was—

Brad

let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4.

Student

If you go down like 6 lines, you see the 4 kinds of text within each division.

Brad

Yeah, I'm probably gonna see how many of those terms from there up that you can learn by Tuesday.

Brad

I don't know, that may be too much.

Brad

I will give you, I will give you something over, you know, probably tomorrow.

Brad

I will create, I will add something to the document that makes it really clear.

Brad

These are the vocabulary terms that are going to be on the quiz on Tuesday, right? So clear expectations for that. But that's, um, but we're going to take, um, this week and next week to go through, um, a lot of this.

Brad

Um, also one other thing about the syllabus, um, no, actually I'm gonna do that in a minute.

Brad

Cool.

Brad

Now any questions about Chapter 1, pretty straightforward.

Brad

Good.

Brad

Okay, so next on my list is to talk about the—

Brad

I want to spend a moment talking about the method of comparative theology. There's quite a bit of it in this chapter already. But I want to talk about the distinction between comparative theology, which is mostly what we're doing this semester, although we can also do some of this.

Brad

So the other is theology of religion.

Brad

So I think comparative theology is explained pretty well in the chapter. It was one of the most important theorists, we'll call him kind of the father of comparative theology, is Francis Clooney.

Brad

A Jesuit priest who teaches now at Harvard but was a professor here at Boston College for 30 years before he went over there.

Brad

He is the original creator of the course that you're taking right now and also my mentor and teacher.

Brad

And the way he approaches comparative theology or the way he defines or explains comparative theology method is something like this. It's really a journey, right? So this is more my version of his philosophy, his theology.

Brad

But the idea is, right, that theology has to be anchored in a text, right?

Student

So whatever your text, whatever your anchor is, you know, from a Christian perspective then, you know, let's say the Christian Bible, right?

Brad

And the idea is that if you're a theologian, then the texts mean something to you, right? You have a connection to the text.

Brad

You don't just go in it—

Brad

I mean, you approach the texts from the beginning presuming that the texts have something meaningful to say to you.

Student

Right? So you already have sort of a commitment to the text, and you're going to the text asking certain questions, right?

Brad

And the way I've just defined theology is theology is a philosophical investigation, right?

Brad

Philosophical meaning rational, logical, all those kind of things, right?

Brad

Feels like a philosophical investigation of first principles.

Brad

So first principles are I not I, and some sort of question of ultimacy.

Brad

So put simply in the form of questions: Who am I? What's this world that I live in? And why am I here? Why is anybody here? So those sort of who am I, who are y'all, and why are we here? ⚠

Brad

Those are the first principles.

Brad

First principles of philosophy.

Brad

It's like if you're familiar with Descartes, right, his Meditations on First Principles follows that same pattern, right, beginning with the I, the cogito.

Brad

So Clooney's idea is that to be a theologian is to be anchored, anchoring your discourse in a text.

Brad

But you don't do that in isolation.

Brad

You don't do that in the library.

Brad

You don't do You don't do that in a private study. You don't do that locked away in a basement somewhere.

Brad

That may be a step in the process, but the real theology happens when you're in dialogue with others, right? So when you're maybe in person dialoguing, you know, having conversations like we do in class, or when you're in your podcast having discussions with other classmates, or when you're in Bible study having discussions with people about the text. Lots of different ways it could happen.

Brad

As Clooney would point out, it also can happen through reading, but then it's reading commentaries on a text.

Brad

So when you're reading, even if you're reading an ancient commentary, you're still kind of in dialogue, certain kind of dialogue with the commentator.

Student

And the text is still more important than the commentary on the text.

Brad

But through reading the commentary, then you kind of engage in dialogue, a certain kind of dialogue with the commentator, right?

Brad

But the idea is that you don't just read the text, but you really kind of engage in dialogue with other people, you know, about the text. And so these are sort of lines of discourse, right?

Brad

So sort of like the, the example that I gave the other day, right, about playing die.

Brad

So the idea is that you put the die in the center, in this case the text in the center, and then you try to see it from different angles, right? And best way to do that—

Brad

I can't be in multiple places at once, I can't see it from every perspective, but I can engage you in dialogue and see what you think, right?

