Apologetics
There is a bookstore near me which is kind of like the Big Lots of bookstores; it carries all the titles from stores that went out of business or whose publishers need to offload a bunch of copies for cheap. One of the titles I saw in the religion section was by a Buddhist monk, and he had titled his work "Living Buddha, Living Christ."
The thesis of his book is that, if Buddha and Jesus met on the street, they would probably get along really well and appreciate each other's theology. The author went on to mention that he considers himself a member of both faiths, had statues of each man on his altar, and worships them both as his "spiritual ancestors."
This is not really a new phenomenon; people have been trying to blend Jesus with various other religions for almost as long as Jesus has been around, but I do think that "Living Buddha, Living Christ" sets a new benchmark for silliness. I say this because Christianity and Buddhism cannot be more opposite from each other. Trying to blend them is guaranteed to result in a philosophy that is at best incoherent, and at worst total nonsense.
The fundamental teaching of Christianity is that the problem with humanity is sin, and the only solution is a salvation that is provided by God and completely unearned by man. Nothing could be farther from Buddhism's asceticism, which teaches that humanity's problem is desire, and the solution is to rid one's self of desire - in other words, see / hear / touch / taste no evil. In Buddhism, righteousness is achieved by one's own self, in denying desire until no desire remains. In Christianity, righteousness is given to an individual by God, a totally unmerited, and unachievable, gift.
So, then, this poor monk has Buddha in his left ear telling him that salvation depends on what he does or doesn't do, and Jesus in his right ear saying that no matter what he does or doesn't do, he can't earn salvation. Like I said: the two could not possibly be more opposite.
Besides, anyone who is remotely familiar with Jesus' message understands that Jesus knew exactly who he was and what he was on earth to do. He claimed to be God (see John 8), specifically the only begotten Son, the second member of the Trinity (John 3). He said that he came to earth to seek and save people who were lost (Luke 19), and that this saving would come about only by the shedding of his own, innocent blood on behalf of those of us who were guilty of sin (Luke 22). He went on to say that this was the only way that humanity's sin problem could be addressed, and that as a result, faith in Christ was the only way to get to heaven (John 14).
Unless a person grievously distorts these things that Jesus claimed about himself, calling him a liar even as they insist that he is a prophet worth obeying, they are forced to contend with the fact that there is no need, and no room, in Jesus' philosophy for any other religion.
Indeed, the very nature of Jesus' claims about himself prevents us from merely considering him a good teacher whose ideas can form part but not all of a person's belief system. C.S. Lewis once wrote that if you look at everything Jesus said, then he was either exactly who he claimed to be or else he was a total lunatic with a God complex, but he can't possibly be anything in the middle. His teaching is founded on the idea that he was God, and he used this as the authority for everything he said. If someone tries to say that he was not God, then all of the authority is gone from his teachings. He is merely someone who had a few good ideas but was also insane and delusional. If this is the case, why would anyone pride themselves on following the moral teachings of a total madman who tried to fool people into thinking he was God?
He was either crazy or exactly who he said he was - but the one thing he absolutely cannot be is one in a set of multiple right answers. The very nature of his teaching and his claims about himself demands that he be either totally believed or totally rejected. Either he is credible, or he is not. Either he is God, or he is not. There can really be no middle ground.
I didn't read any more of this monk's book, apart from the back cover, because I knew that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't possibly reconcile the teachings of two men who taught exactly opposite things about humanity. Rather than be angry at the monk, though, I felt nothing but sorrow that he got so close to understanding the truth, only to veer off at the last moment by introducing the legalistic idea that salvation depends on his own actions. People like him merely emphasize to me even more the necessity of making sure, in this day and age that is so friendly to pluralism, that we as Christians have a rock-solid grasp on who Jesus was and what he claimed about himself, so that we can share this message with a hurting world that needs his love.
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