Category: Podcast

This piece was originally published at Patheos on March 16, 2013.

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I was blessed to read that the new pope, Pope Francis, asked the people to pray for him before he blessed them. He also refused to be elevated above the cardinals on a platform. Not only that, when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, he determined not to live in the archbishop’s palace, but in an apartment, and passed on taking a chauffeured limousine to work in favor of the bus. Known for his simplicity and for being a voice for the poor, it is quite fitting that Jorge Bergoglio chose as his papal name, Francis (in view of St. Francis of Assisi)—the first time this name has been used for a pope.

The new pope’s symbolic actions and characteristic traits are no doubt welcome signs to many. Among other things, the name Francis suggests that he sees his role as one of rebuilding the church, which includes embracing the traits already noted as modeled by the pope. For example, the heart-felt posture of humility noted above, which is essential to rebuilding the church, entails regard for dialogue. Although the new pope is known for being a resolute conservative on social issues, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said of Pope Francis that he shares common aims with the U.N. over advocacy for social justice and peace and that they “share the conviction that we can only resolve the interconnected challenges of today’s world through dialogue.” Certainly, concern for meaningful and sustained dialogue is key to addressing the various interwoven challenges the world faces today. Among other things, dialogue entails going beyond confronting ideological platform positions with ideological platform positions.

While I appreciate fellow Evangelical Gary Bauer’s affirmation that Evangelicals should care about the new pope, his reasoning for why Evangelicals should care about the new pope is based primarily if not exclusively on his conviction that “Catholics are our best allies in important cultural and political battles,” as his USA Today article’s tagline conveys. Indeed, there are many areas of agreement between Evangelicals and the Catholic leadership on social issues, for which I am very grateful. Moreover, Evangelicals have a long way to go in terms of developing a consistent and comprehensive theology of life and could learn a great deal from Catholicism, whose teachings on social ethics are exceedingly robust. Still, we may also be able to learn a thing or two about how to dialogue from the new pope, if as the U.N. Secretary says, he is committed to approaching the world’s many interconnected challenges in this way.

One area where dialogue is needed is with the Muslim world. With this point in mind, I wasn’t sure what to make of Bauer’s claim that “Catholics and evangelicals (and to a lesser extent orthodox Jews and Mormons) have formed a formidable partnership in recent decades against the threats of secularism, relativism and Islamism.” How is such a statement not read as fighting words to Muslims? Evangelicals have a long way to go in terms of building trust with Muslims in pursuit of resolving longstanding conflicts involving religion in our world today.

I would hope the main reason why Evangelicals would affirm the new pope is not his social conservative platform, but his posture and lifestyle of humility, simplicity, and care for the poor, along with what the U.N. Secretary-General claims is his commitment to dialogue. If his papal name is any indication, he wants to listen first and understand before being understood. The prayer attributed to St. Francis titled the Peace Prayer includes the lines:

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved as to love.

This past week, I was part of a dialogue involving Evangelicals and Buddhists on the subject of abortion and related social issues. What was striking was that for our various metaphysical and lifestyle differences, we chose to listen to one another wrestle through the issues based on our personal narratives and histories, not merely ideology. As a result of taking time to listen and share and complicating the issues, not as ideological opponents but as people with complex lives, we were in a better position to work through difficult topics and come to a greater sense of mutual understanding of one another’s positions and what needs to occur if we are to make headway on social ethics rather than label one another in the extreme.

The preceding statements should not be taken to mean that theology and ethical foundations don’t matter; they matter greatly. But the only way we are going to be able to make progress on divisive social issues is when we get to know our supposed ideological opponents as people, for whom the issues before us matter to them at a deeply personal, existential level, just as much as they do to us. By humanizing issues and complexifying ourselves, we are also able to simplify life to an extent: the solution to many difficulties involves cultivating greater understanding of people’s lives and positions rather than painting them in ideological terms of opposition, whether they are Muslims, Buddhists, secularists, Catholics, or Evangelicals.