Brad

And then through that discourse, then we get more points, points on the circle, and we get to know the thing itself, in this case the scriptures, a little bit better, right? So that's basically Christian theology.

Brad

But as Clooney says, Comparative theology would be to have a different canon of texts, right?

Student

So his idea is that, I mean, for the scripture to function as scripture, it can't—

Brad

you can't just like combine it with some other text, right?

Brad

You can't just take like the Christian Bible and the Bhagavad Gita or something and just like mash them together.

Brad

That doesn't, that doesn't work. That's not what what the method is.

Brad

That would be, as I said in the chapter, like welding two anchors together.

Brad

That's not what it is.

Student

Instead, it's using an anchor as an anchor, taking the text seriously, allowing it to anchor our discourse.

Brad

But then, you know, we could do the same thing over here with a different canon of texts, right? But in order to really do that, then we have to take the text seriously enough at least for a certain period of time, right?

Brad

Clooney refers to that as sort of sojourning. Sojourn is like, hey, I'm gonna, I'm not just here as a tourist, right?

Brad

I'm not just here to see the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre or whatever, but I'm gonna like, you know, move in and live here for a few months, right?

Brad

Like a foreign study. You know, if you go and you stay in a country for, you know, a few months, that's a sojourn, right?

Brad

So it's not a casual tourist, but it also may not be, hey, I'm moving here forever.

Student

It's something in between of those.

Brad

And so, but when you sojourn with the text, you have to really take the text seriously.

Brad

And as I was saying before, and Clooney emphasizes this a lot, it's all the more important then to read a commentary, somebody who really does take the text way more seriously than you, somebody who's within the tradition, somebody who's devoted their entire life to reading that text and studying it, right?

Brad

So great theologians like Shankara, who I mentioned earlier, and so I'm listening to those, you know, some of these people may be ancient voices, you know, like Shankara, but some of them may be, you know, literally the people in the room right now, your podcast mates and that kind of stuff.

Brad

And the idea is that's you know, you kind of really take this text seriously.

Brad

I don't know, let's say like the veda, for example.

Brad

But as Clooney points out, and as I point out, as many theologians point out, theology is really about the journey, right?

Brad

It's really a quest.

Brad

Fides quaerens intellectum.

Brad

Faith seeking understanding, never finding it, but always seeking it.

Brad

And so thinking about Comparative theology is a kind of journey, right?

Brad

I begin taking this text seriously, but I'm gonna kind of go over here and sojourn over here and take this text seriously and listen to differing voices and try to see the text, not just what's my initial reading of it, but let me read it multiple times.

Brad

Let me see what other people think about it.

Brad

Let me see what the experts think about it, right?

Brad

Really try to sojourn there. But maybe not forever. And then eventually, at least this is Clooney's method, right? ⚠

Brad

Is that I'm gonna come back to my home tradition.

Student

And, you know, a couple of things.

Brad

One is the text doesn't change, right?

Brad

If the text changed, it couldn't function as an anchor.

Brad

The whole point of an anchor is that it doesn't change, right?

Student

It's gotta anchor you. So the text hasn't changed, but, Maybe you have, right?

Brad

So in the same way that you're, you're trying to ask those questions—

Brad

who am I, where am I, why am I here—

Brad

and looking for those sort of answers in this particular canon of texts, but then you may go over here, sojourn over here, and ask the same questions or similar questions of that text, maybe get different answers, maybe get similar answers, maybe find that the questions don't quite translate directly and you've got to change how you ask the question.

Brad

That happens a lot too.

Brad

But then when you come back, you know, to your home tradition or one that you're more committed to, again, the text hasn't changed, but you have.

Brad

So then you engage it from a different perspective and you bring some of that, you know, those experiences with you back to your home tradition.

Brad

Makes sense?

Brad

So as I said on Tuesday, part of what I want, you know, for some of you, maybe this is your anchor. For some of you, maybe this is your anchor. ⚠

Brad

For some of you, maybe none of these are your anchor.

