There's historical context for this...

Here's the only version I've been able to find of Ha Kirishitan (破切支丹, "Crush Christianity"), written in 1642 by Suzuki Shōsan (鈴木正三), which was written during the time when the proselytizing of Christianity created problems for Japan.

I'd like to be able to read it someday. From what little I've read of excerpts of translations on-line, 鈴木 anticipated many of the arguments against Christian apologists made by later. Thankfully, 鈴木 put some furigana in the text, but as the text goes on, I think it becomes less and less helpful.

But I can't get past the first sentence. I can make out "でうす,” (Deus) which was how 鈴木 referred to the Christian god.

There's historical context as to why a Zen monk came to write such a polemic, but I don't feel like going into it at the moment...

The Asian Version of the Dharma Money Issue

I was recently asked by a Christian person whether or not there was a similarity between asking for indulgences that the Catholic Church of yore used to have and, in Asia, the practice of offering money in Buddhist temples followed by a chant/offering of incense.  The Christian used to think it was similar.

I was at a loss for words temporarily (other than to say, well, you'd have to deeply understand karma and interdependence), mostly because the topic at hand wasn't the topic of this blog post; it was a tangent to a more important topic.  I wasn't exactly satisfied with my answer...of course a better answer came to me later:

• When one offers money at a temple, like everything else at a temple, one just does it, and does it wholeheartedly.  In effect, the act of offering at a temple is the offering of one's own life itself at that moment.  In that sense, it's more like the Christian communion in reverse than the other way around.

• Typically, though people often come to the temple indeed for some reason such as a sick relative, what they say isn't an "I'd like to get something" prayer of course; it's an invocation of the form "Homage to X."  It's declarative.

• I was however not off-base with the words karma and interdependence.  Most Buddhist chants when they aren't declarative, are in the 2nd person, but the identity of the 2nd person is not of course, separate from the chanter.  In Buddhism, of course, there is the principle of no-self.  So who is invoking what to whom, or who could possibly be trying to get something from whom?

• Of course, there is the money for services thing, but that's not wholly unreasonable, I'd point out. Temples have to operate on budgets too.

There, that's better.

One more comment I don't want to let pass...

I like Justin Whitaker's on-line writing.  He and I would probably get on quite well in person.  However,  one of my comments didn't make it through Justin's filter on the comments for his blog entry "Are Mormons Christians?"  I'm not entirely sure why; I was dead serious compassionate when I wrote it.

Justin wrote:

The split, however, between Mormons and (other) Christians comes in the understanding of the Trinity as three separate beings in a unified purpose rather than one God in three Persons: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Christian belief in the unity of the Trinity, or “triune God” is found most clearly in the Nicene Creed, or Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, completed in 381 CE. Before that, and after, there were other followers of Jesus who held different conceptions of both Jesus’ divinity/humanity and the nature of God. The List of Christian Heresies compiled over at wikipedia is telling of the amazing diversity of beliefs within the community of people claiming to follow Jesus. That diversity should tell us something: that the ascendance of this one particular way of understanding the nature of Jesus and his teachings was one historical contingency among many...

But perhaps, in this age of increasing cosmopolitanism, the best thing to do is simply ask: Dude, are you a Christian? Yes? Okay then. Cool. Let’s talk about what that means to you and I can share what that means to me. Allowing others to identify themselves empowers them. Accepting their choices opens the door to dialogue, where both parties can learn and grow.

"Allowing others to identify themselves empowers them.  Accepting their choices opens the door to dialogue, where both parties can learn and grow."

I am an ex-Christian.  I'm an ex-Catholic, in particular, though for a spell I tried liberal Presbyterianism. Christians who follow the Nicene and other creeds are very particular about how they self-identify. For them, "Christian" has meant a very particular thing. To admit Mormons as Christians would be to challenge Christians' own self-identity.  It's sort of disrespectful to them not to acknowledge that.

