I've observed Buddhism -- and, in particular, a kind of scientific materialist and modernist meditation-focused Buddhism -- is very popular among elites. They strip out the ethical teachings and anything they perceive as magical or superstitious or dogmatic and practice a meditation that is supposed to be therapeutic and productive. Google famously promoted this in its Search Inside Yourself program: https://siyli.org/ Neuroscience and theories of mind abound.
In short, they've taken the religion and turned it into a handmaiden of psychology and productivity.
If we look carefully, I think we see the same thing across much of Christian contemporary life. We refuse real worship -- the whole hearted praising of God as one sees in the psalms -- in favor a religious devotion that is designed to secure certain goods: less stress, community, long life. We aren't willing to justify religion on it's own terms. "Why would you do that?" asks the materialist. "Oh, because it leads to longer life and less stress. I see."
I want to worship for the simple and sole fact that God is worthy of worship.
Separately, and not to be a stickler, but there are so many buddhisms: what is practiced in Thailand varies dramatically from Japan and from Tibet. Even within a single country, the ideas differ radically. In Pure Land Buddhism, a commoner's practice in Japan and elsewhere, the belief is that simply by invoking the name of Amitabha, you'll be reborn after death in the Pure Land. This bears almost nothing in common with Japanese Zen, which is largely a rigorous iconoclastic mind training. Pure Land Buddhism has more the soteriological structure of Christianity. Anyway, I think the key here as Joel Carini said elsewhere is to focus with specificity of the self-negation happening in american christianity.
"Then she said that she had to repent of her anger, because Jesus had decided that her child would die, and her anger was sinful because it rejected God’s sovereign decision over her child’s death."
The failure to distinguish between what God permits and what God directly causes runs rampant in discussions of human suffering. Bad theology begets doubt and twisted faith.
The Biblical passages about Christ coming not to be served, but to serve, ultimately point to the Cross. In respect to crucifixion, Christ came to serve.
But, throughout his ministry, Christ calmed the storm, cast out demons, and cleared the Temple courtyard of money changers. He challenged the rich young ruler and rebuked bad teachers of the law. In all these cases, he exercised divine authority. He did not merely act as a servant.
As Aaron has said, the problem is the neglect of certain passages and overemphasis of others.
Just a reminder of this famous C S Lewis quotation, which is from his tour de force sermon 'The Weight of Glory':
"It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
Lewis -- as in so many theological and ecclesiological matters -- maintained a balance. He never lost sight of how crucial individuality and personality and human desire all are as aspects of being created in God's image.
That is the perfect quote to come back to the idea of Christian Buddhism with.
The challenge which Aaron the TSP have identified (which is real, but in my mind it is unhelpful to link it to Buddhism) is the emphasis on self-emptying, that the ideal Christian disciple is devoid of personality and will rather than the ultimate realisation of their God-given personality and will.
However the challenge is that even in a contemporary “big Eva” environment the past twenty years where that very quote got big play from John Piper and Tim Keller and countless others, the practical reality is that for many people Christian discipleship was reduced to “Don’t look at porn / Don’t have sex before marriage / Be part of a Christian community”. Such a passive / small vision of Christian life is a betrayal of the great Christian liberty which Paul, Luther, Calvin, the Puritans, Lewis, Piper and Keller proclaim.
To be pointed, the problem is often not one of bad theology but of lack of imagination in application. Not enough pastors have sat back and thought “What would true discipleship look like if someone not like me (e.g. a Mark Zuckerberg / Mr Beast / Taylor Swift / Dylan Mulvaney) came to Christ?” Instead they are propagating cookie cutter application of scripture based on their limited experience of coming to Christ as a teenager / college student and marrying someone they met in their early 20s.
Aaron - have you considered mapping the teleological ideas onto this thought exercise? Buddhist idea of enlightenment vs. the Scriptural descriptions of man's purpose/s?
