"Thich Nhat Hanh is a holy man, for he is humble and devout. He is a scholar of immense intellectual capacity. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument of ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity."
In his book "Living Buddha Living Christ" Thich Nhat Hanh writes,
"To take good care of yourself and to take good care of
living beings and of the environment is the best way to
love God."
That sentiment seems uncontroversial but...
You will find any number of professed Christian people who want to show by their theology that Thich Nhat Hanh a Buddhist has little or nothing to teach them since they have the way, the truth and the light all to themselves.
Believing the only way to God is through Jesus Christ shuts down dialogue with people of other faiths or no faith at all and opens the door to all sorts of human calamities. Any fundamentalist belief in concepts we arrive at through faith is insanity - as we see from so many insane wars, driven by insane hate and insane fear of our fellow human beings.
Christianity like any religion is a human construct and being so is ultimately corruptible. We have mega-churches where mega-pastors teach the prosperity gospel which has nothing to do with anything Jesus ever taught. In the political realm we have evangelicals (whatever that means) a majority of whom think lying, being unfaithful, cheating and being cruel are acceptable characteristics for a leader. We have Catholic priests and bishops who apparently can't stop sexually abusing other human beings.
What Jesus taught was radical compassionate anarchism but that doesn't fit into our consumerist war mongering society.
You want radical?
Here's what Dorothy Day the Catholic Anarchist has to tell us -
"if you have two coats, you have stolen one from the poor."
In our fake free market capitalist randian libertarian society that's radical.
____________________
That sentiment seems uncontroversial but...
You will find any number of professed Christian people who want to show by their theology that Thich Nhat Hanh a Buddhist has little or nothing to teach them since they have the way, the truth and the light all to themselves.
Believing the only way to God is through Jesus Christ shuts down dialogue with people of other faiths or no faith at all and opens the door to all sorts of human calamities. Any fundamentalist belief in concepts we arrive at through faith is insanity - as we see from so many insane wars, driven by insane hate and insane fear of our fellow human beings.
Christianity like any religion is a human construct and being so is ultimately corruptible. We have mega-churches where mega-pastors teach the prosperity gospel which has nothing to do with anything Jesus ever taught. In the political realm we have evangelicals (whatever that means) a majority of whom think lying, being unfaithful, cheating and being cruel are acceptable characteristics for a leader. We have Catholic priests and bishops who apparently can't stop sexually abusing other human beings.
What Jesus taught was radical compassionate anarchism but that doesn't fit into our consumerist war mongering society.
You want radical?
Here's what Dorothy Day the Catholic Anarchist has to tell us -
"if you have two coats, you have stolen one from the poor."
In our fake free market capitalist randian libertarian society that's radical.
