the benefits of religious mingling

Buddhism is improving my understanding of my own Christianity. The top-level ideas simmering in modern culture are helping me to gain an understanding of this religion being imported from the East. Everywhere I go, in real life and on the internet, I find statues of the Buddha, eyes closed in sleep or meditation. Or I see Buddha looking plump, belly-button showing and laughing. I hear talk of meditation and mindfulness. We see documentaries available on Netflix featuring Buddhist monks wrapped in orange clothes and walking with tigers.

Curiosity and learning about other world religions has made a fascinating contribution to my own spirituality. For example, in Buddhism, the practice of meditation as a tool for peaceful living, has awakened this practice of being with God similar ways for me, and has enhanced my understanding of the peace of Christ. By looking for similarities I discovered a deep tradition and community of meditation within Christianity previously unknown to me.

Perhaps this sparked curiosity in my (and our) Christian-cultural-faith backgrounds, is due to an influx of fresh language to describe faith, spiritual practices and divine understandings introduced by other religions. This new vocabulary--not just of words, but of practices of piety, worship, and relationship to the divine--rejuvenates our own Christian understandings. For example, first by learning about what defines the very best in other religions we as Christians are challenged to define the very best of our understandings, rituals and personal practices too. By seeing our faith through other people's eyes, we are gifted with renewed insight into our own faith.

Second, our cultural mosaic has also helped develop my Christian faith by providing opportunities to contrast my Christian practices with the practices of other religions. Not to point out the differences in any judgemental way, but more as a means to each see ourselves more clearly, and to help self-define ourselves each in our own faiths. There is beauty in difference and in similarity, and dialogue with other religious traditions provides opportunity for both.

Third, by communicating with others we enrich our relationships and through sharing our ideas we clarify who we are yet even further. In verbalizing our call, or explaining those little things we do in mindfulness toward The Way, we can discover much about ourselves. It has been said that the best way to learn is to teach. By teaching others about ourselves, are we not also organizing our thoughts and clarifying things for ourselves?

Through every day conversations, similarities or parallels in religious practice or tradition, or perhaps even in foundational values, can be illuminating and inspiring. Religious intermingling is refreshing in that it can compliment our own ways. We can only grow by learning of others ways of coming nearer to God. Perhaps through social action, spiritual practices or ways of interacting with nature new opportunities can open to both parties.

For the last long while, my particular branch of the Christian Faith has been--as many branches have been--on self-preservation mode in Canada. As a result, there has been very little new cultural output. By cultural output I mean creative dialogue with modern people via songs, books, artwork, slogans, dances, practices, participation, experimentation, mistakes, activities, etc. My hypothesis is that this self-preservation mode has revolved around upkeep and expenses of buildings, protecting bureaucratic infrastructure and, therefore, a tighter clutch on funds into the modern dialogue of ministry.

So what happened? There occurred an intentional or accidental clinging to the past, which has left our churches vulnerable to outside appropriation of our religious and spiritual vocabulary, rituals, practices, symbols and communities. Because the cultural output poured out decades ago and has slowed to a bare trickle today, our cultural and creative voice has been silent in response to seismic shifts in language and the way of life for most modern people.

In movies, the word Christian has come to represent the close-minded fanatical moralistic antagonist. Jesus, in pop culture, is portrayed as a mockable-miracle worker. Church has come to mean the building more than the people. Actually, instead of implying a community of faithful believers in The Way, church is known as a "place" you "go to" on Sunday to awkwardly watch a religious event you're not really sure you believe in, while you self-consciously sing some hymns that you would never be caught dead listening to in public. What faith-culture is this?! The state of Christianity in modern North American culture is shockingly old and stale, yes, but also damaged and hurting.

But I think the incoming traditions of Buddhism and other religions to Canada have the potential to refresh all that for us. By observing incoming religions we are able to observe the depth and purity of each religion's ideals and core features. For example, we in Canada are not able to observe both the deep-religious practice of Buddhism by monks and the everyday practice of regular, busy people half a world away. We have not observed the hypocrisies or contradiction of, say, Buddism, which must exist, as human constructs and practice are never perfect. Instead, we see only the essence, the intention, the loveliness of its message as presented by its leaders and its deepest, most devout practitioners.

Imagine, if the essence of Christianity were to be exported today in the manner in which Buddhism is being imported to us, how would we introduce its essence to others? How have we introduced it in the past? To clarify, I don't mean "how has Christianity been used to advance political, military or trade ambitions". I mean, how have Christians—those who would consider themselves called to live in The Way—how have we shared, communicated or brought the essence of our faith to others?

As China continues to grow in power and influence, it is not surprising that their religion is beginning to disseminate into new places like Canada. I hope to continuing learning about this and other world religions. Perhaps we can all learn from each other to advance humanity toward the peace of which we all seem to speak. ~aa