I'm really curious about whether TSP or others have an intellectual history account of where this passivity/radical kenosis mood comes from since, like Rich wrote, the Fathers were fairly diverse or balanced on action vs "contemplation." Dalrock was one of the few who traced a compelling related account of how feminization/chivalry/romance came from faulty theology within the Church, almost as good as Taylor's account of secularization's roots in Christendom.
A good balance of emphases in the Church's tradition is also why the ressourcement movement is so important—idk how "trad" TSP is. Renewing the sources, and not just the medieval biases and codifications, brings back stuff that benefits all Christians. For instance, one solution to what you mention Aaron regarding "purging" one's will and desires is the careful balance the Church achieved at the council of Chalcedon: Christ has a perfected fully human will and a different fully divine will. Perfecting our human will (rather than removing it) to unite with the divine will is the goal.
I'm struggling with both articles, not because they don't surface some sympomatic issues in Chrsitianity, but that they both deal with a strained connection to Buddhism.
Various forms of dualism and/or infections of pantheism into Christian theology have occurred over the years, but just because there are Dualistic ideas doesn't make something Buddhist. Plato, for instance, had some ideas that we may find parallel to Buddhism but it doesn't make Grek thought Buddhist.
The reason I bring this up is that, if one is not tracing theological influences or philosophical movements properly then not only does the critique miss the mark but the solution does as well.
As just one example, Autgustine is very solid theologically in some aspects on grace, but he also had some ideas about marriage that owed to a form of Christian Platonism that long had an effect on the way marriage and sex were viewed.
Going into the medieval Church, with notions of vows of poverty and chastity or even induldgences given to those who would forsake wealth owed to a conlation of sancitifcaiotn with justificaiton. One historian noted that medieval spriituality led to the idea of "sanctification by amputation" where you didn't motify lusts but literally "cut out" whatever would hinder you - give up wealth, sex, family, etc. The surest way to get into heaven in such a scheme was to become a Nun or a Priest. This is why it is a bit ironice to read a Roman Catholic talking about denial of good things being Buddhist when it is the Roman Catholic practice to elevate celibacy and poverty ans means to sanctification.
I think you can certainly see a rise in Pantheism and an un-Biblical dualism emerging in culture that is infecting the Church. Modernity has, for instance, convinced us that our minds can conceive of our "real" reality as divorced from our physical embodiment. Our Created bodies don't tell us who we are, but our desires and our mind.
I think I get what you're saying, Rich. But could we not say that much of modern evangelicalism has started to present in a way more akin to Buddhism than biblical tradition?
I don't think it's literally Buddhism. In TSP's original post, he quotes Chesterton making your very point about Augustine and Plato. He also says it could be viewed as a modern form of Manicheanism. I think various tendencies like this recur throughout church history with various origins.
This piece is spot-on, particularly in the reminder that ordinary human desires aren't inherently sinful.
Wanted to add a couple of things:
1. There was a line of thinking I heard a lot as a youth wherein all human governments, even the "good" ones, are the tools of Satan and thus any efforts by Christians to make governance better would just be making Satan's job easier. My childhood was spent in a small nondenominational church, so I'm wondering whether this thinking is/was pervasive in the larger evangelical world as well.
2. Multiple books could be written on the expansive reading of Galatians 3:28, particularly on the race aspect.
This was excellent, Aaron. So many subtle points of critique rang true as I read your musings. I've experienced this first hand in my own life as my wife (and therefore me) have gone through a peculiarly extended and painful season of disability. We found most of the evangelical writing on these issues to be less than satisfactory (at best), and outright glorification of suffering - to the point of saying it's 'good' - at worst. For a time I reflected and journaled about these issues.
There is a flimsy attempt to bandaid over suffering in the church (especially evangelical) in the name of 'sovereignty' which is very out of step with the Biblical models of voicing grief and lament.
The feminization of the church, the devolving into the therapeutic, and the Buddhist mood described herein all cohere to the same tone. How is it that we wound up here?
This is interesting stuff and is worth pursuing.
