"Don Winterstein" <dfwinterstein@msn.com> writes:
>The "holy book" is an important witness, but so is history. The contrast
>between the origin of Islam and the origin of Christianity is great.
ED: The "origins" of each remain disputed. As folks who have spent their
lives studying the issues can attest. Take Dr. James D. G. Dunn, who was
a fairly conservative Evangelical to start with, and then became a
moderate Evangelical and may still consider himself one, but admits in his
latest momumental work (JESUS REMEMBERED) that he is unable to prove a lot
that conservative Christians believe they can prove from the New Testament
Gospels. I have a list of Dunn's doubts if you'd like to see them, from
his last two books. Or take Dr. Robert M. Price, former Evangelical
inerrantist hellfire and brimstone breathing Baptist, but after being
mentored by the inerrantist Clark Pinnock (member of the Soceity of
Evangelical Christians), and after obtaining two Ph.D.s in New Testament,
one in theology and another in N. T. history, and after reading enough
books such that if the walls of his house fell down, his books alone would
keep it standing, and after seeking to become the best Christian apologist
he could, he grew to have his doubts too. More than Dunn, as you can read
in Dr. Price's online book, BEYOND BORN AGAIN, and in his very latest
work, that expresses even more doubts, THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING SON OF
GOD. I would of course add my own name and those fo the three dozen
folks in LEAVING THE FOLD as well, or all the folks whose online
testimonies are linked at Steve Locks' website, "Leaving Christianity."
Or take the professors who are members of the Jesus Seminar, many of whom
began their religious journeys at fundamentalist or evangelical
institutions, and by wanting to prove the truth of Christian doctrines to
the world, only to later grow to realize that there were more disputes
than certainties in the Gospel stories.
---------------
>In the case of Islam, a man later known for his military campaigns got
>messages in trances. Islam owed much of its success right from the start
>to military prowess.
ED: All of the MAJOR world religions owe much of their widespread
advancement and growth to tying their ponies to Ceasar's chariot (and vice
versa). Church and State together employed both the sword, and the
carrot. I ecall reading that Constantine or some other Roman Christian
emperors offered many converts a piece of gold and new robe. Not to
mention the way Constantine and other Christian emperors after him
lavished the wealth of Rome on the building of Christian churches and
complexes.
---------------
>In the case of Christianity, a miracle worker of exemplary personal
>behavior was minimally involved with propagating his message outside his
>own community, but he so profoundly affected his unexceptional companions
>that they set his message well on the road to peaceful world
>domination despite a hostile environment.
ED: It remains questionable exactly how "hostile" the environment was for
the spread of Christianity. It was during an age when superstitions,
miracle tales, tales of mysterious ascensions to heaven, tales of sons of
god, and interest in the next life had increased greatly when compared
with the earlier history of the Roman Empire which was more involved with
armed expansion and practical affairs of state. It was an age of mystery
religions. For the first hundred years of Christianity there were still
more Mithraists than Christians, but Christianity was more egalitarian
inviting everyone to join. Paul's home town, Tarsus, was named after a
dying and rising god whose celebrations filled the streets during festival
times. And Christianity was like paganism with more personal promises
and more severe threats as well, for "not" believing. It was also an age
of great roads that stretched throughout the Roman Empire, and an age of
just a few major languages in that Empire, Greek being one of them, so
many could be reached and understand. It was an age where there were
synagoges throughout the Roman Empire, jumping off places for Paul and
other Christians to stay at least briefly, and preach, and gather in a few
souls to found their own separate Christian congregation. Taking all of
that into consideration, Christianity was more of what people wanted in
the world at that time and place.
By the way, before Jesus was ever born, the Roman Emperor, Augustus, was
believed by many to have been "born of a virgin," was called "son of God,"
was said to have had a "gospel," and, "ascended into heaven" after he
died. These ancient tales about Augustus are commonly known by Bible
scholars to have preceded the writing of the Gospels.
------------------
>
>The New Testament and the peaceful historical impact of Jesus' message
>are likely to constitute as much objective proof of a religion's validity
>as we're ever going to get.
ED: Peaceful? When Christianity was in control there apparently were
riots at one time or another in every major city of the Roman Empire,
Christian disputing with Christian, over religion. More Christians killed
Christians after Constantine become the first Roman Christian Emperor,
than during all of the previous persecutions of Christians under the
earlier Roman Emperors. (Please don't be shy about asking me for
references.)
------------------
>The NT after all, in contrast to the Qur'an, contains largely
>compatible records of events from multiple witnesses.
