Buddhism and Christianity Course Coming Together

Not often do you see a group of Buddhist monks in church in Thailand, but that was the privilege of our Buddhist and Christianity course a few weeks ago (left). Christian students also had the chance to visit the temple at the end of the Buddhist Lent, accompanied by the same monks. This was all made possible through the Buddhism and Christianity course I am co-teaching with Rev. John Butt, this year with the help of intern Charlie Carstens from Harvard Divinity School. This is the second year I have been involved in the course, and it has been great fun. Each year has been different; last year John arranged for a guest once a week to speak from the Buddhist community. This year however, I was determined to get current and prospective Christian leaders from our program and monks together in the same classroom space. Thanks to meeting ajan Steve Epstein at Mahachulalonghorn University at Wat Suan Dok, we were able to make it happen. The result was six wonderful gatherings together. It was a learning experience for all of us.

Inter-religious dialogue can be difficult. We were careful to set the right tone, to have comparable goals without forcing conformity, to pose the right questions, to moderate discussions well while encouraging student interaction. In one session, for instance, we discussed how 'GOD' and 'DHAMMA' (or DHARMA) might be two ways of talking about ultimate transcendent truth and reality, but withheld making any definite assertions about whether they refer to the same reality. We also had to, for example, agree that engaging in inter-religious dialogue is desirable and worthy in itself, and not simply a subordinated means to another goal - whether that goal is convincing someone to put on a saffron robe, or just to learn useful facts about another religion ... All this really takes practice, as we came to find out very quickly that the Christian students had very little experience talking about their faith outside the circles of their tradition. As a first time venture for many, I think our dialogue went quite well.
There were perhaps some apprehensions at the onset about a hidden agenda to proselytize the other, especially since the monks sometimes have evangelical Christians who come to their tri-weekly monk chats expressly to 'save their souls.' Yet in the end, there was perhaps at least the seeds of conversion, if conversion is expanded to mean not simply changing one's faith tradition, but being open to transformation through the sharing of faith - and allowing one's faith to be challenged and even changed in conversation with others. All in all we had representatives from the Americas and all over south east Asia: Cambodia (where most of monks were from), Laos, Burma, Vietnam, and of course Thailand from Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist traditions. Thanks for all for such a warm experience.