Are we depraved because we’re deformed? Or because we’re deprived?  Some Christians, given their understanding of original sin and our fallen nature, would hold to “deformed.”  I suspect that that’s an incorrect reading of the myth of Adam and Eve, and certainly a misunderstanding of what Jesus had to say when he called people to work for the Reign of God here on earth. It is also squarely opposed to what Buddhists hold to be the “human condition.”

Both Buddhists and Christians can agree with another line of “Officer Krupke”: “Deep down inside us there is good….There is good, there is good, there is good, good, good.”

But that “good” has been stifled by our being deprived.

Buddhists would agree. We’ been deprived.  But  of what? Buddha’s answer: Of a correct understanding of who we really are.  Ignorance, not deformity, is the fundamental problem.

Marx would agree with Buddhists that the fundamental problem is not deformity. But he differs in pinpointing what we’ve been deprived of. For Marx, and I believe for many Christians, the fundamental cause of the hatred, violence, and “depravity” affecting our world today is that so many humans have been deprived  of the material conditions necessary to live a full human life.

Terry Eagleton, with his usual clarity and precision, makes this Marxist argument in a passage from his recently published Why Marx Was Right:

If history has been so bloody, it is not because most human beings are wicked. It is because of the material pressures to which they have been submitted. Marx can thus take a realistic measure of the past without succumbing to the myth of the darkness of men’s [sic] hearts. And this is one reason why he can retain faith in the future

It is his materialism which permits him that hope. If wars, famines and genocide really did spring simply from some unchanging human depravity, then there is not the slightest reason to believe that the future will fare any better. If, however, these things have been partly the effect of unjust social systems, of which individuals are sometimes little more than functions, then it is reasonable to expect that changing that system may make for a better world.  (pp. 98-99)

So Marxists, and most Christian liberation theologians and activists, would hold that if we want to change the “depraved heart,” we first must change the “depriving system.”

Buddhists, in general, would see it differently: if you want to change the “depriving system,” you have to change the “deprived heart.”

Which comes first?

Both!

He has been doing a great service both in Uganda and in the United States. The churches need not only more Christopher Senyonjos, but more of us to recognize and publicize efforts like this. Please share this article far and wide.

Much seriousness is traipsing the front pages of newspapers and our minds these days: floods, food shortages and price hikes, and political-social unrest in Egypt and bordering states. It’s right that our hearts and minds focus on these heavy matters. But it really leaves little time for the less consequential to inhabit our thoughts. That’s why I’m thankful that Union graduate Robert Loring sent me this website that sells Christian clothing. Before you get ahead of yourself with thoughts of habits or white collars or austere monkish robes, think much more modern. Think graphic… Ed Hardy, even. (Do you think I can get an Ed Hardy habit?)

What does this type of garb have to say? While many are evangelical in nature — this image attesting – for me it is saying less about a reflection on being a person of “the way”, and more about a way of being part of a culture. Which brings up the long debate of how Christ and Culture have always been weaving in and out of each other. It gets at the question, what is Christ’s way in the world? A survey on that question can be found in H. Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture, where he describes various understandings of Christ “against,” “of,” and “above” culture, Christ “transforming” culture, and Christ in “paradoxical” relation to culture. I would find it difficult to pinpoint one of these above the other, though my hopes are on the transformational element. The thing is, like these shirts, we seem to make God in our image rather than the other way around. If Christ can inhabit the front of our shirts, can Christ also inhabit the whole or our being to transform us and a world toward the commonwealth of God? Does a shirt that says “Jesus is my homeboy” work toward that end?

Your thoughts on the aesthetics and popular renderings of Christ are welcome here.

Protester faces off against police forces in Egypt

We are so accustomed in the Abrahamic tradition to see Egypt as the oppressor to be overthrown. It is a central part of the Exodus narrative, which has been crucial in Jewish history as well as African-American Christian identity. So what happens when Egypt itself yearns for freedom?

That is precisely what we are seeing now. The people of Egypt are straining against the bonds of a modern-day Pharaoh, and he’s one that the United States has nearly unequivocally supported. The Sarthanapolos blog has an excellent guide about “How Not To Say Stupid Stuff About Egypt”, which contains many corrections to the distorted view that we have had of our Muslim sisters and brothers for years. Notably, it points out that Mubarak and Nassar before him were not peace-seeking fonts of stability but repressive dictators and that the Muslim Brotherhood is not anything like Al Quaeda.

How long must we follow Constantine before we remember Christ?

More information:
Al Jazeera English’s special coverage
follow @AJELive on Twitter
NPR has coverage of Egypt and the wider Middle East

One could say much about what we Christians — especially we Christian activists or liberationists — have to learn from the Buddhist insistence that unless we spend time, lots of time, sitting under a Bodhi tree and seeking enlightenment, we’re not going to be able to really change the world and its structures.  That message came through again and again in my dialogues in Korea.  And I know I have not yet fully understood what it is telling me.

