The passing away of Ewert Cousins is an occasion for sadness but even more for celebration. Sadness, because we will no more in the flesh encounter his kindness and empathy, benefit from his great wisdom, or be nourished by his serene and beautiful presence. Celebration, because of a rich and noble life that impacted many people, groups, and institutions. He was one of the titans of interfaith dialogue in our time, starting with his encounters with the Sioux Indians in the 1960s, passing through his teaching and writing career at Fordham University and his work with many interfaith groups, including the Parliament of the World’s Religions, to finally, his retirement years when he took up the Deanship of the Graduate Theological Foundation and was the Teilhard de Chardin Professor of Theology and Spirituality at the GTF.
Ewert was a man of many parts, teacher, scholar, organizer, activist, and family man. I want to say a few things about his scholarship, his interfaith activities and his personal impact.
The scholarly world is greatly indebted to Ewert. Not only did he train a number of students at Fordham, who went on to brilliant careers of their own, but he initiated two remarkable publishing projects. He was the General Editor of the 25-volume series, World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest (Crossroads), and Chief Editorial Consultant for the 60-volume series,
The Classics of Western Spirituality (Paulist Press). Both these series are classics of their kind. Ewert’s essays and introductions, and his own editions of Bonaventure and Bernard of Clairvaux, are models of erudition and insight. Anyone who has edited even a single volume of this scope will know about the labor and the stamina involved; so his monumental work in this area beggars imagination.
In addition, Ewert produced books of his own from Hope and the Future of Man, where he introduced and explained Teihard’s often speculative and mystical insights; Bonaventure and the Coincidence of Opposites, where he laid out the thought of the great Franciscan master; and Christ of the 21st Century, which I regard as one of the prophetic books of our era. It is prophetic because from the perspective of the evolution of consciousness, Ewert maps out the agenda of what he, taking his lead from Karl Jaspers, calls “the Second Axial Age.” This age is one where the religions of the world, having for long existed autonomously, will encounter one another at a deep level. That encounter will involve immersing oneself in the life-world of the other, trying to enter empathetically into the consciousness of the other, and then returning enriched to one’s own world. Ewert could write so persuasively about this rhythm of “passing over and returning,” because he had done it himself so often, first in his encounters with the Sioux and then in his meetings with Hindus, Muslims and Jews. The enrichment to his own Christian tradition to which he remained faithful and devoted was profound. Ewert explored the ways in which Christianity could be articulated not just through the Hebraic and Greco-Roman categories of a Westernized Christianity but through Asian and Islamic ideas as well, thus pointing the way toward a global Christianity that would deserve the title of “catholic” or universal.
These hard-won theoretical insights were achieved in Ewert’s case not just in academic study, but also in personal meetings with representative of other faiths. He was a consultant both to the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the Vatican Secretariat for Non-Christians. I know in particular what pleasure he took in his frequent trips to India and in his collaboration with Hindu colleagues. The pleasure and affection were mutual because Ewert was often invited to give prestigious lectures and seminars in Indian settings, which drew large and enthusiastic audiences. Given this rich academic and personal background, Ewert was called upon regularly to help with the planning and design of the three Parliaments of World’s Religions held in modern times, at Chicago (1993), Capetown (1999) and Barcelona (2004). At the last phone conversation we had earlier this year he was most interested in hearing about the preparations for the Melbourne Parliament in December.
I would like to end on a personal note. I got to meet Ewert through our mutual friend, Raimon Panikkar first in 1977, when I was a graduate student in philosophy of religion at Boston University.
His graciousness, generosity, and “southern” courtesy made a deep impression on me. I moved to the west coast shortly after and sadly did not stay much in touch, but we reconnected in 1993, when I was a Fellow at the Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions. It was around that time that I decided to publish a Festschrift for Panikkar, and Ewert was enormously helpful in the planning of that volume. Not only did he write a superb essay on Panikkar’s Trinitarian thought, but he came up with suggestions for other contributors, many of whom had been his students. It is no exaggeration to say that more than any other person it was Ewert who helped to pave the way for the reception of Panikkar’s thought in North America. Panikkar, as those who have read him know, is not an easy thinker to understand. It was Ewert who had the imagination to see that Panikkar was, and is, a vital thinker for our interreligious and global future, and his lucid and scholarly essays helped to put Panikkar in contexts where he was more easily comprehended. In that last phone conversation mentioned earlier, Ewert inquired unfailingly about Panikkar and was pleased to hear that I was helping him with the publication of his long-awaited Gifford Lectures, The Rhythm of Being.
Now Ewert’s earthly journey is over and he has “passed over” to the Great Beyond. May his soul be bathed in Light as it makes its heavenly journey, and may his spirit and all that he has left behind
continue to enrich and illuminate us.
Joseph Prabhu
Professor of Philosophy and Religion
California State University, Los Angeles
Program Chair, Parliament of the World’s Religions
