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A beautiful statue of the Buddha sits on the centerpiece of my stereo system. This beautiful, handcrafted artwork is from Indonesia. Why does a Christian pastor appreciate works of art of other religions? I was asked once by an irate lady, “Why don’t you take that thing and throw it out?” To her, this beautiful and spiritual work of art is, apparently, just a “thing.” For me to have thrown out the artwork would have been a denial of Truth, a failure to love my neighbor as myself. Likewise, I would have been denying the vocation of bearing witness to the universality of Truth, expressed through the Word, Jesus Christ. I would have denied the call to be a Christian helping the world become a place of compassion among religions and peoples.
What was this lady actually saying? She was saying, “Whittle your God down to the size of the god of persons who want a god only in their image.” She was asking me to agree to an expression of Christianity that is antithetical to the very compassion, love, and peace that Christ calls us to in our world.
Bede Griffiths (1906-1993), a Benedictine monk who lived many years in India, wrote regarding Christ and the world religions:
We have to recognize that every religion, from the most primitive to the most advanced, throws a certain light on the one divine mystery, which is the object of all religious faith, and all are necessary to the full knowledge of Christ. It would seem that in time to come it will become impossible to be a Christian in any complete sense, if one is ignorant of the measure of wisdom and knowledge to be found in the traditions of other religions. In this way one can foresee a kind of convergence of the different religions of the world on the one Truth, which is found in all and which for a Christian is fully realized in Christ.
(Kuruvilla Pandikattu, “Religious Dialogue as Hermeneutics: Bede Griffiths's Advaitic Approach to Religions,” in Indian Philosophical Studies, III; http://www.crvp.org/book/Series03/IIIB-3/chapter_five.htm; emphasis added)
Bruno Barnhart, a Christian monk, in “Wisdom Christianity,” writes that “the attraction that we experience in the Eastern spiritual traditions today is the magnetism of wisdom: a knowing which is life, inner experience and union.” He observes, “This spiritual wisdom is not foreign to Christianity, though it has long been unfamiliar in the western world. Within the New Testament there is a depth and fullness which has largely disappeared in the many succeeding centuries, but which is always there to be rediscovered.” That is, the resistance to the Christ, as the Word, speaking in different faith traditions is at least partly consequent of the loss of the depth of Christian Wisdom over the centuries.
It is sadly natural that religious persons can reduce the grandeur and social embrace of its faith due to historical pressures and personal and institutional biases. Therefore, we are challenged to moderation wherein we define our faith, without over-defining our faith. We are to be shaped into the image of the Word, of Christ Jesus, without defining that as limited to our historical perspectives, with its essential limitations. Such is a reduction of the Absolute to the relative. We are to be being conformed to the Absolute.
Barnhart relates the emergence of wisdom, today, with a number of different movements, and all these have enriched my own Christian discipleship over the years. These include “the wisdom of the East—Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism— ... other wisdoms as well.” Other wisdom traditions Barnhart cites are “Jungian and transpersonal psychology, modern art and poetry, tribal shamanism, hermeneutics, ecology and feminism, literary theory and the history of thought—on every side, the sharp edges of western consciousness are rounded and silvered by an invisible river of psyche and spirit.” Again, my own encounter with these traditions over many years has helped me better define Christ, not as an icon apart from the world of thought, but as the very Word who speaks freely and will not be confined in a box of religion or held in a canister of philosophy.
Barnhart cites this time as a “critical threshold.” I agree, partly due to the religious involvement in violence and warfare. We, as different religions, can no longer afford to remain in our different arenas; humankind depends on a compassionate interaction and mutual seeking of the common good. And, we Christians need to confess that our own biases and abusive treatment, as well as lack of insight and encounter with, other religions are part of the problem.
This, writes Barnhart, entails that the “container of Western and of Christian consciousness is opening to a fresh encounter with reality on every side.” And, “this wisdom signifies an epistemological quantum leap from our culturally contracted mind, an awakening to this larger, multidimensional reality. Christian wisdom, at this moment, is the rediscovery of the Christ-Event in the context of this larger, dynamic and interrelated world of reality.” The Christ-Event, indeed, continues in any and every moment of general revelation within the world religions and philosophical truth that witnesses to the Truth.
The New Testament speaks of the divine fullness implied in the wisdom traditions. Barnhart refers to Christ when he says that “the divine fullness bursts forth in Jesus Christ.” But, he rightly adds the contemporary call of participation, for “this fullness in the human person who is Christ becomes a fullness in those persons who participate in him through faith and baptism, and form a community in his name. This is the principle of a Wisdom Christianity.” And, this “fullness is … life and power, and 'that which has not entered the human heart[I Corinthians 2.9].’”