But I’m not sure whether the Buddhists I spoke with really grasped what I think is one of the DISTINCTIVE ingredients in what Jesus discovered about the Mystery he called God/Father.  It’s contained in the cross.

I recently came across a powerful expression of this distinctive message of Christianity in a book by Terry Eagleton, Trouble with Strangers: A Study of Ethics. (Wily-Blackwell, 2009):

If God is indeed in one sense utterly other, he is also made manifest [for Christians and for the world]  in the tortured body of a reviled political criminal … The ghastly good news of the gospel is that being done to death by the state for speaking up for love and justice is the status to which we must all aspire. The message of the New Testament is that if you don’t love you are dead, and if you do, they will kill you. Here, then, is your pie in the sky and your opium of the people. It is a message scandalous alike to the civilized liberal, the militant humanist and the wide-eyed progressive.  (p. 256)

Eagleton’s statement is strong.  I would change his “the status to which we all must aspire” to “for which we all must be ready.”  Still, his (and my) understanding of the Gospel as not only calling us to have compassion and love our neighbor (that the Buddhists would readily agree with) but to also confront the systemic powers that be (the state or the economic system) and be ready to accept the uncomfortable or deadly consequences — this is a message that the Korean Buddhists I talked with found difficult to comprehend.

Which means that “the sitting Buddha” and “the crucified Christ” have a lot to learn from each other.

This seminarian is no different from anyone else. These have been disturbing, nonsensical days that I can hardly begin to make meaning of one way or the other. When I don’t understand–especially when phrases from the middle ages pop up in present political rhetoric–I look to the wiser ones that have gone before me. So what does blood libel mean anyway? Union’s Mary Boys talked to CNN today to help us understand. Yes, Wheat and the Chaff is actually highlighting religion in the media. Imagine that. Enjoy!

And friends, I don’t know much, but if you have someone you love, tell ‘em. That may not seem to have anything to do with this article, but I can assure you it has everything to do with the healing we all need right now.

New Year Talk

For the past eight days, my wife Cathy and I have been rushing – or better, have been gently rushed – around the peninsula of South Korea as part of a project aimed at promoting a more fruitful dialogue between Buddhists and Christians.  The seed of this venture was planted, and then nurtured, by my Korean doctoral student, Mr. Kyongil Jung.  But because of unexpected political and religious developments, the seed produced a sprawling tree, rather than just a healthy bush.

The unexpected circumstances had to do with fundamentalist Korean Christians who over recent months have invaded Buddhist temples in Seoul and Daegu in an effort to exorcize the “demonic powers” there and proclaim the eventual triumph of Christianity.

So in the midst of this turmoil, a septuagenarian Christian scholar from New York arrives to talk about the value and need of Buddhist-Christian dialogue and to speak about his recent book Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian. To talk about dialogue in the midst of such conflict had the semblance of urging relaxation in the midst of an earthquake. Still quaking, the Chogye Order of Korean Seon (Zen) Buddhists held to their invitation and asked this foreign Christian to come and talk.

Dialogue with Zen Master Jinjesunim

The media reacted with what seemed to me a journalistic feeding frenzy. With their cameras and recorders and interview-teams, they were swarming around almost constantly, eager to determine not only what I, the Christian theologian and foreigner, had to say, but also, and especially, what the Buddhist monks and laypersons were asking and how they were responding.

There were one-on-one dialogues with Seon Master Jinje-sunim,  the  most respected Buddhist teacher in Korea.  There were panel and community discussions with monks at the temples of Donghwa-sah (in Daegu), Haewoonjung-sah (in Pusan), and Gilsang-sah (Seoul) and many casual, but sometimes intense, conversations over meals.

The core of our conversations crystallized, I believe, in three different events.  On two different New Year’s celebrations (Jan 1 and 4), I was asked to follow the official Dharma talk of Jinje-sunim and address packed audiences of Buddhist lay people.  One of these talks took place at the very spot where Christians had invaded and desecrated.  So here was the Buddhist community responding to Christian hatred by inviting a Christian theologian and practitioner to speak to them – to enter into a dialogue with them!

And I was moved, almost to tears, when, after I assured them that many, many Christians disagreed with what these extremist Christians had done, and after I asked them to forgive and have compassion on these Christians – they responded with affirming bows and applause.

The other crystallized moment came when the abbot of Haewoonjung-sa asked Cathy to lead the monks and an assembly of about 50 laypeople, who were there for their 30 day winter retreat, in meditation!  They knew that she practices and teaches a form of Tibetan meditation that is quite different from their Zen practice. Still, they wanted to show their hospitality and their openness to learn.

With Executive Chief of the Korean Buddhist Chogye Order

The final event of our line up of dialogical encounters came on our last evening in Seoul, at the recently built and beautiful International Seon  Center.  There was a panel of four Buddhist and four Christian teachers/scholars who responded to my questions about with how to deal with Christian fanaticism and, more importantly, how to promote greater interreligious dialogue and conversation.  It was a fervent, forthright, and sometimes tense conversation. But there was agreement on the basics: the need for broader education and understanding of one’s religious neighbors, and the urgency and opportunity to bring Buddhists and Christians together to address these conflicts and to show that religion can be a greater source of peace than of violence.