Moreover, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints carries rather unique baggage for traditional Christians; it's absurd to downplay that.  The facts of Joseph Smith's life are well-documented, unlike, say Jesus (if he even existed.)  It's easy to doubt much of the claims of the Mormon faith. (And don't get me wrong, the Mormons I've met are by and large some of the nicest people I've met, unless the subject of discussion turns to religion or politics.) 

So given that it's so easy to doubt the Mormon faith, putting that in an equivalence class, "spiritually" with the mainstream -and yes, even fundamentalist Christian religion is going to be a non-starter for the majority of Christians.

It will call into question their faith, and will, in so doing, be disempowering to them.

Really, I'd be insulting Asians or African-descended folks or others if I claimed to be anything but of European descent (though way back when, no doubt, all "races" were one.)

Moreover, I agree with fundamentalist Christians that Christianity is fundamentally different from other religions.  All paths do not lead to the same place, and if I'm wrong and go to hell, I hope I can do some good there.

I think this Mormon versus Christian thing is a really trivial issue, given the issues we face right now.  As an ex-Christian, can't we just recommend that Christians who say that Mormons aren't Christians and Mormons who say they are  to agree to politely disagree on this point?

Christian Apologetics and the need to turn it down a notch

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Evangelical Churches and ...Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is somewhat related to Buddhist practice because in certain forms of CBT the client is encouraged to be mindful of harmful thoughts and activities, and to replace them with better ones.

So it was kind of strange to read this article in the NY Times about evangelical churches and CBT like therapy...

One way to see this is that the books [evangelicals use] teaching someone how to pray read a lot like cognitive behavior therapy manuals. For instance, the Rev. Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Life,” one of the best-selling books of all time, teaches you to identify your self-critical, self-demeaning thoughts, to interrupt them and recognize them as mistaken, and to replace them with different thoughts. Cognitive-behavioral therapists often ask their patients to write down the critical, debilitating thoughts that make their lives so difficult, and to practice using different ones. That is more or less what Warren invites readers to do. He spells out thoughts he thinks his readers have but don’t want, and then asks them to consider themselves from God’s point of view: not as the inadequate people they feel themselves to be, but as loved, as relevant and as having purpose. Does it work? In my own research, the more people affirmed, “I feel God’s love for me, directly,” the less stressed and lonely they were and the fewer psychiatric symptoms they reported.

Because these churches seem to market themselves like Coca Cola it seems they latch on to any trend and "Jesusify" it.

Obviously the NY Times author is rather shallow not to have seen this.  Obviously too the folks who need this "evangelical CBT" are themselves hurting. 

While a good part of me wants them to see the "real" ways in which suffering is transcended (not to mention a better way to deal with theodicy), it's good that they're being helped at all, to the extent they are.  

I just wish they were helped more to transcend the whole strange evangelical thing.

Go read this post by Tom Armstrong

Here, wherein he notes a big distortion of Jack Kornfield in the Sacramento "Loaves and Fishes" "homeless ministry" "newsletter"  wherein they make a plea for money disturbingly reminiscent (to me at any rate) of the pitches of "missionaries" to Native Americans and Alaskan Indigenous People for money from the middle classes using  metaphors akin to the "foreign" "noble savage."

The contrast between the dana requested by these missionaries and that of the Forest Monks is telling: clearly the "Christians"  wish to portray the ultimate recipients of the dana as separate from them as well as the original givers.

Tom doesn't quite say those things; what he says is perhaps more significant than anything I could say here.

Yeah, I can't help think "My religion's better than yours"

And so there's so little merit in this post perhaps you should just skip it, unless perhaps, you're an evangelical who inadvertently happened to get to this blog by some quirky twist of fate.   Regardless, P.Z. Myers today brings to my attention a survey of conservative Evangelical pastors whose results are nothing less than shocking.  From the original link...

• Of the one thousand fifty (1,050 or 100%) pastors we surveyed, every one of them had a close associate or seminary buddy who had left the ministry because of burnout, conflict in their church, or from a moral failure.

