Nowadays, even the Pope engages in polite interfaith dialogue without trying to browbeat his opponents into becoming Catholic. But what’s the theology behind that? How can thoughtful Christians exist in an increasingly intermingled and pluralistic world, where we readily come into contact with worldviews wholly outside the experience of historical Christendom?

In the provocatively titled Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, Paul F. Knitter tackles head on some of the really difficult issues. He says he wrote the book primarily for himself, but I’m reminded of Carl Rogers’ observation that when one becomes deeply personal, one also becomes deeply universal. The questions the author raises concern us all.

In particular, there lurks the hornets’-nest question of exclusivity. For Christians, Jesus Christ is not just the Son of God, but the only Son of God; not just Savior, but only Savior. What, then, are we to make of the soteriological role of the Buddha? A preparatary step toward the Gospel? Or must we revise our understanding of what the Gospel really is?

Knitter favors the latter solution. He suggests that the early Christian community used language that reflected their experience rather than what Jesus himself actually did or said. The Gospel is a truth that sets us free rather than a literal truth.

Like Bruno Barnhart, Knitter views the ultimate effect of an encounter with the East as an increased focus by Christians on their inner East, a contemplative or mystical Christianity that was there all along but is now discovered anew. In particular, he points to the fact that the emphasis on spiritual practice in Buddhism leads to a renewed emphasis on prayer and meditation for Christians.

Yet Knitter’s study of Buddhism leads him to go a step beyond taking a new look at Christianity, and he ends by self-identifying as a “Buddhist Christian.” He feels uneasy about this label and wonders about its consequences, yet it seems to fit the facts.

The author comes with impressive qualifications, including studies with Lonergan and Rahner, and subsequent teaching duties at Catholic universities. What lets the book down, though, is that its Buddhism reflects more a reading of popular paperbacks than a serious study of the primary sources. Still, the author is to be congratulated on this brave, courageous, and above all honest approach to such difficult questions.

Paul F. Knitter. Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2009. Paperback. 258 pages. ISBN 9781851686735. $22.95.

Thanks for the book review, Derek. I'd like to hear what Phil and others have to say, but it mostly sounds fine to me.

Except for the important part in the middle...I'm stumbling over that. Can you clarify what Knitter thinks about the gospel not being literal truth? I don't doubt that the gospel writers recorded things using a filter of their own honest, loving,thoughtful, God-given but human experiences. But either they correctly recorded a whole bunch of things Jesus really said and did--such as the resurrection--or we "are more to be pitied than all men". I think I'm missing the point of what Knitter might be saying.

Sure. I'll quote directly from the book so that the author's views don't get filtered by me ;-)

On the subject of filtering and literalness:

"If we admit that the title 'Son of God' was one of the many different ways in which the early Jesus-followers tried to articulate who this man was for them, if we also recognize that 'Son of God' is not a statement of a literal fact (like the procreating Greek gods) but a symbolic finger pointing to a moon that is always beyond our full view, if we try to continue the ongoing task that Jesus himself gave us when he teasingly asked, 'Who do you say that I am?', might we then understand 'Son of God' to mean something like 'the Awakened One'? I have grown convinced that we can" (p. 114).

On the resurrection:

"Jesus' risen body was a Spirit-ual body" (p. 127).

"when Jesus' disciples experienced the risen Christ-Spirit, they were experiencing something real . . . they encountered this Christ-Spirit . . . Whatever really happened, what is most important is that the Christ-Spirit is really alive and well and continuing 'to do his thing' in the lives and bodies of his followers" (pp. 128-129).

Thanks for the review, Derek.

We've been around the block so many times on this topic (i.e., enlightenment spirituality vs. Christian mysticism) that I hesitate to jump in again. I'm not sure why, for starters, anyone concludes that the Buddhist enlightenment experience is the same sort of thing Paul is writing about. Good heavens, do they really believe that language is that imprecise and ambiguous. Then there is the issue of claims: neither Buddha nor his followers claimed anything remotely similar to what the Christian community says of Jesus, so I'm not sure why the need to put them on the same level (unless one is a pluralistic postmodernist and "it's just not fair" for Jesus to be God and not the other big guys -- never mind that none of them claims to be). The early Christians did not regard Jesus as divine because of their own enlightenment experiences, but because of the resurrection, which they did indeed consider to be something that happened in history. I haven't read the Knitter book, but it sounds like he (as with so many others) is looking at Christianity now through Buddhist eyes.

Jim Arraj's reflections on Christian-Buddhist dialogue would be a good place for Knitter to go for some serious study.
- http://innerexplorations.com/ewtext/east-wes.htm

Thanks for the enlightenment, Derek.

I read more reviews of this book at amazon and herehttp://www.urbandharma.org/udh...4/withoutbuddha.html

He seems like an honest and thoughtful guy, and I can certainly relate to times when I struggled over what was really the truth...but still, I do think most or all of this stuff has been talked about in greater depth by others. I have to agree with the idea that it serves no-one to stumble over Jesus because "it's just not fair" that He claims to be unique. I would hope Knitter is beyond that.

I might read this book sometime, as almost all reviewers speak of his honesty in his searches. But, being an artist, the earlier review on the book about church architecture piqued my interest and that book will on my reading list well ahead of this one.