Other Perspectives on Christianity

(Just a fair warning, this one might be a little harder to digest than my other rambles. Just keep an open mind and hear what I'm trying to say...)

When I was in college, for one of my courses on Greek, I had to present two translations of Colossians, and a paper on a particular passage. My approach was pretty unorthodox. I had been studying Plato for another course, and the question occurred to me as to how a pagan Greek of the period would have understood the Christian message. My paraphrase translation, and my paper (written as a dialogue in honor of Plato), caused my professor to call me into his office. When he sat me down he told me that he didn't know what to do with my paper. He finally decided to accept it because there was some good work done, but he also told me “don't ever do this again.”

We don't like different perspectives on our faith. It threatens us. It makes us think about our faith in ways that are uncomfortable and that may conflict with beliefs we don't realize are foundational to our limited understanding, but not to the Gospel itself. We don't like having our basic assumptions challenged to find out that they're not so basic after all.

I'm sitting here, as I write, watching the movie “Little Buddha” for the umpteenth time. It's one of my favorites. I've done a lot of thinking about Buddhist teaching and Dharma over the last few years. It's given me other perspectives, much as Plato and Socrates did in college. I've come to appreciate the basic understanding and teaching while being able discern through what is complementary and what is contradictory to the Christian faith.

One interesting point I have thought about for some time is how to present Jesus Christ to the Buddhist. Often we try to present Him to them as though we were presenting Him to someone from a western background, who has already been “churched.” It generally doesn't work, and for good reason. Another approach is the “Chronological Teaching” approach which basically seeks to sit the person down and completely reteach the person basic assumptions of reality and culture. If the person is willing to sit down and listen for a long time, it may work or it may not.

The truth is that presenting Christ as the natural answer for the Buddhist or even the Hindu is not as difficult or as contradictory as it appears, but it does take us answering some hard questions about what we consider essential to our faith, and whether or not we're willing to look at it from another perspective. We need to ask the question, is this really contradictory to the Gospel and what Jesus taught, is it really contradictory to the Creed, or is this something which is just an interpretation which is taught as dogma? This requires a strong grounding in our own faith, and an open mind.

First of all, we need to understand what reincarnation is in the Buddhist, or Hindu (from which cultural worldview Buddhism originates), view. It is the cycle of death and rebirth that perpetuates suffering, and is continued by a persons actions or karma. The goal of Buddhism is to transcend suffering and thus escape the cycle of reincarnation and enter Nirvana. This is enlightenment, and thus salvation for the Buddhist.

From a Buddhist perspective, Jesus Christ walked the eightfold path flawlessly, and many consider Him to be a Buddha or a Boddhisatva (a Buddhist saint). There is even an old, controversial story of a Buddhist document found at the beginning of the twentieth century which tells the story of Jesus' middle years and how He traveled to India and studied the Dharma there (no, I'm not making this up). So, starting from there, He already has the respect of a great many Buddhists.

According to Buddhist teaching, before the Buddha died, he prophesied that another Buddha like himself would be born. He called this Buddha, in Pali, Metteya, and in Sanskrit, Maitreya, which means “lovingkindness”. He also was specific in that this Buddha was to be born 500 years after he died. There is only one historical figure who fits the description of a potential Buddha was born five hundred years after Gautama Siddharta died, and that is Jesus Christ. This is a possible beginning point with the Buddhist as well.

In the Holy Scriptures, “magi” from the east come looking for him after reading the stars. Traditionally these are assumed to be real Magi from either Persia or Babylon. The only flaw with this is that to date, I have still never heard of any Magi ever having done this before or after Him. It isn't something the Magi did. It is however characteristic of another culture to go looking for leaders in recently born children that they have never seen before, Tibetan Buddhists. It would also fall into place that they would seek out what was then the royal house of Israel, following the stars (astrology also being an Eastern practice), and make the mistake of heading to Herod's court, not realizing that he wasn't of the historical royal line of the kings of Israel. Buddhist missionaries had penetrated into the Middle East, Egypt, and Asia Minor by the time Jesus was born. So, it is possible to make this connection that Buddhist monks showed up on Mary and Joseph's doorstep shortly after Jesus was born, and five hundred yeas after the Buddha died looking for Maitreya.

The idea of someone being fully God and fully human is not new to the Eastern mind. In fact, it is far more of a Hindu concept than it is a Jewish one. In the Hindu religion, there are periodic reincarnations of a being called an Avatar, who is an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, the most notable of which is Krishna, the chariot driver in the epic poem, the Bhagavad Gita. The Vishnu reincarnates over and over to teach man the path to Nirvana and how to live.

Finally, what is the goal of Buddhism? To break the cycle of reincarnation. Buddhist teaching generally says that anyone can become a Buddha through the eightfold path and meditation, but that it usually takes many reincarnations of practice. But what happens to the person who dies, and then is resurrected immortal, locked into one person for eternity? Can they reincarnate again? No. Reincarnation requires death in order to be reborn. So, by virtue of His resurrection, the cycle of reincarnation is broken fully and completely. What's more, we who are baptized into Christ Jesus are joined to Him in His death and resurrection. So as He died, we died, and as He was raised again immortal so will we be, never to die again. He is our anchor to immortality. So the cycle of reincarnation is also broken for all those who, by faith, are baptized into Christ Jesus. Because He died, was buried and resurrected rather than reincarnated, the cycle of suffering ends for all those grafted into Him. From a Hindu or Buddhist perspective, Jesus Christ as Avatar put an end to Suffering by a single event, and opened the path to Nirvana to anyone willing to come to Him. He becomes the last and final Avatar because of His compassion for all mankind.

These are just some thoughts about how to approach the Buddhist with the Gospel using, not arguments from our own worldview, but the worldview which he already possesses. It approaches it, not as something foreign to him, but as the natural fulfillment of the Dharma.

This approach requires people being able to handle the challenge to their own faith, and appreciate what another teaching has to say. It requires an open mind. For some, the very idea will likely produce heart attacks, for others they might consider it but then say “don't ever go there again.”

God is bigger than we think. He is more than capable of planting the seeds of the Gospel in unexpected places and in unexpected ways, but we have to be willing to consider them and not be afraid to venture beyond our own worldviews.