Buddha and Jesus: Could Solomon Be the Missing Link?

There have been a number of books putting forth the theory that the teachings and ministry of Jesus was influenced by Buddhism.  The theory suggests that during the period of His life that is not discussed in the Gospel accounts, Jesus traveled to India where he studied under Eastern sages.  It is an interesting theory, but one that can not be proven definitively.  Granted, there are a number of parallels in their teachings, but there are  a number of parallels between most religions.

R.E. Sherman has put forth a different theory for the many parallels between the teachings of Jesus and those of Buddha.  In is book Buddha and Jesus: Could Solomon Be the Missing Link, Sherman puts forth the idea that Buddha could have been influenced by the writings of Solomon.  During the diaspora, the Jews could have settled in India and brought scrolls of Solomon's teachings with them where Buddha could have been exposed to them.  Since Jesus was a Jew and often quoted Old Testament scripture, it would have been natural for his teachings to be influenced by Solomon.

In the first part of the book, Sherman introduces the reader to Buddha and Buddhism.  He devotes a good bit of time laying out Buddha's Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold path and argues that you can see precursors of Buddha's teachings in the Proverbs of Solomon and the Book of Ecclesiastes.  Starting with a proverb of Solomon, Sherman then shows similar proverbs and teachings from both Buddha and Jesus to make his case that rather than Jesus being influenced by Buddha, both were influenced by Solomon.

The second half of the book, Sherman devotes to comparisons of the similarities and differences between Buddha and Christ.  He discusses the idea of whether or not somebody could be both fully Christian and at the same time be a Buddhist.  He argues that while there are a great many similarities between Buddhism and Christianity, there differences are so profound that they can not be reconciled to be both Christian and Buddhist.

For his part, Sherman is a Christian.  However, he see the benefit of recognizing the good and having respect for those of divergent faiths.  He feels that there is much that can be learned from others and that we should not have an arrogance in our own faith that makes us think we are superior to others.  He points out the positives and negatives involved in both Christianity and Buddhism.

The book was a very thorough examination of the subject matter.  There was a bit of repetition of a lot of materials.  The one drawback that I had in reading the book on my Kindle is that there were a number of charts in the book.  A lot of the charts would not fit on the screen of my Kindle so I could not read the full quotes of the proverbs being discussed.  Other times, the text was so small that I could not read the charts.  All in all though, a very informative and interesting book.

Related articles

• The Top Six Alternate Gospels and Scriptures (glitternight.com)

The Lost Scroll and the Secret of Life

Cover of The Lost Scroll and the Secret of LifeThe Lost Scroll and the Secret of Life by Tom Jankovic looked to be an interesting story when I saw it on Amazon.com when looking for books to download on my Kindle.  It had several positive reviews on the Amazon website.  Interestingly, now that I have finished the book, it no longer shows as being available for Kindle, though it is available in paperback.

The author of the book has quite an impressive background.  He has studied Christianity, Buddhism, Gnosticism, Vedanta, and Quantum Physics.  The book is an attempt to create a fictional story tying all of his fields of study into a compelling adventure for the search of a lost scroll that will reveal to the seeker the secret of life.

The concept of the story itself had great potential.  Unfortunately, the story itself fell kind of flat for me.  The characters themselves have a fairly superficial development.  The dialogue between the characters was also fairly flat.  The plot of the book was not very believable. The main character has a chance encounter with a stranger then uproots his lifestyle to search the quest.

Without revealing too much of the plot, the protagonist of the story discovers lessons along the way that challenge the traditional belief as espoused by the Western church.  He discovers that when the Roman Emperor Constantine accepted Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, he established a committee to determine which teachings of Jesus would be allowed in the Bible and which would be destroyed.  In this manner, the Church would maintain control of the masses.

The story goes on to discuss the theories of quantum physics and how everything in the world is interconnected, no matter how seemingly disparate they appear.  The author touches upon the belief of some that Jesus traveled and studied in the East learning from master teachers.  Our hero discovers that through Buddhism, Gnosticism, and Vedanta, that Jesus was teaching that the secret of life is within each of us and that there is truth from all of the various faiths and all flow from a single Source of life.

While the story itself was lacking, I did learn a few things from reading it.  It made me curious enough to want to learn more about some of the other faith practices mentioned in the book.  I already read a lot of Christianity and some Buddhism, but now I am interested in delving more into the Gnostics and the ancient faith of Vendanta.

Related articles

• The Gnostic Gospel of John (1) (vridar.wordpress.com)
• James VanderKam on the Scrolls and the Bible (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)
• Pre-Christian Christ Gnosticism: 1 (vridar.wordpress.com)

Communion and Confirmation

Image via Wikipedia

As I have mentioned on numerous occasions, my son attends and lives at a school on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  I believe I have mentioned this, but just in case I haven't, it is a Catholic school.  My religious background is Protestantism, primarily Baptist, and I have studied other religions such as Buddhism and a few other Christian denominations, including Catholicism.