Brad

But the point is, once you kind of learn how these tools work, then you can sort of shape your own, right, and figure out what is your anchor.

Brad

Maybe it's something else, or maybe it's some combination or whatever, right?

Brad

So that's comparative theology. Any questions about comparative theology?

Brad

That's the dominant mode that we're going to be doing this semester, especially in the second half.

Brad

So especially after spring break, after spring break, we are going to really put this into practice.

Brad

We're not just going to be reading the Christian Bible, we're going to focus in on one particular text, the Gospel of Mark. By the way, as I said, I've taught this many times over the past decade. Most of those times, I think, you know, like 7 or 8 of those times, I did the Gospel of Luke. And then last spring decided to switch things up and did the Gospel of John.

Brad

And then this time, just for various reasons, decided to try out the Gospel of Mark. So this is the first time I've taught this course with the Gospel of Mark.

Brad

But Gospel of Mark is super, super interesting.

Brad

16 chapters, and it's quite a bit different than the other gospels. ⚠

Brad

And then the Bhagavad Gita. And we're going to do this, actually, we're going to read the Bhagavad Gita on Tuesdays, and we're going to read the Gospel of Mark on Thursdays. ⚠

Brad

So we're literally going to go back and forth, and the idea isn't so much to compare them.

Brad

The idea is to really anchor ourself in one and then anchor ourself in the other.

Brad

And so we're going back and forth.

Brad

We're not trying to combine them, right?

Brad

But through our discussions, then, yeah, it's comparative, but you get the idea, right?

Brad

So that's comparative theology.

Brad

Now, Theology of religion is a bit different. When I was studying at Drew, I studied with my first guru, Wesley Aryaraja.

Brad

Wesley, it's like Francis kind of signals Jesuit, right? And Wesley kind of signals Methodist founded by John Charles Wesley. ⚠

Brad

So anyway, Wesley Aryarajah is a Sri Lankan theologian, Christian theologian, and really one of the, one of the great thinkers within this tradition of theology of religion.

Brad

Theology of religion asks different kinds of questions and uses very different methods than comparative theology. They're quite a bit different, actually.

Brad

And the idea behind the theology of religion is it's really a Christian theology investigating, like, why are there so many religions?

Brad

Like, what do we make of the fact that there are lots of different religions?

Student

How do we make sense of that, right?

Brad

So do we understand, like, okay, God has revealed God's self in and through the person of Jesus in and through the Christian scriptures. Great, fine. But what about, you know, folks who say that God is revealed to them through Krishna, or God is revealed to them through the Quran, or God is revealed to them through the teachings of the Buddha or something, right? So what do we make of that? Do we just say off the bat, oh, well, then they're wrong. You know, I've got the right truth. ⚠

Student

"Right?

Brad

And I see a 5. It doesn't really matter what you see because I see a 5.

Brad

I know I see a 5, and so anybody who says otherwise is just wrong." Right? That could be—

Brad

that is a theology of religion.

Brad

That's not mine, but that is a theology of religion.

Brad

Right?

Brad

Another one might be, "Well, okay, so I see this perspective. I see this side, but I'm also aware that there are other sides." Right?

Brad

And then, so, through discourse, I can learn more about the different sides, right? ⚠

Brad

There's this other kid, another Catholic priest, Raimon Panikkar, really awesome theologian. And Panikkar described it like this, again thinking of theology as a journey. But for him, it's a journey very much like the journey of Moses, or lots of other figures, but a journey, you know, Moses climbed a mountain, right? ⚠

Brad

And so, he climbed a mountain in order to see God, right?

Brad

So, Moses climbs Mount Sinai and has this direct encounter with God at the top of Mount Sinai, right? And so, Panikkar describes theology as this kind of intellectual spiritual journey which leads you to some sort of mountaintop experience, right? ⚠

Brad

Where you have this experience or encounter with the divine.

Brad

You know, feeling, as Anselm said in today's reading, right?

Brad

Feeling that you've been seen by God or that sort of thing, right?

Brad

But so then, as Panikkar points as he argues, then we can understand Christian theology, Christian practice, Christian religion even, as, you know, a sort of disciplined practice that will lead us up the mountain. ⚠

Brad

Right?

