Pye/Listening, 12. Shinran’s Way in the Modern World (1978)

Alfred Bloom, for his part, seems to have “understood” Shin Buddhism so well that he became a convert and actively supported the promotion of his new faith over many years, eventually being ordained in his sixties in the Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-ha (i.e. the denomination based on Nishi Honganji). He is particularly well known for his influential early monograph Shinran’s Gospel of Pure Grace (University of Arizona Press, 1965) which became a standard teaching resource on the subject for students world-wide. His other written contributions are extremely numerous and have appeared in various quarters such as later issues of The Eastern Buddhist and in The Pure Land, the journal of the International Association of Shin Buddhist Studies. Like the work mentioned above, the title of which interestingly includes the word “Gospel,” the article included here illustrates an early phase in Bloom’s personal interaction with Shin Buddhism.