Power religion paints people and positions in ideological terms. Why I welcome the new Pope most is because of his posture of humility, simplicity and the selection of his name Francis, which conveys the effort to understand and love before seeking to be understood and to be loved. In a world poverty-stricken for understanding and love, this pope may very well be a welcome sign.

This piece was originally published at Patheos on March 9, 2013.

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Today is my birthday. As I look back upon my many years of life and look forward toward the future, I wish and hope that I will pursue life more fully with an open hand, not a clenched fist.

So often, I find people, myself included, trying to clutch onto life to squeeze and suck as much juice out of the turnip of existence before it is all gone. As a result, we often if not always miss life in the process. It is very difficult to enjoy and experience life as it comes to us if we are trying to seize and control it.

As I pondered this theme earlier today, I was taken back to my reflections on Buddhism and Christianity from Connecting Christ: How to Discuss Jesus in a World of Diverse Paths. There in my chapter on Buddhism, I spoke of my appreciation for the complexity and internal consistency of Buddhist philosophy. There are also numerous practical insights in Buddhism that bear upon serenity and the sanctity of all life. Further to what was said above, all too often I grasp onto things, living with clenched fists and clenched teeth. However, my Christian faith and Buddhism inform us that we should not grasp and clutch onto things in this life. Compassionate existence evades our grasp and slips through our teeth when we live with clenched fists and jaws. We need to live with open hands and palm to palm.

For all the profundity in Buddhism and Christianity, these two historical religious traditions approach the subject of grasping from very different frames of reference and with different ends in mind. For Buddhists, according to my dear friend and colleague Zen Buddhist Priest Abbot Kyogen Carlson, enlightenment involves ceasing to grasp after things, which have no permanence. Nothing has permanence, not even personhood. This is the negative side of enlightenment. The positive side of enlightenment is to engage in a non-grasping way. The Noble eightfold Path of Buddhism helps the follower move beyond grasping. My friend, Kyogen, models a non-grasping life beautifully in so many ways, so much so that he can engage me openly–an Evangelical Christian–palm to palm.

Perhaps I will reflect further upon this subject in future posts. For now, however, I wish to reflect upon historic Christianity’s call to pursue permanence through interpersonal communion and what that means for me today on my birthday. I conceive of the Christian faith in relational and interpersonal terms. Personhood understood interpersonally and not individualistically involves interpersonal communion. It involves sharing life, not seizing it, finding ourselves in laying down our lives for others rather than taking life from others, enjoying the moment rather than trying to lock it up and putting it on display as if it could last eternally. All too often, I try and make an eternity out of time rather than allow time to remind me and prepare me for eternity.

The Christian faith claims that through the fall into sin and evil we entered into a state of mortality and impermanence, but that through Christ Jesus’ death and bodily resurrection we will be raised immortal (2 Corinthians 4–5). This is a bedrock conviction of orthodox Christian faith over the centuries. This conviction has a bearing on all of life, including how we respond to good and evil, personhood, and life and death.

To the extent we participate in the ultimate personal reality, namely, the interpersonal communion of the Father and Son in the all-powerful love of the Spirit through faith, we model effective and essential “relationality.” Relationality as defined here involves sensitivity and commitment to building community with all that it entails for self-sacrifice and compassionate coexistence and mutual care for one another. The triune God, who is three divine persons in loving and holy eternal communion as the one God, is the ideal personal ground for the possibility of authentic personhood and relationality.

Still, I find that I often fail to grasp this reality conceptually and, even more problematically, existentially. Jesus calls me to take up my cross and die to myself so that I can live, to put others first rather than myself, to share life rather than seize it. My Buddhist friend, Kyogen, has taught me a thing or two about non-grasping existentially. So has my Japanese wife, Mariko, who is a Christian.

Now that I am a year older, I hope I am not becoming like an old dog that is not able to learn new tricks or that I forget the ones I supposedly know. Relationality is not a technique or tool or trick. It is a way of life that takes a lifetime and beyond to master as one opens oneself to the Master of the universe, who laid down his life for you and me. My birthday wish is that I will open my life more to him and others today and beyond in view of his having opened his life for you and me fully with open palms, nailed to that tree.