Buddhist-Christian Dual Belonging

Affirmations, Objections, Explorations

Gavin D'Costa, Ross Thompson, Gavin D'Costa, Ross Thompson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781134801459
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Buddhism

A growing number of people describe themselves as both Buddhist and Christian; but does such a self-description really make sense? Many people involved in inter-faith dialogue argue that this dialogue leads to a mutually transformative process, but what if the transformation reaches the point where the Buddhist or Christian becomes a Buddhist Christian? Does this represent a fulfilment of or the undermining of dialogue? Exploring the growing phenomenon of Buddhist-Christian dual belonging, a wide variety of authors including advocates, sympathisers and opponents from both faiths, focus on three key questions: Can Christian and Buddhist accounts and practices of salvation or liberation be reconciled? Are Christian theism and Buddhist non-theism compatible? And does dual belonging inevitably distort the essence of these faiths, or merely change its cultural expression? Clarifying different ways of justifying dual belonging, contributors offer criticisms of dual belonging from different religious perspectives (Theravada Buddhist, Evangelical Reformed and Roman Catholic) and from different methodological approaches. Four chapters then carry the discussion forward suggesting ways in which dual belonging might make sense from Catholic, Theravada Buddhist, Pure-land Buddhist and Anglican perspectives. The conclusion clarifies the main challenges emerging for dual belongers, and the implications for interreligious dialogue.

PART I

Affirmations

Chapter 1

Chasing Two Rabbits? Dual Belonging and the Question of Salvation/Liberation

Rose Drew

My research on dual belonging has focused on Buddhist-Christian dual belongers living in the West who were raised in a Christian context and came to Buddhism later. When I speak of ‘dual belonging’, I do not have in mind the more common ‘softer’ forms of multireligious identity, in which, although individuals are influenced by more than one religious tradition, there is a clear primary identification with just one; or else no particular identification with any tradition despite the selection of ideas or practices from several. Rather, I understand ‘dual belongers’ as people who are firmly rooted in – and identify themselves as committed adherents of – two traditions. In the most unequivocal cases of Buddhist-Christian dual belonging, people practise within both traditions, belong to a Buddhist and a Christian community, identify themselves as fully Buddhist and fully Christian and have made a formal commitment to both traditions (usually through baptism and the taking of the three refuges).

How justified such people are in regarding themselves as both Buddhist and Christian has been a question central to my research. My monograph, Buddhist and Christian? An Exploration of Dual Belonging,¹ engages the theological issues from Buddhist and Christian perspectives, drawing on interviews with highly reflective individuals who have publicly identified themselves with both traditions: Sr Ruth Furneaux, an Anglican eremitic nun and Zen and Saṭipatthāna (mindfulnesss) practitioner; Sallie King, an American Vippassana (insight), formerly Zen, Buddhist practitioner and Quaker; Roger Corless, a Roman Catholic and Tibetan Buddhist in the Gelugpa tradition; Ruben Habito, a Roman Catholic (former priest) and Zen Master in the Sanbo Kyodan lineage; Maria Reis Habito, a Roman Catholic, Zen practitioner and disciple of a Taiwanese Buddhist Master; and John Keenan, an Episcopal, formerly Catholic, priest who sees himself as philosophically Buddhist and interprets the Gospels and Christian theology through the lens of Mahayana philosophy. My focus has been on how reflective individuals such as these combine the thought and practice of Buddhism and Christianity.

The challenge they face is twofold: on the one hand, reflective dual belongers must find satisfactory ways of integrating the Christian way of thinking and being and the Buddhist way of thinking and being. To achieve logical, psychological and spiritual coherence they must work out how the insights of these two traditions fit into a single coherent picture. On the other hand, they must at the same time ensure that their thought and practice is faithful to both Christianity and Buddhism, through demonstrable continuity with central strands of both. This latter requirement means the differences between these traditions cannot be ignored or eradicated.