Brad

So if we follow this, then it can, throughout the course of our lives, we can gradually ascend that mountain to have this sort of mountaintop experience.

Brad

Right?

Brad

But as Panikkar points out, there's more than one way up the mountain, right?

Student

So then for him, following the Christian path should lead you to the top, right?

Brad

But maybe following a Hindu path will also lead you to the top, right?

Student

It's a different path.

Brad

Not saying it's the same path, but maybe it's leading up the same mountain, or maybe it's at least the same mountain range, right?

Student

So then maybe it leads you to different mountain peaks or different parts of the mountain range.

Brad

But you get the point, right?

Brad

So part of it is then seeing the various religious traditions as different paths up the same mountain.

Brad

Yeah.

Student

Is it just an ascender? Is it like, I mean, you say atman, are you descending after? ⚠

Brad

Oh, I love that question. So I love that question so much. You don't even know.

Brad

So I would say, and I think most of the theologians that I teach would say You gotta come down from the mountain, right?

Brad

Moses did, and when Moses came down from the mountain, his intention of coming down the mountain was to transform society, right? To create the kingdom of God here and now.

Brad

Kingdom of God, so the ascent is to get a glimpse of divinity, a glimpse of heaven and that sort of stuff, but then the descent is in order to transform the world around us in order to create a more ethical world, to create a more just society, to create more ethical engagements with nature and that sort of thing, right?

Brad

So yes, the experience of the divine should lead to something happening here and now.

Student

So that descent is the descent back into the world, right?

Brad

Or I also teach philosophy.

Brad

That's really more of a Monday, Wednesday kind of thing.

Brad

But this kid named Socrates, gave a very similar analogy, and that philosophy is this sort of ascent, following in the path of Zeus to get a glimpse of the ta agathon, or the good. ⚠

Brad

Once you get a glimpse of the good, then, as he tells his friend Glaucon, then you have to go down into the cave.

Brad

You have to go down into the cave in order to liberate the other people that are down there.

Student

So the descent matters, but the descent is sort of after that experience.

Brad

Great, really excellent question. Other questions? Thoughts? Cool.

Brad

So, like I said, lots of different ways of thinking of theology of religion, and certainly don't want to dissuade you from sort of pursuing those questions. Questions, by all means ask them. ⚠

Brad

But let's do keep a distinction between that discipline, theology of religion, versus comparative theology.

Brad

And this is going to be more the dominant mode of approach for this semester, right?

Brad

But we can do both.

Brad

They're not mutually exclusive.

Student

Um, cool.

Brad

Um, next I want to, uh, 20 minutes.

Brad

I'm going to teach you another very important vocabulary term, super important vocabulary term, and it's this: darshana. So darshana Darsana comes from the root word— ⚠

Brad

tracing my earlier—

Brad

comes from this root word drish, which means to see. And so darsana, we could translate in various ways, including, you know, seeing would be pretty literal, or vision, or sight. ⚠

Brad

None of those are wrong, all of those are right.

Student

But there's another aspect to it, right?

Brad

If I were to—

Brad

I mean, I try to teach things, and sometimes the things I teach are a little bit confusing, right? And people don't really understand, like, what the fuck are you talking about, Brad? I'm just so lost.

Student

Why do you use I use such profanity in class, in theology class.

Brad

So people can get confused about things, right?

Brad

But then, you know, if somebody's explaining some really difficult concept to you and you're kind of like, I don't really understand, and then they explain it a different way and you're like, I still don't really understand, then they explain it to you again and then it clicks, right?

Student

When it clicks, what do you see? What do you say? Oh, I see. Right?

Brad

So that sort of seeing, that the seeing that's not just seeing with your eyeballs, but more of an intellectual seeing, right?

Brad

So in class the other day, he talked about, you know, what happens when you see the thing on sich.

Student

I don't know why I wrote it in German, but the thing itself.