ED: Mark and Matthew are unsigned anonymous Gospels. Even later church
tradition does not say that Mark was a witness, nor Matthew. Luke admits
right at the start that what follows is based on stories he had collected,
again, not an eyewitness. The fourth Gospel, called, John, says in the
final chapter that it was written by the "beloved apostle," unnamed, while
the chapter right before the last chapter has its own ending, a prior
ending before the last chapter was added. At the end of the penultimate
chapter of the fourth Gospel, it does not say the "beloved apostle" wrote
it, but an unnamed, "we," wrote it. Again, anonymous. The Gospel of John
never says that "John" wrote it, nor does it say that John was "the
beloved apostle." Moreover, over 90% of Mark is reproduced in Matthew
and Luke. And Matthew and Luke also share a substantial amount of
material between themselves as well. So it's not "multiple witnesses."
It's "redactors" of verbal and written tales about Jesus.
----------------------
>As objective proofs go, it's still not terribly compelling.
>Nevertheless, as Howard Van Till was arguing earlier, it is possible to
>come up with objective criteria for evaluating religions. Just don't
>expect them ever to be definitive. The power of religion resides not in
>objective but in subjective proofs.
ED: The "power of religion" is quite varied from snake handlers and hell
raisers to speechless monks and quiet Quakers. In fact, I recently heard
from a snake handler via email, since I'd written something about them at
my website. He informed me that not only do they take the "signs" in the
last chapter of Mark seriously, but also take the verses in Paul's
epistles about "sharing a holy kiss" seriously. I had asked in an
earlier aritcle why fundamentalists didn't form any church of the "holy
kiss" when there were denominations based on less often repeated commands,
like "Foot-Washing Baptists" and "Snake Handlers." Well, it appears some
do take all of the "holy kiss" verses seriously! Though he admitted they
kissed on the neck, or if it was your sister, on the cheek.
--------------------
>Religions originating since NT times have acknowledged Jesus' virtue
>(e.g., Islam and LDS),
ED: Smart move. Christians acknowledged the virtue of famous holy Jews in
the Old Testament as well. Smart move when your religion claims to
supercede the ones that had gone on before it.
---------------------
> and even modern Buddhists and Hindus are often forced to take a stand on
>Jesus. (A Hindu priest on Bali once told me that the Hindu trinity was
>theologically equivalent to the Christian Trinity, and all the other
>Hindu deities only represented different aspects of the one God.)
ED: Speaking of stories that illustrate meeting points between East and
West, I have a few to share:
C. S. Lewis's long time friend and fellow Christian convert at Oxford,
Bede Griffiths http://www.bedegriffiths.com/bio.htm, founded a
Christian-Hindu ashram in India and dialogued and meditated with Hindus
and later defended misunderstandings and pigeon-holing of their beliefs
and practices, even against Catholic statements warning people away from
eastern religions. For instance when the Catholic CDF (Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith) warned that certain forms of Eastern prayer
tempt people to try to overcome the necessary distance between creator and
creature, God and human kind, Griffiths responded in the National Catholic
Reporter, "As if God in Christ had not already overcome that distance and
united us with him in the closest bonds. St. Paul says, 'You who were far
off, he has brought near -- not kept distant -- in the blood of Christ.'
Jesus himself totally denies any such distance, 'I am the vine, ' he says,
'you are the branches.' How can the branches be 'distant' from the vine?"
... The CDF also warned, "We must never in any way seek to place ourselves
on the same level as the object of our contemplation." To which Griffiths
responded, "It is God who has already places us there. Jesus says, 'I have
not called you servant, but friends.' And to show what such friendship
mean, he prays for his discoiples, 'that they may be one, as thou, Father
in me and I in thee, that they may be one in us.'" Griffiths was also one
of C. S. Lewis's most prolific and long-time correspondents, and Griffiths
even got Lewis to admit, "Even more disturbing as you [Griffiths] say, is
the ghastly record of Christian persecution. It had begun in Our Lord's
time - 'Ye know not what spirit ye are of' (John of all people!). I think
we must fully face the fact that when Christianity does not make a man
very much better, it makes him very much worse...Conversion may make of
one who was, if no better, no worse than an animal, something like a
devil." [C. S. Lewis in a letter to Bede Griffiths, dated Dec. 20, 1961,
not long before Lewis' death, The Letters of C. S. Lewis, ed., W. H.
Lewis, (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1966), p. 301.]
Devout Christians, like Dom Bede Griffiths, as well as Thomas Merton, and
others, have found deep heartfelt correspondences between Eastern and
Western spirituality love and humilty. Here's some suggested reading:
1) The Courage of Conviction: Thirty-Three Prominent Men and Women Reveal
Their Beliefs - And How They Put Those Beliefs Into Practice, edited by
Phillip L. Berman (the beliefs and convictions of Billy Graham, the Dalai
Lama, Andrew Greeley, Harold Kushner, et al.)
2) Once-Born Twice-Born Zen by Conrad Hyers (about a school of Zen
Buddhism whose descriptions of "satori" resemble being "born again").
3) The Inner Eye of Love by Robert Johnson (a Catholic in Japan compares
Christian agape love with Buddhist karnua compassion; and compares
devotion to Christ with devotion to the compassionate Amida Buddha).
