Spiritual Leaders Who Changed the World

Ira Rifkin

Description

Who Were the Most Innovative Spiritual Leaders of the Past Century?

Fascinating profiles of the most important spiritual leaders of the past one hundred years. An invaluable reference of twentieth-century religion and an inspiring resource for spiritual challenge today.

Black Elk, H. H. the Dalai Lama, Mary Baker Eddy, Abraham Joshua Heschel, J. Krishnamurti, C. S. Lewis, Thomas Merton, Elijah Muhammad, Meher Baba, Joseph Campbell, Simone Weil, Pope John XXIII, Shunryu Suzuki, Aimee Semple McPherson, Billy Graham, Dorothy Day, Thich Nhat Hanh, Martin Luther King, Jr. … these are just some of the spiritual leaders who have changed our world.

The result of a nationwide survey of experts in leading universities and seminaries, as well as leading representatives of dozens of religious traditions and spiritual persuasions, this authoritative list of seventy-five includes martyrs and mystics, intellectuals and charismatics from East and West. Their lives and wisdom are now easily accessible in this inspiring volume.

A celebration of the human spirit, ideal for both seekers and believers, the curious and the passionate, thinkers and doers, this book is an authoritative guide to the most creative spiritual ideas and actions of the past century—a challenge for us today.

Sujets

• Religion
• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 20 décembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781594734984
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

C ONTENTS

Foreword by Dr. Robert Coles
A Note from the Editors
Acknowledgments
Introduction by Ira Rifkin
1. THEY SHOOK THINGS UP
Ch gyam Trungpa
Mary Daly
Mary Baker Eddy
Robert Funk
G. I. Gurdjieff
Aimee Semple McPherson
Elijah Muhammad
Bhaktivedanta Prabuphada
Bertrand Russell
Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
William J. Seymour
Shirdi Sai Baba
Starhawk
Desmond Tutu
2. THEY BORE WITNESS WITH THEIR LIVES
Abdu l Bah
Daniel Berrigan
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Mahatma Gandhi
Gustavo Guti rrez
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Oscar Romero
Malcolm X
3. THEIR PRESENCE CHANGED THE WORLD
Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso)
Billy Graham
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Pope John XXIII
Pope John Paul II
Ram Dass
Rabindranath Tagore
Vivekananda
4. THEY MADE INTELLECT A SPIRITUAL FORCE
Carl Gustav Jung
Hans K ng
Abraham Maslow
Reinhold Niebuhr
Alexander Schmemann
Joseph Soloveitchik
Paul Tillich
Evelyn Underhill
Ken Wilber
5. THEY CHANGED THE WORLD BY WRITING
Thomas Berry
Martin Buber
Joseph Campbell
Mircea Eliade
Abraham Isaac Kook
C. S. Lewis
Huston Smith
D. T. Suzuki
Simone Weil
6. THEY SHOWED US LOVE IN ACTION
Dorothy Day
Catherine de Hueck Doherty
Maha Ghosananda
Mawlana Muhammad Ilyas
Mother Teresa
Walter Rauschenbusch
Albert Schweitzer
Robert Holbrook Smith
Thich Nhat Hanh
7. THEY BROUGHT THE TRADITIONS TOGETHER
Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
Black Elk
Deepak Chopra
Bede Griffiths
Hazrat Inayat Khan
J. Krishnamurti
Meher Baba
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Paramahansa Yogananda
Andrew Weil
8. THEY SPOKE FROM THE POWER OF SILENCE
Ajahn Chah
Thomas Keating
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Thomas Merton
Pema Ch dr n
Ramana Maharshi
Seung Sahn
Shunryu Suzuki
About the Photographs
About the Contributors
Index

About the Editor
Copyright
Also Available
About SkyLight Paths
F OREWORD

by Dr. Robert Coles
A s I read the pages that follow I couldn t help but remember the remarks that theologian Paul Tillich offered those of us who were lucky then, in 1958, to be members of his seminar-a class meant to consider what this book has summoned for its readers. Spiritual energy is sometimes reduced rather than enhanced by formal religious observance, our Harvard professor told us, and there we were yet again, silently considering the import of spoken words, their ironic thrust not easily understood by most of us.
As if aware of our response and anxious to make himself as clear as possible, our professor repeated himself. He then went into an extended soliloquy of sorts, during which he reminded us that the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah were insistently critical of the status quo, even as Jesus of Nazareth was restlessly original-minded, ready to take on various principalities and powers directly or by implication. By the time Tillich finished, we were all still eager to return to the safety of talk about books and about our interpretations of a particular reading assignment. But Tillich had one more comment, which would last and last in our thinking, and which came to my mind as I went through this book: The Bible s prophets were not theologians-they were storytellers, determined to give us all much pause. He went on to contrast abstract analysis with the concrete narrative presentations of various storytellers, in whose direction he urged us to travel. I think of him today when I encounter them: Flannery O Connor, for instance, who urged on us, Where feeling for a story is absent, theory will not supply it. At another point she wryly observed, The task of the novelist is to deepen mystery, and mystery is a great embarrassment to the modern mind.
In a sense, this book offers dozens of extraordinary people who dared in their various ways to carry forth the kind of searching, unconventional spiritual explorations of mind, heart, and soul that Tillich favored, and O Connor as well. Those of us who meet the seventy-five individuals in these pages will be given a lucky chance to think of their respective messages, keep them very close to ourselves as we try to figure out life s meaning and purpose-the spiritual direction we aim to pursue and our reasons. Even as Tillich wanted us to keep in mind his thoughts (not to mention those of the great prophets of Israel he called upon), even as Flannery O Connor wanted to unnerve us a bit in her fiction and jolt us every now and then in her essays, these seventy-five spiritual innovators confront us with their words and deeds, their brave willingness to say and do what they believed to be both necessary and spiritually befitting. Here are individuals who affirmed in their daily lives what truly matters; thereby, they touch us, inspire us, stir us to take stock of this earthly existence given us. Collectively, a large gift, indeed, from them to so many, the readers of this book included.
A N OTE FROM THE E DITORS

