When Jesus Met Buddha

In a piece published in the Boston Globe entitled "When Jesus Met Buddha," historian Philip Jenkins, takes us on an important brief tour of an eastern Christianity most of us know little about. Indeed, the Book of Acts takes us westward with Paul. There are stories and legends of a church in the east, but we western Christians know little of these stories. As a church historian, I didn't have the time or I didn't take the time to explore these stories with my students. I had to get my students westward to America, and American Christianity is the repository of a European Christianity.

But we live in a different world, a global world, where faiths are coming into daily contact with each other. Go to a large city, including the one I inhabit, and you will find any number of religious communities present. Indeed, there is a large Hindu temple going up here in the city of Troy, while a major mosque sits just beyond the city limits in Rochester Hills. There are Orthodox Churches of all number of stripes, along with Catholic Churches representing Croatian, Romanian, and Albanian communities. In such a context, the possibilities and the necessities of interfaith conversation and work becomes increasingly an imperative.

Jenkins, whose latest book (which sits on my shelf ready to be read) is called Lost Christianities, explores for us a time when far eastern Christianities flourished, and as they did they interacted in creative and seemingly peaceful ways with eastern religions, offering us a possible way of living together in peace. That Christianity disappeared in the 13th century during the Mongol invasions. But for a time, there was an important form of Christianity that developed its own traditions.

He writes:
But awareness of this deep Christian history contributes powerfully to understanding the future of the religion, as much as its past. For long centuries, Asian Christians kept up neighborly relations with other faiths, which they saw not as deadly rivals but as fellow travelers on the road to enlightenment. Their worldview differed enormously from the norms that developed in Europe.


On this Christmas Eve, when we come to remember the birth of the Prince of Peace, perhaps this is a story worth considering. Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All -- that's a proper Christmas blessing!

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