FIRE
Fellowship In Religious Experience
Keywords:
Fire, Religious, FellowshipAbstract
Fellowship in Religious Experience (FIRE) is a programme organised by the Centre for the Study of World Religions, Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram, Bangalore, promoting understanding among religions and inter-religious harmony. It is a creative and fruitful response to religious pluralism in India, and serve as a model for cosmopolitan and metropolitan cities where peoples of different religions and cultures are learning to live together in harmony. FIRE fosters interest and understanding in the religious dimensions of societies and peoples in India, enabling the participants to understand and interpret the diverse religious beliefs and practices. Through a phenomenological and participative approach to the study of religion, the programme shows the uniqueness of each religion with similarities and differences with other traditions. The participants visit sacred places of various religious traditions and share in the spiritual and social life of believers, monks, and nuns. Besides listening to discourses and meditations given by Gurus and Mathas, the participants observe rituals and participate in festivals of these religious and cultural centres.
References
Nostra aetate, Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, 2. http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/ documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html. Retrieved 3 March, 2010. See the full text in pages 85-89.
Theology was considered traditionally as fides querens intellectum – faith seeking understanding. The visionary bishop Jonas Thaliath suggested a new attitude with his definition of theology as faith seeking harmony of life. His vision is given in “Harmoniam Vitae: Dharmaram Vision of Theological Formation,” 91-95.
Aykara, “Foreword” in John Britto Chethimattam, Towards a Theology of Intercommunion, Rome and Bangalore: CIIS and Dharmaram Publications, 2001, 9.
Address to Non-Christians in Bombay, December 4, 1964; Il viaggio di Paolo VI in India, 77.
Toward the Meeting of Religions: Suggestions For Dialogue With Members of Non-Christian Religions, Vatican Secretariat For Non-Christians, September 21, 1967, 5.3. 7
Wittgenstein’s Nachlass, The Bergen Electronic Version, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, MS 183, 238-9: 17, 19.4.37.
Wittgenstein, On Certainty, G. E M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, (eds.), Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969, 144. Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, G. H. von Wright (ed.), Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980, 53.