I've observed Buddhism -- and, in particular, a kind of scientific materialist and modernist meditation-focused Buddhism -- is very popular among elites. They strip out the ethical teachings and anything they perceive as magical or superstitious or dogmatic and practice a meditation that is supposed to be therapeutic and productive. Google famously promoted this in its Search Inside Yourself program: https://siyli.org/ Neuroscience and theories of mind abound.
In short, they've taken the religion and turned it into a handmaiden of psychology and productivity.
If we look carefully, I think we see the same thing across much of Christian contemporary life. We refuse real worship -- the whole hearted praising of God as one sees in the psalms -- in favor a religious devotion that is designed to secure certain goods: less stress, community, long life. We aren't willing to justify religion on it's own terms. "Why would you do that?" asks the materialist. "Oh, because it leads to longer life and less stress. I see."
I want to worship for the simple and sole fact that God is worthy of worship.
Separately, and not to be a stickler, but there are so many buddhisms: what is practiced in Thailand varies dramatically from Japan and from Tibet. Even within a single country, the ideas differ radically. In Pure Land Buddhism, a commoner's practice in Japan and elsewhere, the belief is that simply by invoking the name of Amitabha, you'll be reborn after death in the Pure Land. This bears almost nothing in common with Japanese Zen, which is largely a rigorous iconoclastic mind training. Pure Land Buddhism has more the soteriological structure of Christianity. Anyway, I think the key here as Joel Carini said elsewhere is to focus with specificity of the self-negation happening in american christianity.
"Then she said that she had to repent of her anger, because Jesus had decided that her child would die, and her anger was sinful because it rejected God’s sovereign decision over her child’s death."
The failure to distinguish between what God permits and what God directly causes runs rampant in discussions of human suffering. Bad theology begets doubt and twisted faith.
The Biblical passages about Christ coming not to be served, but to serve, ultimately point to the Cross. In respect to crucifixion, Christ came to serve.
But, throughout his ministry, Christ calmed the storm, cast out demons, and cleared the Temple courtyard of money changers. He challenged the rich young ruler and rebuked bad teachers of the law. In all these cases, he exercised divine authority. He did not merely act as a servant.
As Aaron has said, the problem is the neglect of certain passages and overemphasis of others.
Just a reminder of this famous C S Lewis quotation, which is from his tour de force sermon 'The Weight of Glory':
"It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
Lewis -- as in so many theological and ecclesiological matters -- maintained a balance. He never lost sight of how crucial individuality and personality and human desire all are as aspects of being created in God's image.
That is the perfect quote to come back to the idea of Christian Buddhism with.
The challenge which Aaron the TSP have identified (which is real, but in my mind it is unhelpful to link it to Buddhism) is the emphasis on self-emptying, that the ideal Christian disciple is devoid of personality and will rather than the ultimate realisation of their God-given personality and will.
However the challenge is that even in a contemporary “big Eva” environment the past twenty years where that very quote got big play from John Piper and Tim Keller and countless others, the practical reality is that for many people Christian discipleship was reduced to “Don’t look at porn / Don’t have sex before marriage / Be part of a Christian community”. Such a passive / small vision of Christian life is a betrayal of the great Christian liberty which Paul, Luther, Calvin, the Puritans, Lewis, Piper and Keller proclaim.
To be pointed, the problem is often not one of bad theology but of lack of imagination in application. Not enough pastors have sat back and thought “What would true discipleship look like if someone not like me (e.g. a Mark Zuckerberg / Mr Beast / Taylor Swift / Dylan Mulvaney) came to Christ?” Instead they are propagating cookie cutter application of scripture based on their limited experience of coming to Christ as a teenager / college student and marrying someone they met in their early 20s.
Aaron - have you considered mapping the teleological ideas onto this thought exercise? Buddhist idea of enlightenment vs. the Scriptural descriptions of man's purpose/s?
I'm really curious about whether TSP or others have an intellectual history account of where this passivity/radical kenosis mood comes from since, like Rich wrote, the Fathers were fairly diverse or balanced on action vs "contemplation." Dalrock was one of the few who traced a compelling related account of how feminization/chivalry/romance came from faulty theology within the Church, almost as good as Taylor's account of secularization's roots in Christendom.