A n adventure-that’s what developing this book has been for us.
As we often do,members of our editorial team in Vermont were musing one day about the world of religion when the conversation turned to the incredible changes in religious thought and practice that occured in the twentieth century. We discussed the unprecedented exposure of East to West that has happened in the past century, the steps taken toward equalizing roles available to women and minorities, the armed conflicts that have been inspired by religious hatred and misunderstanding, the growth of pluralism—not just tolerance—as a concept, and the refreshing cross-pollination that has happened across spiritual and religious traditions. Nor did we overlook the devastating impact of September 11, 2001, on interfaith relations, particularlybetween Muslims and Christians.
Our conversation eventually turned to people. People.Who, we asked each other, were the most extraordinary spiritual and religiousleaders of the past century?
We listed our favorites. One of us mentioned Maha Ghosananda, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Daniel Berrigan. Another noted the emergence during the twentieth century of the spiritual leader as celebrity(the Dalai Lama,Mother Teresa and Billy Graham came to mind).
We left the room that afternoon with a mission.We would canvass the world’s spiritual and religious leaders, as well as experts in leading universities and seminaries, asking: Draw up your list of the ten most important and innovative spiritual/religious leaders of the twentieth century. Tell us those people who, in your opinion, brought themost change, excitement, innovation, creativity, and vitality to the religious and spiritual lives of people throughout the world.
We asked representatives of nearly every religious tradition and spiritual persuasion. We tallied their results, added a few of our own opinions and our analysis, and drew up the final list of seventy-five.
You will no doubt find someone dear to you and your spiritual life missing.We apologize for that. If we had room, we no doubt would have included, for instance, Jean Vanier, John A. T. Robinson, Krister Stendahl, Bernie Glassman, John Shelby Spong, Joan Halifax, M. Basil Pennington, Louise Hay, Karl Rahner, William Sloane Coffin, Alan Watts, Gershom Scholem, and many many others.
We commissioned religion journalists, authors, book editors, and other experts to write each of the seventy-five profiles of these extraordinary people. Ira Rifkin, award-winning religion journalist, brought them all together into a book.
Chögyam Trungpa, Pope John XXIII,Aimee Semple McPherson, and D. T. Suzuki ranked numbers 2–5 in our survey. Our greatest surprise in the process? The top vote-getter was none other than Dr. Bob, the cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous. AA may just be the most important spiritual organization founded in the past century.
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS

M y sincerest thanks to the talented writers who crafted the profiles contained in this book. Their names are listed elsewhere, but their work is this book s core. Thank you as well to SkyLight Paths, particularly Stuart, Jon, Emily, and Maura.
Most of all, I wish to thank my personal guides: my wife, Ruth, and sons, Brady and Jesse.
-I. R.
I NTRODUCTION

by Ira Rifkin
O n a blustery Sunday evening in November 1997, the Orthodox Christian Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I came to Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and the faithful, more than a thousand of them, packed Christ the Saviour Cathedral for this once-in-a-lifetime religious experience. Among them was a local family with a severely disabled son. The youth, his body contorted by cerebral palsy, appeared to be a teenager but at twenty was really more a young man. He sat in a wheelchair, his body jerking uncontrollably. Saliva dripped down his jaw, and family members took turns wiping it away. As did everybody, the family stayed in place for hours in advance of the late-arriving patriarch, who was wrapping up a long tour across the United States.
A history of devastating floods has brought Johnstown a measure of notoriety. But Orthodox Christians are familiar with Johnstown for a more gratifying reason; it has one of the most devout and varied Orthodox communities of any small American city. In the mid-twentieth century, immigrants from Eastern Europe and the Balkans flocked to the town, founded more than a century earlier by Joseph Johns, to work in the area s then-thriving steel mills and coal mines. They brought with them the multiple ethnic strains of Orthodoxy that had nurtured their ancestors for centuries.
Even today, Johnstown remains tied to its ethnic religious roots and is still home to seven Orthodox churches, serving some fifteen hundred congregants out of the town s total population of about twenty thousand. There is one Greek, two Serbian, one Ukrainian, one Russian, one Antiochian, and one Carpatho-Russian congregation. Christ the Saviour Cathedral-with its tan-and-brown brick exterior and three cupolas, the onion domes that give Or