Last night, we brought our “Buddhist-Christian Dialogue on Global Greed” here in Chiang Mai to an end with the formulation of a “Common Word” on the economic mess the world is in and what we might do about it. That’s quite an achievement. Finding a common word about the economy between Buddhists and Christians who [...]
Posts from ‘August, 2010’
A Buddhist-Christian Take on the Financial Crisis II
“If you want to find the causes of the financial crisis that we are in, and if you want to come up with solutions for it, you’re going to have to deal with GREED.” That was the opening Buddhist contribution to our conference here in Chiang Mai, Thailand on Buddhist-Christian dialogue about the global economic [...]
A Buddhist-Christian Take on the Financial Crisis
I’m here in Chiang-Mai, Thailand, at Payap University for a rather extraordinary – some would say strange – gathering. We are a group of some 30 Buddhist and Christian scholars, leaders, and activists from around the world (mostly Asian; I’m one of two Americans). We’ve come together to talk about the financial tsunami that moved [...]
Thank you, Mr. President!
I owe President Obama a thank you — and maybe an apology. It turns out that I was too quick to criticize and challenge him in my last blog about not really “speaking his mind” concerning the Muslim Center in lower Manhattan. Two days after I posted the blog, in which I quoted from his [...]
Please, Mr. President, speak your mind!
Dear President Obama, On Aug 3, your press secretary, Robert Gibbs, speaking for your administration, said that you did not want to take a position on the controversy surrounding plans to build a Muslim Center near Ground Zero. When asked what was the opinion of your administration, Mr. Gibbs replied that it was “a matter [...]