• Nine hundred forty-eight (948 or 90%) of pastors stated they are frequently fatigued, and worn out on a weekly and even daily basis (did not say burned out).

• Nine hundred thirty-five, (935 or 89%) of the pastors we surveyed also considered leaving the ministry at one time. Five hundred ninety, (590 or 57%) said they would leave if they had a better place to go—including secular work.

• Eighty- one percent (81%) of the pastors said there was no regular discipleship program or effective effort of mentoring their people or teaching them to deepen their Christian formation at their church (remember these are the Reformed and Evangelical—not the mainline pastors!). (This is Key)

• Eight hundred eight (808 or 77%) of the pastors we surveyed felt they did not have a good marriage!

• Seven hundred ninety (790 or 75%) of the pastors we surveyed felt they were unqualified and/or poorly trained by their seminaries to lead and manage the church or to counsel others. This left them disheartened in their ability to pastor.

• Seven hundred fifty-six (756 or 72%) of the pastors we surveyed stated that they only studied the Bible when they were preparing for sermons or lessons. This left only 38% who read the Bible for devotions and personal study.

• Eight hundred two (802 or 71%) of pastors stated they were burned out, and they battle depression beyond fatigue on a weekly and even a daily basis.

• Three hundred ninety-nine (399 or 38%) of pastors said they were divorced or currently in a divorce process.

• Three hundred fifteen (315 or 30%) said they had either been in an ongoing affair or a one-time sexual encounter with a parishioner.

• Two hundred seventy (270 or 26%) of pastors said they regularly had personal devotions and felt they were adequately fed spirituality. (This is Key).

• Two hundred forty-one (241 or 23%) of the pastors we surveyed said they felt happy and content on a regular basis with who they are in Christ, in their church, and in their home!

• Of the pastors surveyed, they stated that a mean (average) of only 25% of their church’s membership attended a Bible Study or small group at least twice a month. The range was 11% to a max of 40%, a median (the center figure of the table) of 18% and a mode (most frequent number) of 20%. This means over 75% of the people who are at a “good” evangelical church do not go to a Bible Study or small group (that is not just a book or curriculum study, but where the Bible is opened and read, as well as studied), (This is Key). (I suspect these numbers are actually lower in most evangelical and Reformed churches because the pastors that come to conferences tend to be more interested in the teaching and care of their flock than those who usually do not attend.)

Here is research that we distilled from Barna, Focus on the Family, and Fuller Seminary, all of which backed up our findings, and additional information from reviewing others’ research:

• Fifteen hundred pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout, or contention in their churches.

• Fifty percent of pastors' marriages will end in divorce.

• Eighty percent of pastors feel unqualified and discouraged in their role as pastor.

• Fifty percent of pastors are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way of making a living.

• Eighty percent of seminary and Bible school graduates who enter the ministry will leave the ministry within the first five years.

• Seventy percent of pastors constantly fight depression.

• Almost forty percent polled said they have had an extra-marital affair since beginning their ministry.

• Seventy percent said the only time they spend studying the Word is when they are preparing their sermons (This is Key). 

Now, to be honest, I really did not think, "My religion's better than yours" per se; I did think, "Geez, I would love to do a study on Buddhist teachers and practitioners; I bet  we generally would score better."

And I think that would be true.  I would think the "Read the bible as a magic formula to banish the blues" almost certainly does nothing once its placebo effect wears off, whereas we do have some tools in our arsenal that have been clinically tested.  But to be honest, I also feel for these people, who are caught in a hell of a cognitive dissonance.

"Faith is the blunt instrument used to crush doubt."

So says P.Z. Myers, in his lambasting of the "On Faith"  folks at the Washington Post commenting on this report on "non-believing clergy."  As a Rinzai guy, let me add in my 2 cents...

