What does Jesus mean to a Buddhist, or the Buddha to a Christian? In this volume 12 scholars, six of them Christian and six of them Buddhists, speak simply and from the heart about their personal relationship to the great religious leader from the other tradition.
What does Jesus mean to a Buddhist, or the Buddha to a Christian? What is it about the Buddha that is appealing to a Christian, or unappealing? In this volume 12 scholars, six of them Christian and six of them Buddhists, speak simply and from the heart about their personal relationship to the great religious leader from the other tradition. The diversity of views within each tradition could be a shock to the average Buddhist or Christian on the street. Buddhists argue about Buddha's nature, Buddha veneration, and the role the Buddha plays in human liberation. Christians argue about Jesus' human and divine status, his uniqueness, and the role he plays in human salvation. The contributors celebrate the family likeness between Jesus and the Buddha, but they also acknowledge the differences as well, for it is at the points of difference that potentially there is the most opportunity for growth.
Reminiscent of Thich Nhat Hanh and Daniel Berrigan's The Raft Is Not the Shore, this book brings together six Buddhists and six Christians for an interfaith conversation. Unlike that book, however, this one is eminently predictable, given the participants in the discussion: Buddhists chafe at declarations of Christian particularity, and the Christian interlocutors respond with eager disavowals of the traditional Christian claims about Jesus' uniqueness. They assert that "exclusivist" claims put forth by some Christians are not "intrinsic or necessary to Christianity"--which will come as no surprise once the reader notices that the first two Christian contributors are Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. Had, say, Tom Bethel, Jan Karon, Frederica Mathewes-Green, or even Anne Lamott been invited to participate, the discussion might have gone a different route. As it stands, the book teaches us very little: we already knew Buddhists would be uncomfortable with assertions about Jesus being the only way, and we already knew that left-leaning Christians would rush to erase such assertions. This is fine as far as it goes, but many orthodox Christians will not find the tenor of the volume congenial. One is left wondering if there are no other Christian responses to the challenges of religious pluralism.
