Unexpected Way: On Converting from Buddhism to Catholicism

by Paul Williams

Overview

The story of one man's unexpected pilgrimage from Buddhism to Catholicism.There are Christians who, in mid-life decide to abandon their Christian faith and become Buddhists. Paul Williams did the opposite. After twenty years spent practising and teaching Tibetan Buddhism in Britain, scholar and broadcaster Paul Williams astonished his family and friends in 1999 by converting to Roman Catholicism. Williams explains why he joined a Church that many Buddhists and others might regard as a repressed and outdated way of life and belief. He argues that being a Catholic in the modern world is no less rational than being a Buddhist, and may in many respects, be more so.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780567088307
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	07/06/2002
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.55(d)

About the Author

Paul Williams is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and Deputy Head of Research in the School of Business and Creative Industries at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia. He has published prize-winning fiction, young adult novels, memoir, non-fiction and short stories, a series of crime novels, and textbooks on creative writing including Novel Ideas: Writing Innovative Fiction (2019) and Playing with Words: An Introduction to Creative Writing Craft (2016), co-authored with Shelley Davidow. www.paulwilliamsauthor.com

Editorial Reviews

"[a] fascinating intellectual autobiography....What makes Williams' apologia for Christianity compelling is his awareness of the breadth and depth of the Buddhist tradition....While written is a conversational and accessible style, Williams has clearly thought through his Christian conversion."
Amos Yong, Religious Studies Review, April 2003

"[Williams] is certainly among the half-dozen most widely read living interpreters of Buddhist thought to the West...Gratitude and joy are the main threads in the fabric of this book, and this explains why conversion narratives have been and continue to be so important for the church...This is a book to be grateful for in times like these....I hope the church will find ways to encourage such contributions by Williams, and that he will find time and energy to make them."
Commonweal, 1/17/03

"A heartfelt and sensitive account it draws the reader in."
Church Times, 7 June 2002

"The Unexpected Way is more than just the story of one man's conversion to Catholicism; it could be a turning point in the dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity, for it challenges Christians and Buddhists alike to test the consistency of their intellectual and moral convictions - as gold is tested in a furnace. Essential reading for Christians, their Buddhist friends, and all who would understand the life of faith in the heady confusion of our religiously plural world."
Carol Zaleski, Professor of Religion and Chair of the Department of Religion and Biblical Literature, Smith College.

"The Unexpected Way is more than just the story of one man's conversion to Catholicism; it could be a turning point in the dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity."

From the Publisher