In what follows, I will consider how this twofold challenge is grappled with when it comes to questions about the goal of the spiritual life and, relatedly, whether practising both traditions can be legitimately understood as the following of a single spiritual path.² By ‘single path’ here, I mean one which is recognisably Christian and Buddhist and not some third thing. On the face of it, it would seem that Buddhists and Christians have different spiritual goals: Buddhists aiming for the bliss of nirvana, and Christians for communion with God and the saints in heaven. If this is the case, then what are dual belongers aiming for? Is the Buddhist-Christian attempting, in vain, to follow two paths which lead in different directions? There is a Japanese saying which nicely encapsulates the worry: ‘Those who chase after two rabbits will catch neither’. If dual belongers are pulled in different directions by their religious commitments, this may render them incapable of fully committing to either tradition and, therefore, of fully realising the insights of either. Perhaps Catherine Cornille, a sceptic about the possibility of authentic dual belonging, is right that, in the final analysis, ‘[t]he problem with multiple religious belonging is … not merely one of conflicting truth claims or theological incompatibility, but rather one of arrested spiritual development and growth’.³ So, are Buddhist-Christians chasing two rabbits?

Two Distinct Aims?

The hypothesis that Buddhists and Christians, respectively, pursue different objectives, in this sense following different paths to different destinations, has been argued for by a number of contemporary thinkers, most notably S. Mark Heim (from a Christian perspective) and John Makransky (from a Mahāyāna Buddhist perspective). Heim offers a theory of multiple religious ends which depends on the notion that ultimate reality is complex and, therefore, capable of supporting this diversity of ends. Christians hope for communion with God, says Heim, and this end is attainable; Buddhists hope for nirvana and this end is also attainable.⁴ But, as final states, these goals ‘exclude each other’.⁵ One’s religious thought and practice can condition one for the achievement of one of these ends, thinks Heim, but not both. Moreover, these distinct ends are not equal, as far as Heim is concerned. The Christian end is superior to all others; the Buddhist end, while achievable, is a lesser aim which is not completely salvific.⁶

Makransky agrees with Heim that ultimate reality can support a variety of aims and that the Buddhist and Christian aims differ, but Makransky argues from his Mahayana Buddhist perspective that it is the Buddhist end which is superior: only this end is completely liberative.⁷ And on this basis, he takes Buddhist practice to be soteriologically superior to Christian practice. So, both Heim and Makransky see Buddhists and Christians as pursuing different goals and each takes the other’s goal to be inferior to his own.

Dual belongers hope to be faithful Buddhists and faithful Christians. What they seem to require, then, is a way of endorsing both the Christian and the Buddhist claim to be concerned with the ultimate spiritual goal. Is there any sense, then, in which Buddhism and Christianity can be legitimately understood as having a single aim?

A Single Aim?

The notion that different religious traditions are orientated towards a single goal has been argued for most famously by John Hick. According to Hick, both Buddhism and Christianity are concerned to bring about a transformation from self-centred existence to an existence centred in ultimate reality, however conceived, and, in this sense, these traditions indeed share an ultimate goal. ‘[T]he generic concept of salvation/liberation, which takes a different specific form in each of the great traditions’, says Hick, ‘is that of the transformation of human existence from self-centredness to Reality-centredness’.⁸ Elaborating, he explains that in Theravāda Buddhism this transformation is conceived of as ‘the realization of the non-substantiality of the self, bringing a loss of the ego point of view and a nirvanic transformation of awareness’. In Mahāyāna Buddhism ‘it’s likewise a transcendence of the ego point of view, culminating in the discovery that the process of samsara (ordinary human life with all its pain and suffering), when experienced completely unselfcentredly, is identical with nirvana’.⁹ Turning to Christianity, Hick draws on St Augustine’s language to describe how this transformation is conceived – as one ‘from a heart curved in upon itself to a heart open and responsive to the love of God’.¹⁰

