Finding Home

Mile Markers Among the World’s Religions

Religion has exited the sidelines for center stage. Decades ago, Buddhist monks publicly immolated themselves. “Who are these people? How could they do that?” Now we ask the same of jihadists who incinerate not themselves, but others. Stereotypical news images and soundbites do not adequately answer. It is time to deeply listen to and understand our neighbors.

Finding Home introduces these neighbors. It opens their scriptures, allowing those next door to air issues they consider critical. Readers hear what they say and how they say it. Advocates of any cause would treasure such an opportunity. They seek the unconvinced who will momentarily cordon off their own creeds and carefully consider new concepts. Only then can the uninitiated understand the advocates’ beliefs the way they believe them—not the way non-partisans opine they believe them. Afterward, hearers can decide what, if anything, they find true or meaningful. Maybe nothing. But at least they have given the other’s ideas a fair shake. Buddhists would like non-Buddhists to do that for them. Muslims, non-Muslims. Christians and Daoists and Sikhs would like that. If we wish others to hear us, we must also hear them. If our own faith is true, it risks nothing from such listening. At the very least, we will understand each other better. In the center of this give-and-take in Finding Home, Christianity articulates its crucial contribution.

This book is for all—materialist, agnostic, believer; Daoist, Christian, Native American; the questioning, the committed, the curious.

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Author Bio

Russ Bowers enjoyed science as a boy, but cancelled chasing a career in chemistry to think theology instead. After marrying Glenna, he pastored two US churches, completed a PhD (Dallas Theological Seminary), oversaw Christian leadership development in Cambodia, and taught theology in Singapore and world religions in the US. He has danced with hilltribesmen and dived in the Andaman Sea. While in Cambodia, Glenna volunteered her nursing skills to organizations serving impoverished children. His book Someone or Nothing? compares the thought of Kyoto School dean Nishitani Keiji with that of Christianity. He has presented papers on interreligious dialogue and Buddhist-Christian topics for fora in Thailand, Cambodia, and the US. Honeycomb, the Khmer-English journal Russ founded, was lauded as opening “a new era for theological work in Cambodia.” Though living in Texas, Russ and Glenna sometimes feel homesick for Asia.

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