My wife, on the other hand, was raised in the Roman Catholic Church.  Our first marriage occurred in the country clerk's office in Key West.  We then had a church wedding a few months later to make it official in the eyes of the church and her father.  During the early years of our married life, we did not attend church much.  However, when our son was born, we had him Christened in the Catholic Church.

From then on, we pretty much stopped attending church.  I had a few bad experiences with some of the Protestant churches that I had attended.  I do a lot of studying on my own, but quite frankly nothing on a consistent basis.  My wife eventually became totally disenchanted with the Catholic Church.  I think a lot of her disenchantment occurred during the time frame of all the reports of priests molesting young boys.  She eventually decided to seek a new church and decided on the Mormon faith.  She attended regularly for a while, but has not attended regularly for the past year or so.

Cover of Rich Mullins

The bulk of my son's religious instruction in his almost 18 years has been through children's religious music.  I also introduced him to the music of Rich Mullins.  We used to watch one of his concert videos together for hours on end.  I still remember my son reciting one of Mullins' monologues when Mullins talked about Jesus being a little boy and imagining him playing baseball.  "If Jesus was going to play baseball, just how many windows would he knock out around Nazareth, and who was going to make him pay?"

The reason that I bring all this up is that we had a meeting today at his school to discuss his IEP (Individualized Education Program).  When we got home from the meeting a couple hours ago, we had a letter from the school.  At first I thought it was going to be an incident report from the school that they talked about at the meeting where he ended up getting a bruise on his back from some behavioral incident.  Instead it was a letter from a woman at the school who prepares the kids for their First Communion and Confirmation sacraments.

I would like for my son to go through some sort of religious training.  Even though I do not agree with everything that the Catholic Church teaches, he is there and I think it would be important for him.  I do wonder if he would be able to understand what they are teaching him.  Another question that I would have is would he eat the Communion wafer, or would they have to douse it in BBQ sauce?  The biggest question would be whether or not my wife would want him to go through it given her disenchantment with the Church.    It could make for interesting dinner conversation this evening.

The Missionaries

Image by More Good Foundation via Flickr

I try to be respectful of other people and their religious beliefs.  There are, however some limits to my tolerance.  You see, I take a live and let live approach to life.  You are free to live your life according to your beliefs, but do not feel the need to preach to me if I don't want to hear it.

First, a word about my own religious background.  Currently, I am not active in any particular religious denomination.  In the past, I have been active in Baptist churches.  I still mostly subscribe to Christian beliefs, with a touch of Buddhism here and there.

My wife, on the other hand, comes from a Roman Catholic background.  A few years ago, she made the decision to leave Catholicism and pursue other denominations.  She ended up settling on the Mormon faith.  It was not a choice that I would have made, but if it makes her happy then I support her in her decision.  She knows that I personally do not have any interest in joining her faith, and she is respectful of that decision as I am of her decision to join it.

She has told me on more than one occasions that her church's missionaries have asked to speak with me.  She has told them in no uncertain terms not to because I am not interested in the Mormon faith.  One time, they showed up while she was out under the guise of visiting her.  She had told them she would not be home and she thought they might have made the visit to see me.

This brings us to today.  I needed to run out to Target to pick up a prescription for our son before we head out to the beach this week.  As I was getting my shoes on to head out, I heard a soft knock on the door.  As I opened the door to leave, their stood the missionaries.  I told them I was just on my way out the door.  I was in a hurry because it looked like a bad storm was on the way.

I stopped briefly and told them that I would see if my wife was available.  She was not feeling great and was lying in bed.  I told them she was a little under the weather, resting, and was not available at this time.  I then proceeded to make my way to the car, as I had already told them I was already on my way out.

As I walked past them towards the car, one of them spoke up and felt the need to introduce himself as Elder so-and-so, as did the other.  I can not remember their last names, nor did I want to.  I just wanted to get on the road to Target before the rains came.  I shook their hands and turned back to head to the call.  I heard one of them say, "and you are," in hopes of starting a conversation, but I kept walking.

I just can't bring myself to address a 20-something year old as an "Elder."  To me, and elder in the church is an older person who is wise due to their wealth of experience in living in the faith.  The last thing I heard one of them say was asking if there was anything they could do to "help us."  I did not respond.

They had a bit of a stunned and dejected look as they walked away.  Ever since the day that my wife had told me that they wanted to talk to me, regardless of her telling them not to, I have wondered how I would react to them if they were to approach me. One part of me thought about debating them and telling them why I was not interested in their faith. Another part just wanted to avoid the subject entirely.