4) The Marriage of East and West, and, The Cosmic Revelation: The Hindu
Way to God by Dom Bede Griffiths (a Catholic who founded a Christian-Hindu
ashram in India, who was also a close friend of C. S. Lewis, talks about
his inter-religious discoveries).
5) The Laughing Buddha: Zen and the Comic Spirit by Conrad Hyers (the
universality of comedic grace in the world's religions is the theme of
many of Hyers' works). Furthermore, though the exclusivistic "world" view
of many hard-line evangelicals leaves no room for Hinduism, yet for
millions of devout Hindus there remains room for Christianity and Christ's
divinity. Hinduism in that sense encompasses a wider range of faith than
Christianity. There are even what one might call "fundamentalist" Hindus,
like the one who asked Joseph Campbell, "What do scholars think of the
Vedas [the most ancient Hindu holy books]?" Campbell answered, "The dating
of the Vedas has been reduced to 1500 to 1000 B.C., and there have been
found in India itself the remains of an earlier civilization than the
Vedic." "Yes," said the Indian gentleman, "I know; but as an orthodox
Hindu I cannot believe that there is anything in the universe earlier than
the Vedas." It's obvious that the study of the world's holy books by
historical, archeological and literary scholars continues to provoke
tension and discomfort in "Vedic believing" Hindus, "Koran believing"
Moslems, and "Bible believing" Christians. So there is nothing "unique"
about "Bible believing" Christians in that respect.
Furthermore, there are millions of devout Hindus more moved by the story
of Krishna in the Hindu holy book, The Bhagavad Gita, than by the story of
Jesus. As one Indian Catholic priest candidly told a British journalist,
"Although my family had been Christians for generations and I had been
through the full rigors of a Jesuit training, I still, in my heart of
hearts, feel closer to the God Krishna than to Jesus." (In Indian courts
of law, people swear with their hand on The Bhagavad Gita not the Bible,
and there are even popular Indian books with titles like, The Bhagavada
Gita for Executives by V. Ramanathan.)
There are also millions of devout Buddhists more moved by stories of the
Buddha and his disciples than by stories of Jesus and his disciples.
Anagarika Dharmapala, a nineteenth century Buddhist, commented, "The
Nazarene carpenter had no sublime teachings to offer, and understandably
so, because his parables not only reveal a limited mind, but they also
impart immoral lessons and impractical ethics...The few illiterate
fishermen of Galilee followed him as he promised to make them judges to
rule over Israel [appealing to relatively 'base' desires according to
Buddhist teachings - ED.]." To such Buddhists, "Jesus is a spiritual dwarf
before Buddha, the spiritual giant."
Oddly enough, one version of the Buddha's life that reached Europe from
India underwent subtle changes along the way, until the Buddha became a
Christian saint! According to that version the "prince" who "lived in
India" was named "Josaphat," and he was a "Great Renouncer." Research into
the origins of "Saint Josaphat," revealed that the Latin name, "Josaphat,"
was based on an earlier version of the story in which the Greek name
"Ioasaph" was used, which came from the Arabic "Yudasaf," which came from
the Manichee "Bodisaf," which came from "Bodhisattva" in the original
story of the Buddha. (A "Bodhisattva" is a person who achieves great
spiritual enlightenment yet remains on earth to help others.) Thus the
Buddha came to be included in Butler's Lives of the Saints.
Also, some of the earliest Jesuit missionaries to China, who read the Far
Eastern book of wisdom, the Tao Te Ching, returned to Rome and requested
that that book be added to the Bible, because it contained teachings on
non-violence, love and humility that paralleled and preceded Jesus'
teachings by hundreds of years. (Many of those parallels are commented on
in The Tao of Jesus: An Exercise in Inter-Traditional Understanding by
Joseph A. Loya, O.S.A, Wan-Li Ho, and Chang-Shin Jih.) Eastern religions
also feature stories of miracles and visions, along with stories of
saintly Hindus and Buddhists who died beautifully and serenely. In some
cases a sweet flowery odor is said to have come from their corpses. In
another case a corpse allegedly turned into flowers at death. All in all,
the stories rival those of Catholic saints and their miracles. In fact,
"sainthood" is a phenomenon common to all the world's religions.
Also interesting is the fact that the 1996 winner of the Templeton Prize
for Progress in Religion was Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for
Christ. But the very next year the winner was A HINDU, Shastri Athavale,
whose spiritual and SOCIAL ACTIVISM was inspired by the The Bhagavad Gita.
Athavale has inspired hundreds of thousands of people to spend two weeks
or more visiting India's poorest villages where they seek to advance the
self-respect and economic condition of those they visit. For more than
four decades Athavale has taught that service to God is incomplete without
service to humanity.
Received on Mon Oct 18 19:21:31 2004
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Mon Oct 18 2004 - 19:21:34 EDT