Building on his long-standing work in metaphysics and Asian philosophy, Robert Cummings Neville presents a series of essays that cumulatively articulate a contemporary, progressive Confucian position as a global philosophy. Through analysis of the metaphysical and moral traditions of Confucianism, Neville brings these traditions into the twenty-first century. According to Confucianism, rituals define most of our relations with other individuals, social institutions, and nature, and while rituals make possible the positive institutions of high human civilization, they may also lead to harmful...

Religion, writes Robert Cummings Neville, articulates existential predicaments and provides venues for ecstatic fulfillment. Like its companion volumes treating ultimacy and religion, Existence advances a systematic philosophical theology to address first-order questions found in the array of Axial Age religions. Issues arising in the major religious traditions are explored through a complex array of philosophical approaches. This second volume shows religion to be the engagement of ultimate realities common to all human beings. Neville finds five problematics relative to ultimate...

Religion, writes Robert Cummings Neville, articulates existential predicaments and provides venues for ecstatic fulfillment. Like its companion volumes treating ultimacy and religion, Existence advances a systematic philosophical theology to address first-order questions found in the array of Axial Age religions. Issues arising in the major religious traditions are explored through a complex array of philosophical approaches. This second volume shows religion to be the engagement of ultimate realities common to all human beings. Neville finds five problematics relative to ultimate...

Once liberal Christianity was preached in ways that defined it in the public eye. Now Christianity is identified almost exclusively with its conservative expressions. Seasons of the Christian Life presents a series of sermons articulating a liberal Christianity over against its conservative neighbors. They were preached at the University Church (Marsh Chapel) at Boston University (save for one preached in Memorial Church at Harvard) during the 2004-2005 academic year when President George W. Bush was reelected and the country was at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at war with terrorists...

The dimension of eternity has been lost from much contemporary religious consciousness. Liberals tend to focus on action within time, as do conservatives, who see history as a battleground for a war of good against evil. Spiritual life, however, also requires nurturing a sense of eternity within time. These sermons from Marsh Chapel at Boston University follow the lectionary in highlighting the places of temporal life within eternity, and the places eternity is found in temporal life. The liturgical year is employed as the venue for articulating a comprehensive theology on the themes of the...