The conversation at the Seon Center went on for almost three hours, with some 300 people in the audience, all of us sitting cross legged! (I managed the sitting part, but then could not get up afterwards!).

As I realized over the course of these few but intense days, the Korean Buddhists of the Chogye Order had invited me not only to learn more about Christianity but also to ask that I help make their teachings better known in the United States.  Having witnessed the seriousness of their practice, having been moved by the openness and compassion with which they reacted to the hatred of some of their fellow Christian citizens – I am extremely happy to do so.

Friedrich Schleiermacher: "I totally told you that like almost 200 years ago!"

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Paul Wallace at the Religion Dispatches reception at the American Academy of Religion meeting in Atlanta. He’s a lovely man and his wife is equally charming as he. I sincerely recommend his writings at RD to anyone interested in the science-religion dialogue.

His most recent piece deals with something that’s often on my own mind: whether science and Christianity can coexist. I am sympathetic to Paul’s journey through Buddhist thought to arrive at a harmony of Christianity and science. My own Buddhist experience has shed much light on my Christian faith. It is not, however, entirely necessary to make such a detour. I often find that my experience with other faiths does not cause me to import new ideas into Christianity. Rather, it causes me to reflect on what I already knew.

To whit: science and religious belief. There was a copy of On the Origin of Species on the bookshelf in my childhood home and while it never sat literally next to a Bible, the image is almost too much to resist. I don’t know that my church had a specific answer to the seeming conflict between worldviews. I do know that my parents and their friends (biologists, physicians, mathematicians and clergy) were able to find a way to navigate this divide. What I want to mention here, however, is not that as much as it is something much much older.

The fact is, Christianity had room for the evolutionary worldview 20-30 years before Darwin published his major work.

Friedrich Schleiermacher wrote in The Christian Faith, 2nd edition:

Further, since divine omnipotence can only be conceived as eternal and omnipresent, it is inadmissible to suppose that at any time anything should begin to be through omnipotence; on the contrary, through omnipotence everything is already posited which comes into existence through finite causes, in time and space.

In other words: the Christian faith cannot hold that we came to be through God’s omniscience and omnipotence directly. We came to be indirectly through finite causes that, yes, were put in place by God. This is not Intelligent Design. This is theology making room for Darwin before he asked for it. Evolution as a finite cause in time and space has been thought of as not just compatible but necessary to Christian theology since the 1830s.

This is not at all to say that Paul is wrong in his journey through Buddhism. He just took the scenic route.

I'd Rather Love A Jesus Who Loves Us All

It’s National Coming Out Day today. We’ve also heard a lot lately about LGBTQ teen suicides. If you haven’t yet, I implore you to read Rev. Dr. Patrick Cheng’s Huffington Post article on the suicides, Rev. Irene Monroe’s Huffington Post article on bullying and homophobia and spend some time in thoughtful reflection on what your church has or has not done for LGBTQ people whether they are teenage, pre-teen, adult or senior.

I am not gay, and cannot therefore offer a queer perspective on these issues. I defer to others that they might speak for themselves as regards their own pain and joy. But homophobia is my problem too. It is my problem because it hurts people I love. It is my problem because too many people cloak their prejudice in the language of faith and that hurts every person of faith. It is my problem because every day straight allies neglect to speak out against it is another day that homophobia remains a “socially acceptable” prejudice. It is not acceptable. If we profess that we are made in the image of God, then God is also a gay man, a lesbian, transgender, transsexual, gender non-conforming AND yes heterosexual too.

If God is a God of justice, mercy and righteousness, then God is queer. God is with the terrorized young people of our world–never in judgment but always in love.

Rosa Parks' mugshot, courtesy mindfully.org

Tuesday’s New York Metro newspaper headline about the Park51 center read “You Guys Don’t Look Like Rosa Parks To Me”. The article was slightly less pugnacious, but the question remained about Ms. Parks, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dr. King and the current predicament not only of the Park51 center but of Muslim believers in America in general.

Rosa Parks is presently an honored and cherished part of United States history. She was not in 1955. In 1955, Rosa Parks was a trouble-maker. She was not honored by the establishment for her courage, but was derided as disruptive. Why couldn’t she just let the system exist in peace? Why did she have to remind the white citizens of Montgomery that there were black citizens in their midst who paid the same taxes and the same fares on the city bus?

So too, unfortunately, today. Why does Park51 have to be in lower Manhattan? Why can’t these troublesome Muslims just exist somewhere out of sight where we don’t have to do anything more than pay lip-service to the plurality of cultures in our nation? Why indeed.

The why is the same for Rosa Parks and for Park51. The why is because it is hypocrisy to say that those different from the majority can only exist if they are out of sight and do not trouble our conscience.