Brad

There's a kind of seeing that you do with your eyes. That's a very physical seeing. But then there's also more of an intellectual seeing, right? Where you're seeing not with this eye, but with your eye, right? Your ego, yourself, this eye. ⚠

Brad

And that is seeing some sort of phenomenon, right?

Brad

As we said the other day. And so this is a different kind of seeing. In fact, in advaita, the Buddha—

Brad

Buddha means the enlightened one, right?

Brad

And it's the idea is that this light has come on, right, inside your head where you're able to see more clearly, see without filters, see without preconceived notions, and that sort of stuff, sort of seeing oneness and that sort But it's an intellectual seeing, a different kind of seeing, right? So darshana definitely, definitely means those things. ⚠

Brad

It's the same as it does in English, right?

Brad

So in English we mean seeing with our eyes, but we also mean this sort of intellectual philosophical seeing. And one of the key vocabulary terms that we'll learn next week on this sheet I've got quite a lot on the 'shad-darshana'. 'Shad' means 6, so the 6 darshanas. And those 6 darshanas, most people know about yoga. Yoga is one of the 6. So we'll go over those 6 next week. The 'shad-darshana' is usually translated as the 6 schools of theology. ⚠

Brad

We talk about, you know, in philosophy class and in Western philosophy in particular, we talk about different schools of thought, right?

Brad

The Stoic school of thought, or the existential school of thought, or this school or that school of thought, right?

Student

So the shaiva darshana is usually translated as the six schools of thought, but literally it means the six seeings, right?

Brad

The six ways of seeing. So we could say, sort of say, right, like each one of the 6 has a somewhat different perspective.

Brad

So we can understand the 6 perspectives sort of like they're all pointing to the same thing, but they're coming at it from different ways. They're using similar methods, but not the same methods.

Brad

So we'll come back to that.

Brad

So this, my point here. Is to really familiarize you with this very important word, darśana. By the way, note about diacritics. So in Sanskrit, there are 3 different S's. There's sort of S as in snake, right? And then there's S as in dish. And then there's another S as in dish. So the difference between this and this is really— ⚠

Brad

it kind of escapes me actually. It's kind of two different shh, so they're technically pronounced a little bit differently, but if you see an S with a dot, then think SH basically, right? ⚠

Brad

So darshana, Yeah, there's this another mentor of mine, or my gurus, Diana Eck. ⚠

Brad

I'll probably talk more about her at some point.

Brad

And she wrote a book, one of my favorite books, called Darshana.

Brad

I don't remember if it's Darshana or Darshan, but either way, it's that word.

Brad

And in that, she—

Brad

that's a really great book—

Brad

but she talks about the practice, Hindu practice.

Brad

So in my tradition, Southern Baptist tradition, in most Christian, a lot of Christian traditions, you know, on Sunday you say, I'm going to church. Right, so I'm going to church. Hey, you want to go to church?

Brad

You know, coming from church or whatever. So you're going to or coming from church. Church is where you go on Sunday or whatever.

Brad

In some other traditions, like in Judaism, it's more like I'm going to synagogue, right?

Brad

Or I'm going to temple. I'm coming from temple, right? So going to or from temple, that sort of thing.

Brad

And in Hindu practice, more common is to say I'm going for darshana, right? So darshana is, you know, it's not worship, right? It's not service. It's not something like—

Student

it's foreseeing, right? The whole point of it is seeing.

Brad

And as I emphasized in the chapter that you read for today, right, Anselm says theology is a quest for seeing. One longs to see God climb the mountain to to sort of see God as Moses did, right? But even Moses, when he gets to the top, he doesn't see God. God says, here, let me— ⚠

Brad

I want you to turn your back, right? And I'm going to put you in the cleft of the rock and pass you by.

Student

So, you know, just sees the back of God at most.

Brad

But the points of theology, as Anselm says, is we strive, we do all this work to try and see God. We put forth lots of effort to try and see God, but ultimately we don't see God.

Brad

But instead, if we're doing all those things diligently, if we're doing things well, if things go according to plan, then you will find yourself seen.

Student

You'll feel seen, right?

