Christian and Sikh

Christian and Sikh is a story about a Christian believer (and leader) becoming a worshipping Sikh. As John Barnett states early on, this is a personal journey from one faith tradition to another, but also a story of changes in society regarding the issue of multiple religious participation (MRP). Barnett begins by inviting people to consider afresh the relationship between Christian and other faiths. This publication is inspired by Barnett’s doctoral thesis in practical theology in which he undertook autoenthnographic research, visiting and worshipping at a Gurdwara some thirteen miles from his West Midlands home. Throughout this period, he describes his Sundays as beginning with leading Christian liturgy and ending lying prostrate before the Guru Granth Sahib Ji (the Sikh scriptures). The book is rooted in practice and therefore clearly a work of practical theology following the classic motif of practice – reflection – practice, and his commitment to reflection is on-going even after the research project has ceased and the publication is in print. There is a clear commitment to the field of practical theology in this sense, believing that the journey of critical self-reflection is never ending. The method of autoethnography requires the researcher constantly to critique oneself in the light of one’s experience. Barnett embodies this critical space successfully but also reflects more widely on the social and cultural implications of growing religious diversity in the UK context. There is only a skeleton body of literature in the field of practical theology regarding interreligious concerns and so it is heartening to read of a practitioner-researcher’s transformative journey from one faith tradition to another, inspired by the geographical context in which he is based. This journey of deep substance reveals not only an openness to neighbours of faith traditions other than Christianity but a desire to take such exploration to a next level, as the author immerses himself in the community and worshipping life of the religious other. A disappointing element of this publication is the lack of theological reflection regarding Barnett’s understanding of God/the Transcendent/Divine or the One God (to use the Sikh description) in light of his extensive experience of Sikhism. As a doctoral student currently researching the theological impact of interreligious encounter from the perspective of first-hand experience, I had hoped for some illumination on what Barnett’s theology of Sikhism is from his Christian position. Barnett does touch on the metaphysical in his elucidation of a religious experience that stimulated him to explore his personal spirituality at a much greater depth (p. 5), and he does offer a christological reflection on this experience claiming that the light of Christ shines on other religious sages such as Muhammed (PBUH) and the Buddha. But he does not state whether the One God equally embraces all faith traditions. Barnett, like many studying religion in the present time, particularly in the scant field of interreligious concerns in practical theology, is unwilling to use the typology terms of theology of religions – exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism (Race, 1983) – to confirm their theological view of the religious other. As a practitioner-researcher in the field of practical theology, working in contexts of religious diversity, I have felt a continuous desire to reflect theologically on what seems to me to be the ever-expanding nature of God/the Transcendent as a result of interreligious encounter. The theologian Paul Tillich (who is much studied in practi- Reviews 82 | Vol 19 No 1 Jun 2021 cal theology with reference to the model of correlation theology) ventured into Christian-Buddhist dialogue precisely in order to wrestle with theological questions regarding the religious other from the Christian perspective. It seems that rather than avoiding the big questions of theology – such as what we understand as...