Barnhart refers to two passages speaking of the Christian wisdom, or Fullness in Christ:
For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.
(Colossians 2.9-10, NRSV)
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We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us—we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
(I John 1.1-3, NRSV)
This emergence of Wisdom Christianity implies, among other matters, three things.
1. The tribalism of much Christianity must be repented of and the boundaries of the Church opened to the Wisdom in other faith paths. Tribalism defines God only in the teachings and practices of a particular tradition. God has not just spoken through Christianity. Indeed, the Word preceded the historical beginnings of Christianity. Likewise, there is no reason to assume that there were no spiritually enlightened persons before the rise of Buddhism, for the Spirit of enlightenment is beyond time and space. God is Truth. Wisdom in whatever means it addresses us is Word of God. Truth cannot be divided is an implication of every contemplative tradition, and contemplation is an expression of universal Wisdom, even when it is committed to a particular faith tradition.
2. Wisdom Christianity demands of us an experiential Christianity. This is one attraction of many to Buddhism: it is very practical and applicable. Persons are gathering in churches and homes now, seeking an experiential encounter with the Triune Deity, and turning away from many of the traditional churches and larger communions. Speaking creeds and dogma will not work, if creeds and teaching are not directed in a practical way to everyday life. Persons seeking Christ do not look to be entangled in churchy politics of conflict and factiousness. They are seeking what we read of in Roman 14.17: right and fair relations, peace, joy. Wisdom presents the teachings and practices of Christianity in a practical, edifying, and unifying manner. It answers the questions, “What does all this have to do with my life? With the life of all peoples? With our planet? With the cosmos?”
3. The Church is challenged to illumine the union of Jesus Christ with the wisdom traditions of the world. The early Church Fathers spoke of the logoi spermatikoi; that is, the seeds of Christ, the Word, or the rays of the Sun of Truth. These “seeds” appear in other religion and philosophy as impartial reflections of Jesus Christ, this theory maintains. Augustine (A.D. 354 - 430) was converted in 386, and his earlier writings, such as Contra Academicos, De Beata Vita, and De Ordine, have a strong Neo-Platonic flavor, which carried on into his later writings. He wrote to “let every good and true Christian understand that truth, wherever he finds it, belongs to his Lord" (Epistle, 166) (J. W. Jepson, “The Influence of Greek Philosophy on the Development of Christian Theology”).
For the contemplative Christian, who is receptive to the witness of Christ in all wisdom traditions, there remains the affirmation of the specific and special revelation of Christ in Jesus of Nazareth. St. Paul wrote to the Galatians, “In the same way we also, when we were [spiritual, religious] children, were enslaved to the elementary principles [or spiritual powers] of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (4.3-5, ESV).
Certainly, it seems clear that the evidence of Christ, practically, will include a likeness to Christ Jesus in attitude and action. And, what shall we say of the man or woman outside the Christian tradition who manifests the Fruit of the Spirit? Shall we not say that Christ has touched his or her life? Shall we not say that she or he manifests more of Christ than many who have been baptized and confessed Christ by name and exists in the Christian tradition?
We Christian contemplatives must live the challenge of loving Christ and affirming the fullness of the deity revealed in Christ Jesus. However, we do not have to exclude all other persons who are not in the historical Church by explicit Christian confession. No finite creature, anyway, has the insight and wisdom to decide to do such a thing. There is a depth to the Word that flows under the surface of religion. There is a depth to the Word that made possible the Incarnation. The Incarnation does not annul that depth, rather, the Incarnation manifests and witnesses to that depth.
We can love Jesus Christ, be committed to the Church, and love the ways Christ has spoken and does speak in the Truth of the traditions and peoples of the world. To be a Christian does not mean to serve a tribal Christ, nor does it mean to be a bigot, hotshot religionist who delves into mysteries that are not meant to be understand by us. To follow Christ is to follow Truth wherever it is found and to honor the Christ that in both general and special revelation is both cosmic and earthly in embrace.
Reflections
What encouraged you in the writing today? Explain.
What did you not agree with in the writing today? Explain.
Spiritual Exercise
Make sure you have a sacred space in your home for time alone in prayer and spiritual reading.
Make sure you are in a covenant group. For more information on covenant groups, write me at the address below.
Consider, if you are not already, sponsoring a child through Compassion International. You can find out more about Compassion International by going to www.compassion.net to read about sponsoring, in the name of Jesus, children living in poverty. Thanks! Brian K. Wilcox
http://www.bedegriffiths.com/wisdom-christianity.html
Brian’s book An Ache For Union can be purchased at major book dealers.
To contact Brian, write briankwilcox@comcast.net .
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