Brad

Like, as I said in the chapter about my kids, like, hey, Daddy, did you see that goal? Or my son's playing Skyrim now, and he's like, Hey, watch me beat this bad, this big bad, or whatever. ⚠

Brad

So, you know, we want to feel seen, we want to be seen. So darshana brings both of those meanings, right?

Brad

One goes for darshana in order to see, but also to be seen.

Brad

When I was living in India, On my daily commute, I rode a motorcycle, and on my daily commute, there was a temple that I would pass every day, and I just always paid a good deal of attention to that and the way that people responded near the temple.

Brad

And the temple was really, really close to the road.

Brad

I mean, really close to the road.

Brad

And it was at a stoplight.

Brad

And I would always kind of go over there and watch folks, 'cause I like studying religion, right?

Brad

And without exception, pretty much every time, you know, I would see somebody at the stoplight.

Brad

They would, you know, get off of their scooter or get off of their motorcycle or get off of their bicycle or whatever and take their shoes off because, You take your shoes off when you're going into a holy place, a sacred space, right?

Student

They're just in the road, right?

Brad

They're literally at a stoplight in the middle of the road.

Student

So it's not a sacred space per se, but it becomes sacred when you take your shoes off, right?

Brad

So all you need to make it sacred is remove your shoes. So it becomes a sacred experience by removing your shoes, and the whole goal is to see the murti within but also to be seen by it, right?

Student

So one of the things about this temple, like I said, it was very close to the road. It also had a very big door, wide door, and a very large morti that you could see from the road, right?

Brad

So people would go to this, uh, I mean, they're just really kind of going on their way, but like, hey, while we're stopped at the stoplight, you know, I'm over there just like vibing to Eminem.

Brad

He just dropped Curtain Call at that time, so I was like, so super into it, and like white boy driving around Bangalore, you know, rapping to Slim Shady. ⚠

Brad

But these other folks, you know, would stop at this temple and, you know, take their shoes off and then just have darshana, right?

Student

It doesn't even take long, but the point is to see and to be seen. What are you seeing?

Brad

You're seeing the murti, and I was lamenting on the drive in this morning, I really should have brought a murti. I will bring a murti to class next week, hopefully. But a murti is basically just a three-dimensional statue of, you know, representing the divine. ⚠

Brad

So this three-dimensional Yeah, three-dimensional statue of God.

Brad

So not like the Sistine Chapel has an image of God on the ceiling, but that's two-dimensional, right? So a morti would be something like— is there really no crucifix in here?

Brad

Are you kidding me?

Brad

That's why I think there's a screw right there. Somebody stole the crucifix.

Student

Yeah, I'm just a little confused because we were saying that like darsana is like not necessarily physical vision, but like kind of intellect, like insight. ⚠

Student

Sure.

Student

But now it's like we're also physically seeing a three-dimensional statue.

Brad

So it's layers, right?

Brad

It is all of the above.

Brad

So lots and lots of different ways to understand the connection between those. One might be there's this on the Christian side of things, St. John of Damascus, who explained it this way, right? That the Christians use idols in worship because it helps them to see, it helps them to be in the moment. ⚠

Student

It's like a focal point, right?

Brad

Helps to train the mind, who are like, we said, focusing on breath or something like that, right? So it's a way to focus one's attention, to be more meditative and prayerful. ⚠

Student

But it's like a tool, right?

Brad

But there's another dimension to it here that doesn't, I think, have much of a corollary in the Christian tradition, which is the goal isn't just to see with their eyes, but, you know, that can lead towards that other kind of seeing, right?

Brad

It's going to be a path towards that, but not so much the being seen side of things.

Brad

So as, as Professor Eck points out, When you have a morti or a statue, you know, it's just something made by— ⚠

Brad

I mean, there are exceptions, plenty of exceptions, but for the most part, we're thinking of something that's crafted by human hands, right?

Brad

So a human has carved this statue out of wood, or a human has carved this, you know, shaped this into ceramic or something like that.

Brad

Like that, right? Or a human has created a bronze statue of shiva or something like that, right?

Brad

So it's human-made, so it's created by a human, but it doesn't—

Brad

it's not a murti at that point.

