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UID:pretalx-wha-annual-meeting-korea-2026-3VLQKE@pretalx.com
DTSTART;TZID=KST:20260625T103500
DTEND;TZID=KST:20260625T105500
DESCRIPTION:My paper concerns the view of Buddhism as an Asian version of C
 hristianity\, which prevailed among the western expatriate community in Ea
 st Asia from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. The concept
 ual framework of the identity between Christianity and Buddhism was laid d
 own by Timothy Richard (1845-1919)\, a Welsh Baptist missionary to China. 
 Richard’s mastery of the local language enabled him to read Chinese Budd
 hist texts and even translate a major Mahayana sutra\, Dacheng qixin lun (
 Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana)\, into English. His view of Buddhism w
 as enthusiastically shared by Elizabeth Anna Gordon (1851-1925)\, a Britis
 h religious scholar who devoted her expatriate life in Japan to researchin
 g commonalities between Shingon Buddhism and Early Christianity. While Ric
 hard provided evangelists in the Asian mission field with an ideological b
 asis for their efforts to convert local people from the Buddhist faith\, G
 ordon aimed at establishing one universal spiritual discourse that would g
 lobally unify all major religions\, by tracing the historical and geograph
 ical flow of interreligious and intercultural ideas and symbols on a globa
 l scale.\nIn this article\, I will first examine the representative books 
 by Richard and Gordon to map out how they exchanged their thoughts and how
  their work influenced missionaries in Korea. This will be followed by a d
 iscussion of the philosophical core of the Christian-Buddhist parallel tha
 t they theorized. The last part of the article will focus on the impact of
  their globality on the emergence of comparative religious studies as a ne
 w discipline in East Asia.
DTSTAMP:20260412T140529Z
LOCATION:Room 201 (Seats 42)
SUMMARY:Religious Globality Before Globalization: Elizabeth Anna Gordon\, T
 imothy Richard\, and Korea - Hyangsoon Yi
URL:https://pretalx.com/wha-annual-meeting-korea-2026/talk/3VLQKE/
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