Evangelizing Buddhists

[Grym]

Thanks for answering my post.

No problem.

I think the reason Jesus waited until he was 30 was because that was the age at which a man could become the High Priest, which is the office that Jesus came to fulfill.

As a (Buddhist) nonebeliever, I then wonder if Jesus knew he was God why would he wait until he could become the High Priest before he started his ministry? What has those two things to do with each other? And is not being God enough of an authority role?

Another interesting thing is that Buddha also thaught the way to heaven here and now in this life. No need to wait for dying nor for any God to get there either.
The teaching about Heavenly Abodes consists of ways to purify and develop Love, Compassion, Empathetic Joy and Equanimity. Does that sound familiar?

Also he taught the path to union with God. You can read about it in the wikipedia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmavihara

Cheers!
/Victor

 

[Michael_Mayo]

I don’t mean to be rude but I firmly believe the poster who said God inspired the Buddha just blasphemed. The Buddha was a false teacher just because they have seeming qualities of righteousness doesn’t make them Holy! Paul wrote that our righteous acts are filthy rags. I’m sorry if I seem hostile but to say that just being good without accepting Christ as there savior and get to heaven is the very epitome of idolatry, deception, and godlessness!

Not according to Church teaching:

Again, Buddhism, in its various forms, realizes the radical insufficiency of this changeable world; it teaches a way by which men, in a devout and confident spirit, may be able either to acquire the state of perfect liberation, or attain, by their own efforts or through higher help, supreme illumination. Likewise, other religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing “ways,” comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites. The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself.

vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html

 

[Simca]

As a (Buddhist) nonebeliever, I then wonder if Jesus knew he was God why would he wait until he could become the High Priest before he started his ministry? What has those two things to do with each other? And is not being God enough of an authority role?

Hi. Many of the things that Jesus did was in order to fulfill the laws and requirements of Judaism. The High Priest’s role was to bring atonement and he could not start fulfilling that role until he was 30. Jesus, too, began his ministry and the atonement process when he was 30. It’s a fulfilling of the requirements in Judaism: Jesus came as a Jew and was obedient to all the laws.

Another interesting thing is that Buddha also thaught the way to heaven here and now in this life. No need to wait for dying nor for any God to get there either.
The teaching about Heavenly Abodes consists of ways to purify and develop Love, Compassion, Empathetic Joy and Equanimity. Does that sound familiar?

Jesus said that he came to give us an abundant life here on earth. There is no greater joy than to experience the presence of God right now in our lives. Up in Heaven it will even be better, because we’ll be in the presence of God himself and know unending joy.

Also he taught the path to union with God. You can read about it in the wikipedia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmavihara

Cheers!
/Victor

Jesus taught that union with God is through Jesus and that we can have that union now. Christians don’t believe that we undergo many re-incarnations, or that we have to engage in an eastern-style form of meditation to achieve enlightenment. We believe that Jesus is God and that enlightenment comes through him.

Cheers also,

Simca

 

[Grym]

@Michael Mayo
Thank you very much. Had no idea the Church had such an understanding attitude toward other Paths!

@Simca
Thank you for your patience and explanation.

I would like to clarify that when I say that the Goal of Buddhism is not Heaven I mean its primary goal. As I then went on to say there are the teachings of the brahmaviharas. They are necessary to develop to reach enlightenment but not goals in themselves. Just so nobody think I am contradicting myself…

Peace to you in this New Year!
/Victor

 

[Michael_Mayo]

See also documents from the Northern California Ch’an/Zen Buddhist-Catholic Dialogue

usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/ecumenical-and-interreligious/interreligious/buddhism/

 

[Grym]

I have to applaude the effort. Having dialogue with Zen practitioners is not a simple matter even for other Buddhists. .

 

[Simca]

Peace to you in this New Year!
/Victor

Peace to you too, Victor!

 

[Contarini]

Hey I was wondering how the church could evangelize Buddhists. Whether they be zen, Theravada, pure land, or mayahana. What is an effective means to get them to accept the gospel?

I think evangelism is very poorly conceived when it’s understood as getting people to do something.

Evangelism is proclamation and testimony.

The question I would pose is rather, “How do we witness to our faith in Jesus without on the one hand making it seem like he’s just another bodhisattva, or on the other making it seem as if we are “attached” to Him in the Buddhist sense–i.e., that he is really a projection of our own which we create in order to help us feel as if there is permanence in an impermanent world.”

Edwin

 

[Rock7]

So the catholic church as you say says Buddhists can get to heaven if they just live a pure truth seeking life? That’s it? I am thankful for the episcopalian who chimed in. How do we explain to Buddhists that Jesus isn’t simply a higher being or what not.

 

[Simca]

Doesn’t the church teach that someone who has never heard of Jesus may get to heaven if they’ve lived a righteous life, but that once someone hears and understands, then they become responsible?

Thanks

 

[Rock7]

If that is so then what is the point of evangelism? Did Christ die just only for those who heard? Why bother and give them the chance to reject?

 

[Avila123]

I know that I posted this in the New Thread, but I thought I would drop it in here as a reference for anyone who might be interested.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

842 The Church’s bond with non-Christian religions is in the first place the common origin and end of the human race: (360)

All nations form but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth, and also because all share a common destiny, namely God. His providence, evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all against the day when the elect are gathered together in the holy city.... 331

843 The Catholic Church recognizes in other religions that search, among shadows and images, for the God who is unknown yet near since he gives life and breath and all things and wants all men to be saved. Thus, the Church considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as “a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life.”332 (28, 856)

844 In their religious behavior, however, men also display the limits and errors that disfigure the image of God in them: (29)

Very often, deceived by the Evil One, men have become vain in their reasonings, and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and served the creature rather than the Creator. Or else, living and dying in this world without God, they are exposed to ultimate despair.333

845 To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son’s Church. The Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation. The Church is “the world reconciled.” She is that bark which “in the full sail of the Lord’s cross, by the breath of the Holy Spirit, navigates safely in this world.” According to another image dear to the Church Fathers, she is prefigured by Noah’s ark, which alone saves from the flood.334 (30, 953, 1219)

“Outside the Church there is no salvation”

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body: (161, 1257)

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience—those too may achieve eternal salvation.337

848 “Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.”338 (1260

The source is: usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/epub/index.cfm#.

God bless.