The debate between Buddhists and Christians is revealing an even broader fissure over what it means to engage in ecumenism, or, interfaith dialogue. Everyone wants to have dialogue—as long as truth claims are excluded. Here is what the Buddhist blogger over at about.com had to say about the issue:
So to say that Christianity is superior to Buddhism because it offers redemption is a bit like saying birds are superior to horses because they have feathers. It’s nonsensical.
I say with all kindness to Christians that you don’t help yourselves by claiming an exclusive right to promote your religion over others. In my experience, such proselytizing alienates at least as many people as it persuades. This is especially true if you have to tell lies about other religions to prove that yours is superior.
Wait a second. Whoever said that Christians have an exclusive right to promote their religion—over others? Not Brit Hume. Nor the Family Research Council in their missive on the issue. While some conservative Christians may go so far as to explicitly argue that this a Christian nation—no one is saying that Buddhists don’t have the freedom to promote their views and win converts. However, it seems that the blogger, Barbara O’Brien, doesn’t even accept the idea of evangelicalism—or as she calls it, proselytizing. And what is this talk of superiority? What O’Brien refers to as ‘superiority’ is really a claim to possess the truth. And the problem with that is….?
This whole superiority theme is picked up by another religious blogger over at USA Today, who says that the debate really is nothing more a playground fight who has the ‘bigger, badder god.’ Here is what the author envisions as acceptable interfaith dialogue:
It’s one thing, however to testify to the peace, wisdom, joy and comfort your particular faith has given you. It’s another to trash talk others’ path to spiritual truth and a life of goodness beyond the so-called good life.
So we can compare notes on peace, wisdom, joy, and comfort. But to get into the truth about who God is or how He saves us, that’s trash-talking! Of course, neither Hume nor the Family Research Council were speaking derogatively about Buddhism. All they did is made value judgments about which offered true redemption—and that, if nothing else is, most certainly a mortal sin in the eyes of our multicultural elites.
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