Citizen Columns
Question
Do you have an increasing number of faithful who practice more than one faith, i.e., Buddhist Christians?
Answer
Much depends on where people are practicing their Christian faith. Where there is hostility and
persecution from another religion (by militant Muslims in Egypt for example), the Christians are
much more protective of their endangered identity and therefore on guard against importing the
practices of other faiths. And yet, I also know Egyptian Christians who have a deep appreciation
for Sufi spirituality.
Or take another example. One of my friends in seminary was from Ghana.
His family faced many challenges when they left the tribal religion to become Christians because
they had to make a clear choice, as in some of St Paul's early communities, between single-minded
devotion to Christ and the demands of normal village life, where sacrifice to traditional gods
was woven into social relations at almost every level.
There was a constant pull back to the old
ways, and so Christians in his village had to be vigilant, more so than perhaps they might be in
Canada. But even here I would want to draw a distinction. In this multicultural society Orthodox
Christians are rightly exposed to the teachings of many other faiths and are discovering unexpected
common experience, especially on the level of spiritual practice.
This is notably true between ancient
Eastern Orthodox traditions of prayer and inner life, and particular strands of Buddhism and Taoism.
But appreciating and even using some of the practices of the other faith is not the same as mixing the
wo and being a "Buddhist Christian." The Christian outlook begins with our faith experience that Christ
has revealed who God is and what it means to be human as fully as we can know it in this life. It is
in his light that we can see light. And it is in his light that we can appreciate, use and give thanks
for whatever is true, lovely and pure in other faiths (Philippians 4:8).
Father John Jillions
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