One pastor in the report recounted:

“My first few years of doing this were wracked with, ‘God, should I be doing this? Is this ---? Am I being ---? Am I posing? Am I being less than authentic; less than honest?’ … And, I really wrestled with it and to some degree still. But not nearly as much.”
“I will be the first to admit that I see Christianity as a means to an end, not as an end unto itself. And the end is very basically, a kind of liberal, democratic values. So I will use Christianity sometimes against itself to try to lead people to that point. But there’s so much within the Christian tradition that itself influenced the development of those liberal values, you know. They didn’t arise through secular means. They came out of some religious stuff. …I could couch all that in very secular language. If we were in a college setting, I would. But we’re in a religious setting, so I use the religious language.”

Myers says about this report by Daniel C. Dennett:

Unfortunately, the WaPo couldn't just put up Dennett's bombshell on its own: they've surrounded it with a confusing cloud of commissioned articles to answer the question, "What should pastors do if they no longer hold the defining beliefs of their denomination?". Most of them are believers, except for Rebecca Goldstein and Tom Flynn and Herb Silverman, and most of them are making excuses. You just knew that someone would make the inane argument that "doubt is part of faith." No, it's not. Faith is the blunt instrument used to crush doubt.

 Of course the WaPo panelists present a "conventional" view of the faith/doubt issue

à la Larry King, and for "inclusive" purposes there's that guy Deepak Chopra...

Q:What should pastors do if they no longer hold the defining beliefs of their denomination? Do clergy have a moral obligation not to challenge the sincere faith of their parishioners? If this requires them to dissemble from the pulpit, doesn't this create systematic hypocrisy at the center of religion? What would you want your pastor to do with his or her personal doubts or loss of faith?

Religion poses many tests of conscience. This isn't a drawback. If anything, it's one of the reasons organized faith exists. But of course there are extremes of opinion about how acceptable it is to disagree with church doctrine. My insistence that religion must teach people how to think about God for themselves would be seen as extreme -- or even heretical -- by those at the opposite end of the spectrum. We've witnessed the tide of tolerance ebb and flow in the Catholic Church. We've seen gay Episcopal bishops advance in a liberal climate only to cause a schism among conservatives.

 Needless to say neither the WaPo panelists, especially Chopra, nor P.Z. Myers  reflect the views of Zen Buddhists, which is the point of this post. Great doubt and great faith must coexist for great enlightenment.  You have to doubt the faith, you have to have faith that the doubt will lead somewhere.  The question is key.

With this viewpoint, you simply cannot lose your faith, nor can you blindly believe. Dammit, that guy long ago said "Rely on yourself.  Do not rely on others.  Rely on the Dharma.  Do not rely on others."  Which of course leads to the questions: What is the Dharma? What am I? Am I different than the Dharma? Am I the same? Is this gibberish?

But, like all phenomena, Buddha nature is "stuck" to it - permeated through it like a dye on a fabric, as some teacher said.  Even if I accept Jesus as my personal Lord and what not, or even if I picket all religious institutions or lack thereof, or even if I just watch TV for weeks on end munching on potato chips, it's all there.  Now there's consequences, of course, to all behaviors, including behaviors of pretending to believe, which is recommended by certain folks ("Fake it 'til you make it" is a slogan in certain religious quarters).

But there is no escape.  The authentic "position" or "stance" in which one carriers out one's life, and the emptiness of all of it (including emptiness of emptiness) remains the same.  You cannot not be who you are, even if you are pretending to be something.  The "essence" of Sartre's waiter performing as a waiter did not annihilate the emptiness of the phenomena of the waiter-in-life.

So, basically, we practicing Zen Buddhists don't have the problem alluded to in the report or panel responses or Myer's response.  And when Chopra says

My insistence that religion must teach people how to think about God for themselves would be seen as extreme -- or even heretical -- by those at the opposite end of the spectrum.

 and when Myers says

Faith is the blunt instrument used to crush doubt.

I have to call them both out.  Great doubt and great faith must coexist, and nobody can tell you how to do that or not to do that, and all the rumination, pretense, or lack thereof simply cannot change the nature of our existence in this life.  Great doubt and great faith are natural functions and conditions of our existence, and to privilege one against the other is to "oppose our reality."

And that's my 2 cents.