Ralph H. Craig III: Preachers and Teachers, from the Dharmabhāṇakas to Tina Turner

Ralph H. Craig III talks about crafting constructive analogies between Christian and Buddhist liturgies, characterizing the ideal preachers (dharmabhāṇakas) described in Mahāyāna sūtras, and Tina Turner’s contributions to Buddhist pedagogy.Ralph H. Craig III is an interdisciplinary scholar of religion, whose research focuses on South Asian Buddhism and American Buddhism. He received his B.A. in Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University and his Ph.D. in Religious Studies at Stanford University. His research interests include memoir, race, popular culture, yoga/meditation theory, religious experience and authority. He works with textual materials in Sanskrit, Pāli, Buddhist Chinese and Classical Tibetan. His work has appeared in the journals American Religion, Buddhist-Christian Studies, and the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies; in Lion’s Roar and Tricycle magazines; on the American Academy of Religion’s Reading Religion website; and the 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha. His first book was, Dancing in My Dreams: A Spiritual Biography of Tina Turner (Eerdmans Publishing, 2023), which explores the place of religion in the life and career of Tina Turner and examines her development as a Black Buddhist teacher. His next book project is a monograph on preachers in Mahāyāna Buddhist sūtras.Interview by Miles Osgood.