Hick does not deny that, in the Christian case, the doctrine of the atonement has meant that this salvific transformation has often been presented, not so much as salvation itself, but as a result of salvation – a salvation constituted by Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.¹¹ He argues, however, that this is problematic, not least because the notion that Jesus’ death was necessary in order to atone for our sins is unsupported by the portrayal of Jesus in the synoptic gospels. ‘Virtually the whole weight of Jesus’ message’, says Hick, lies ‘in the summons to his hearers to open their hearts now to God’s kingdom, or rule, and to live consciously in God’s presence as instruments of the divine purpose on earth’. There is, he insists, ‘no suggestion in Jesus’ recorded teaching that the heavenly Father’s loving acceptance of those to whom he was speaking was conditional upon his own future death’.¹² He points out, moreover, that whereas the various forms of the atonement doctrine are theoretical constructs, ‘the new reconciled relationship to God and the new quality of life arising within that relationship are facts of experience and observation’.¹³ The reality of Christian salvation is ‘no juridical abstraction’, but rather ‘an actual and concrete change from sinful self-centredness to self-giving love in response to the divine grace’.¹⁴

Hick is not alone in rejecting the idea that Jesus’ death and resurrection constitute salvation, though the issue is a hotly contested one. Constitutive Christologies tend to imply Christian superiority. Growing awareness of religious diversity has led some Christians to feel increasing dissatisfaction with many traditional expressions of Jesus’ role in salvation for this reason. Roman Catholic Roger Haight, for example, suggests instead that salvation be seen as demonstrated or illustrated by Jesus’ life and death.¹⁵ Such interpretations are controversial. Indeed Haight’s ‘Spirit Christology’ has been explicitly condemned as heretical by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. But we need not conclude, therefore, that such interpretations are unavailable to dual belongers – or at least to Roman Catholic ones – unless we assume that alignment with the current Vatican on all theological matters is essential to authentic Roman Catholic belonging. Here, let us simply note that imposing such a criterion might very well risk denying the majority of single belonging, self-identified Roman Catholics their claims to belong. A more nuanced approach would, I suggest, be to see Roman Catholic identity as something which is negotiated and renegotiated in a continuous conversation between the Vatican and all those who self-identify as Roman Catholic. And given that this conversation is always in progress, the boundaries of Catholic identity are inevitably fuzzier and more accommodating of a diversity of views than are the boundaries of orthodoxy as inscribed in current Vatican pronouncements.¹⁶

Evidence of the idea that there is one salvific/liberative transformation which both Christianity and Buddhism foster, but conceptualise differently, could be found in the thought of most, if not all, of my interviewees. Habito, for example, suggests that both traditions ‘function in a way that liberates human beings from whatever leads to their dissatisfaction and selfishness and … to the suffering of one’s self and others, [and] towards a life of liberation and of compassion’,¹⁷ and Reis Habito reflects that she probably thinks in terms of one transformation that is expressed differently in each tradition, a crucial aspect of which, in both expressions, is getting rid of selfishness.¹⁸

We must, however, test this understanding of Buddhism and Christianity as fostering a single salvation/liberation. Define any two things generally enough and one can say that they are the same, so let’s consider some of the specific features of the salvific/liberative transformation as described in these two traditions, so as to be sure that this interpretation really provides the coherence the Buddhist-Christian needs. We will start with the question of what we are supposed to be being saved or liberated from.

1. What Are We Being Saved/Liberated From?

From a Buddhist perspective, our predicament is one of dukkha – of suffering, dissatisfaction, disease. We fail to see that nothing within samsara – including one’s own self – is substantial and enduring. And so we grasp at – and become attached to – what is fluctuating, transitory, insubstantial. And this grasping and attachment causes us to suffer and, ultimately, keeps us tethered to the cycle of rebirth and re-death. The problem, from this perspective, is one of ignorance or mis-knowing (in Sanskrit: avidyā, which Makransky defines, from his Mahāyāna perspective as ‘the deluded consciousness that reifies and grasps to a substantial sense of self and world, giving rise to grasping, fear and consequent suffering’¹⁹). As Makransky explains, Mahāyāna Buddhists construe our bondage as the result of ‘patterns of thought that construct, reify and cling to an autonomou...