A good balance of emphases in the Church's tradition is also why the ressourcement movement is so important—idk how "trad" TSP is. Renewing the sources, and not just the medieval biases and codifications, brings back stuff that benefits all Christians. For instance, one solution to what you mention Aaron regarding "purging" one's will and desires is the careful balance the Church achieved at the council of Chalcedon: Christ has a perfected fully human will and a different fully divine will. Perfecting our human will (rather than removing it) to unite with the divine will is the goal.
Individualism vs corporatism (?), and spiritual formation vs evangelism vs cultural mandate are also aspects we find hard to balance.
I'm struggling with both articles, not because they don't surface some sympomatic issues in Chrsitianity, but that they both deal with a strained connection to Buddhism.
Various forms of dualism and/or infections of pantheism into Christian theology have occurred over the years, but just because there are Dualistic ideas doesn't make something Buddhist. Plato, for instance, had some ideas that we may find parallel to Buddhism but it doesn't make Grek thought Buddhist.
The reason I bring this up is that, if one is not tracing theological influences or philosophical movements properly then not only does the critique miss the mark but the solution does as well.
As just one example, Autgustine is very solid theologically in some aspects on grace, but he also had some ideas about marriage that owed to a form of Christian Platonism that long had an effect on the way marriage and sex were viewed.
Going into the medieval Church, with notions of vows of poverty and chastity or even induldgences given to those who would forsake wealth owed to a conlation of sancitifcaiotn with justificaiton. One historian noted that medieval spriituality led to the idea of "sanctification by amputation" where you didn't motify lusts but literally "cut out" whatever would hinder you - give up wealth, sex, family, etc. The surest way to get into heaven in such a scheme was to become a Nun or a Priest. This is why it is a bit ironice to read a Roman Catholic talking about denial of good things being Buddhist when it is the Roman Catholic practice to elevate celibacy and poverty ans means to sanctification.
I think you can certainly see a rise in Pantheism and an un-Biblical dualism emerging in culture that is infecting the Church. Modernity has, for instance, convinced us that our minds can conceive of our "real" reality as divorced from our physical embodiment. Our Created bodies don't tell us who we are, but our desires and our mind.
Buddhism is also trendy, so it is a natural framing of the sub Christian ideas surrounding us.
I think I get what you're saying, Rich. But could we not say that much of modern evangelicalism has started to present in a way more akin to Buddhism than biblical tradition?
I don't think it's literally Buddhism. In TSP's original post, he quotes Chesterton making your very point about Augustine and Plato. He also says it could be viewed as a modern form of Manicheanism. I think various tendencies like this recur throughout church history with various origins.
This piece is spot-on, particularly in the reminder that ordinary human desires aren't inherently sinful.
Wanted to add a couple of things:
1. There was a line of thinking I heard a lot as a youth wherein all human governments, even the "good" ones, are the tools of Satan and thus any efforts by Christians to make governance better would just be making Satan's job easier. My childhood was spent in a small nondenominational church, so I'm wondering whether this thinking is/was pervasive in the larger evangelical world as well.
2. Multiple books could be written on the expansive reading of Galatians 3:28, particularly on the race aspect.
This was excellent, Aaron. So many subtle points of critique rang true as I read your musings. I've experienced this first hand in my own life as my wife (and therefore me) have gone through a peculiarly extended and painful season of disability. We found most of the evangelical writing on these issues to be less than satisfactory (at best), and outright glorification of suffering - to the point of saying it's 'good' - at worst. For a time I reflected and journaled about these issues.
There is a flimsy attempt to bandaid over suffering in the church (especially evangelical) in the name of 'sovereignty' which is very out of step with the Biblical models of voicing grief and lament.
Keep up the great work!
Thanks, Scott.
The feminization of the church, the devolving into the therapeutic, and the Buddhist mood described herein all cohere to the same tone. How is it that we wound up here?