Hi John Lambert

Thank you for your comment at Provoketive Magazine (http://provoketive.com). We’re creating a space of rich conversation about life, faith, justice and culture without judgment. Our desire is to provoke the reader’s imagination through conversation and open up spaces of dialogue, learning, and hope.  We want to invite you to come back soon and continue to participate in the conversation. 

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Jonathan Brink
Provoketive Magazine

You posted the following comment:
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I live and work in a majority Buddhist nation and study Buddhism as it is taught and practiced here on an ongoing basis.  I have dedicated by life to understand the Buddhist here in Southeast Asia as well as work to build bridges to understanding rather than walls.  

That being said, I feel that this article is simply sloppy and displays that the author does not truly understand her own Christian faith as well as the faith of most Buddhists.  In speaking like this, she dishonors both.

First, Buddha could never be a savior because his primary teaching is that there is no savior but oneself.  "Depend on yourself" is the mantra of Buddhist teaching.  This is completely antithetical to Jesus who told us "without me you can do nothing."

In Buddhism there is no room for or belief in a Creator God who is the highest God.  "gods" (if one chooses to incorporate this view into their understanding) in Buddhism are just like humans in the sense that they too are subject to the law of karma.  Buddhists would call God "awija" or ignorance, from which we must escape.

Christianity is about love: Love God supremely and love others as yourself. (To me, this can include speaking the truth in love).  Islam is about "submission."  Buddhism emphasizes "compassion" for all sentient beings but in the end, you are on your own, subject to your own karma.  For instance, if you are handicapped or a child with Aids, then it happened because of your own deeds.  To the Buddhist, love itself is a form of karma and is something to be eradicated on the pathway to Nirvana, ie) nothingness or being extinguished.

We can be respectful of other people and their culture while still contending for truth.  This is true love and not the easy way out like saying "all roads lead to the same place." In fact, it would not be loving at all to have the truth (Jesus) and then to act like there are other equal truths.  He is above all (name above every other name given among men whereby we MUST be saved).

Swedenborg is saying that a nation can be saved by keeping moral precepts??  If this is the case, all nations including Buddhist nations are doomed!  The scriptures do teach that God has given general revelation and common grace to all peoples, but the New Testament also says that he has "overlooked the times of men's ignorance, but now he commands men everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day when he will judge all of mankind through this one that he has appointed, Jesus the Chist."

Morality is not the Gospel at all.  The keeping of rules and laws is not good news.  It is a burden that no person can carry in his own power.

The Gospel is that there is nothing that we can do to be saved in and of ourselves yet God made a way for us through sending Jesus as the perfect sacrifice for the sins of us all.  However we must hear his offer of salvation and place our explicit faith in him alone.  God has called his people to this challenge in their generation.  (Matthew 28:18-20, Matthew 24:14)

God Almighty has fully revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ.  The Scriptures tell us that "in Him (Jesus) dwells all the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form."

Buddha taught many great things based on the insights that he had in his generation.  He saw that the world is suffering and that our desires (even the desire to love) causes suffering, he believed that suffering and dissatisfaction could be eradicated by a faithfully consistent adherence to an eight fold path.  He knew what he knew, but it was not enough.  

Jesus is enough, both philosophically and in reality.  Until you are certain of that fact, you will stay wishy washy and not really able to help anyone find true enlightenment and the freedom that comes through reconciliation with the God who created us...on his terms, not ours.