In an article published yesterday by USA Today on “mixing religions,” the article closes with a quote from a gentleman who is retired from leading United Church of Christ congregations and who has “studied in a Hindu ashram in India and practices Zen meditation and Christian contemplative prayer.” The article closes with this:
•Forty-seven percent to 59% of Americans have changed religions at least once, a Pew survey in April found. The top reasons for most: Their spiritual needs weren’t being met, or they liked another faith more or changed religious or moral beliefs.
•The percentage of people who call themselves Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation, and so many people declined any religious label that the “Nones,” now 15% of the USA, are the third-largest “religious” group after Catholics and Baptists, according to the American Religious Identification Survey last March.
•Despite Americans’ overwhelming allegiance to someone they call God (92%), in Pew’s 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, 70% said “many religions can lead to eternal life,” and 68% said “there’s more than one true way to interpret the teachings of my religion.”
•Most (55%) say a guardian angel has protected them from harm, and 52% believe in prophetic dreams, according to surveys by Baylor University released in 2006 and 2008.
In short, we believe our own experiences are authentic, and no “authority” can say otherwise.
That’s a very “Eastern” notion, says Jim Todhunter of Bethesda, Md. Retired after three decades leading United Church of Christ congregations, he has studied in a Hindu ashram in India and practices Zen meditation and Christian contemplative prayer.
“In the Western religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — the focus is: ‘What do you believe?’ There is always a tremendous focus on doctrine and teachings,” he says. “In the East, Buddhism and Hinduism in particular, the leading question is, ‘Do you know God?’ It’s much more experience-based.”
Then, the gentleman says this:
Either way, he adds, “however you meet God is wonderful.”
Well, indeed, everyone will “meet God” one day. Those who have bowed the knee to Christ in faith will encounter Him as Savior. Those who have not will encounter Him as Judge. Woe to the person who encounters his Judge on the last day. It would appear that the “wonder” expressed by the pagan at the last day will not be “wonderful” in the sense this gentleman is presenting, no?