As I drove away, I started to feel a little guilty about the way I treated the missionaries.  I did not set out to purposely be rude, but the last thing that I wanted to do was to engage in a conversation with them while they attempted to proselytize me.  I told my wife what happened.  She told me that I did the right thing, as that was exactly what they were trying to do.

Related articles

• Respect (dadsprimalscream.wordpress.com)
• Latter-day Saints Are All Business, With A Side of Politics for Good Measure (adpulp.com)
• Mormons at Your Door: What to Expect (catholicdefense.blogspot.com)

Hate in the Name of Jesus

I confess that I am not currently what you would consider a "religious" person, though at times in my past I have been.  I do still consider myself to be a Christian, but I have also read a bit of Buddhism.  Even though I no longer consider myself to be a religious person, I do have a great deal of respect for those who are dedicated to their faith.  It offends me to see the lack of respect for the Judeo-Christian foundations of this country, and what can be perceived as attacks against Christianity.

Likewise, I take offense at those that pervert the message of the Gospel of Christ.  Instead of a gospel of love, they preach a gospel of hate.  Now, I am not talking about those mainstream churches that preach out against sin.  As one pastor I was associated with used to say, "Love the sinner, hate the sin."  I do believe that you can be against certain acts that religious groups would consider sinful, and still be respectful and loving to those who engage in those acts. 

Instead, I am talking about people like the folks at Westboro Baptist Church who hold up signs saying "God Hates Fags" and protest outside of the funerals of our fallen soldiers.  I once heard the late Rich Mullins jokingly say in concert video made a few months before he passed away, "I know that vengeance is mine thus sayeth the Lord, but I just want to be about the Lord's business."  Unfortunately those of the WBC and their ilk, take that as more of a calling.

The reason I bring this up today, is that I was driving home from work this evening when I saw a truck similar to the one pictured here.  The only difference is that the one I saw had a picture of the twin towers from 9/11 instead of the two guys kissing.  My first reaction was that I wanted to drive up next to the guy and flip him the bird.  Not a very Christian impulse on my part, I admit.  Instead, I was fortunate to be in a fast moving lane and motored on ahead of the offending vehicle.

As I continued on my merry way thinking about the truck, I wondered to myself if it was the folks from WBC.  I don't think it was, but it is hateful nonetheless.  After a few minutes, the radio was reporting an overturned vehicle had just been reported around the area where I left the truck in my dust.  Immediately, I wondered if the truck was somehow involved in the accident, and thought, if so, they got what they deserved.  Again, not a very Christian thought on my part.  It turns out the accident was heading in the other direction.

In closing, I want to quote Rich Mullins once again from the same video, "This I know will go against the teachings of all the popular evangelical preachers, but they're just wrong.  They're not bad, they're just wrong.  Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in your beautiful house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you.  Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved, and Jesus loved the poor, and Jesus loved the broken."  The whole monologue is below and is worth spending the 10 minutes to watch it.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Risking It All For Those Who Would See Us Dead (pastorpaulvbsblog.blogspot.com)
• Allow Anti-Gay Protests at Military Funerals? (politics.usnews.com)

Dalai Lama Receives Human Rights Award

Image by Akuppa via Flickr

A few years ago, I went through a period where I was reading a lot of books about Buddhism.  .My two favorite writers were Thich Nhat Hahn a Buddhist monk from Viet Nam who lives in exile in France.  I started reading him because several of his books dealt with Jesus Christ and the Buddha as spiritual brothers.  The other writer is the person that most Americans would think of when thinking of Buddhism, His Holiness the Dalai Lama the exiled leader of Tibetan Buddhism.

The Dalai Lama is in DC this week for a series of meetings.  In spite of his claims of being a big proponent of human rights, President Barack Obama will not be meeting with the Buddhist leader.  The decision came after the Chinese government has encouraged countries not to meet with the leader.  So, Obama, the great appeaser has decided to give in to the wishes of the Chinese rather than do what is right.  It will be the first time since the Dalai Lama began visiting DC that a sitting president has not met with him.

Fortunately, all in DC are not of the same mind as the President.  As much as I loathe just about everything that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stands for, she did present the Dalai Lama with the first Tom Lantos Human Rights Award. So I thank Congress for recognizing the work of the Dalai Lama.   

Related articles by Zemanta

• Pelosi gives human rights award to Dalai Lama (cnn.com)
• Barack Obama cancels meeting with Dalai Lama 'to keep China happy' (telegraph.co.uk)
• No Time for the Dalai Lama (online.wsj.com)
• China closes Tibet once again (gadling.com)