Student

It only becomes a murti when that human-made statue has gone through a particular ritual, right?

Brad

And that ritual is a ritual of opening its eyes, you know, creating the eyes and opening the eyes.

Brad

That's what it's referred to as.

Student

And during that ritual, it's a ritual of invocation where you call to God and ask God, request God to come and take a seat.

Brad

The word is pitha in Sanskrit, which means seat.

Brad

And so the idea is that God is that's, you know, maybe up in the sky or maybe everywhere, right? But everywhere is hard to interact with, right? ⚠

Brad

And heaven is hard to interact with.

Student

Easier is if God, out of God's grace, takes a seat in this thing, right?

Brad

So it's like a throne.

Brad

You could think of, I mean, like a seat, right?

Brad

So then I'm creating a place for God to take a seat. And then through this prayerful invocation and ritual, then God, out of God's grace, takes a seat. God can sit multiple places at the same time, right?

Student

So it's not just that God is here or there or there or there, but, you know, God can take a seat in multiple murtis. But it's an act of grace, right?

Brad

So God is choosing as an act of grace to take a seat in this murti which means that if you go to that murti to see the murti, you can be seen by God, right?

Student

So it's that experience, like what Anselm talks about, about striving to be seen by God.

Brad

This is very literally what's going on in the practice of darshana, where one goes to see the murti, but also, maybe even more importantly, to be seen by it, right?

Brad

Which can be as simple as, like I said, stopping at a red light and taking off.

Brad

But the question that you're asking between these and the more intellectual philosophical—

Brad

keep asking that question because I think there's lots of connections and lots of ways to answer the question.

Brad

Pretty much everything in this course, there's going to be multiple ways to answer the question.

Brad

They're not unrelated, but they are distinct.

Brad

Questions? Good.

Student

4 minutes left.

Brad

Okay. Yeah, 2 other things I want to do.

Brad

I don't think I have time for both of them.

Brad

Talk briefly about this kid shiva.

Brad

So shiva is one of the one of the primary deities within Hindu religious practice today. And just a word about shiva. So shiva, his favorite pastime is meditating.

Brad

So he's kind of a really, really big meditator. In fact, his wife Parvati, they fell in love because he was he was on his way one day to meditate, and he passed this woman sitting there meditating.

Brad

And he went off and he meditated, and then at the end of a very, very long day of meditating, he went back home and he passed her, and she was still there meditating. He was like, oh snap, she meditated longer than me, right?

Brad

And he was like immediately in love with her. And then they, yeah, you know, they became bonded and meditate together and never ever ever have sex, because that would literally mean the end of the universe.

Brad

Anyway, Shiva, when he's sitting there meditating, he's sitting there with his eyes closed, right?

Brad

Meditation, sitting in meditation with his eyes closed. And when his eyes are closed, the universe literally does not exist, right?

Brad

And then at some point, Shiva, while still meditating, just opens his eyes, right?

Brad

And when shiva opens his eyes, the entire universe comes into existence, and the entire universe sustains its existence, is sustained so long as shiva's eyes are open, right? ⚠

Brad

So to be is to be seen by God, right?

Brad

So existence and being seen by God are synonymous, right? So you exist because God has seen you into being, right?

Student

So there's a a little bit of comfort there, right, and always being seen.

Brad

And then eventually shiva is going to close his eyes, and when shiva closes his eyes, then the universe won't exist anymore until such a time that shiva decides to open his eyes again, right?

Brad

So again, direct relationship between seeing and being seen and existence and creation. Um, good. I don't have time for what I wanted to do, which is to review these, the 4 on this sheet, the 4 divisions of the veda, Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samhita, and Atharvaveda, and then the 4 kinds of texts within each division, the samhita, brahmana, aranyaka, and upanishads. ⚠

Brad

I guess I'll have to write some something out and cover that on Tuesday.

Brad

Yeah, that's fine.

Brad

Office hours now. I realize I had extra office hours on Tuesday. My office hours will usually be on Thursdays. So office hours now and office hours, online office hours tomorrow. And word. ⚠

Student

Have a good weekend.

Brad

See you Tuesday.