Buddhism for sale

It was a logical question for the Dalai Lama to ask his Jewish visitors, yet it caught them completely off guard.

Poet Rodger Kamenetz has pondered his question for a decade: "Can you tell me the secret of Jewish spiritual survival in exile?"

"Notice that the Dalai Lama asked about spiritual survival, not cultural survival," said Kamenetz, author of "The Jew in the Lotus," a classic travelogue of uncharted terrain between two spiritual traditions. "What he was really asking was, 'How do you survive spiritually until you can return to your homeland?' "

The exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader assumed that Jews had learned valuable lessons about survival during centuries of life in foreign, often hostile, cultures and lands. But he also assumed that this ability to survive was linked to the practice of the rites and prayers of the Jewish faith.

This is a haunting question for Jews in an age when so few actively practice their faith, said Kamenetz, during a prayer seminar for the Palm Beach (Fla.) Fellowship of Christians and Jews. But this question about spiritual survival should haunt all devout believers in an age in which ancient faiths seem to under attack – by forces both obvious and subtle.

It's easy to focus on threats such as persecution, terrorism and war. While these forces are real, Kamenetz warned that ancient religious traditions are also being buried in commercialism and entertainment. Faith has become a "consumer good." For millions, a religious tradition is now a product that they purchase, not a way of life that they practice.

In his opinion, the worship, prayer and ethical traditions at the heart of Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam should be added to a spiritual "endangered species" list.

Take Buddhism, for example, which appears to be flourishing and winning converts in media-soaked America. Simply stated, Buddhism is being bought and sold. And Kamenetz is not the only scholar who is worried about the rise of a consumer-friendly Buddhism in the spirituality marketplace.

Indeed, some forms of exile are subtler than others.

"All of the world's great religions provide profound challenges to the unexamined life," noted Stephen Prothero of Boston University, at Salon.com. "At their best, they offer devastating diagnoses of human sickness and radical remedies for it. They demand crazy things – that we love our enemies, that we deny ourselves. ... At their best, religions are difficult, confusing and mysterious."

Meanwhile, the fad that many call Baby Boomer Buddhism is "all too often shallow and small," he said. "It soothes rather than upsets, smoothing out the palpable friction between Buddhist practice and the banalities of contemporary American life."

Consider one item sold in many spiritual bookstores. Consumers can now buy rocks with this inscription – "What Would Buddha Do?"

There are other seekers – including growing numbers of "JUBUs" or Jewish Buddhists – who find Buddhism attractive because they see it as a form of spirituality without dogmas, creeds, beliefs, commandments and rituals that resemble anything they were required to learn as children. They simply ignore what traditional Buddhist leaders such as the Dalai Lama have to say about hot-button moral issues, such as abortion, homosexuality of sexual abstinence.

"Let's face it," said Kamenetz, "one of the reasons Buddhism has become so popular, with so many Americans, so fast, is that people have stripped away all of the rules and the precepts and the work that has to do with how you are supposed to live your life. In doing so, they have stripped Buddhism of its ethical content.

"You are left with a religion that makes very few demands of you. Is that Buddhism?"

Interfaith dialogues between Jews, Christians and Buddhists are sure to increase, as more Buddhists blend into the American mainstream. The number of Americans converting to Buddhism will also continue to rise.

Will the new Buddhists compromise and assimilate? Will they be able to spiritually survive while "exiled" in this strange land?

"It may take 300 years for a true Buddhism to come to America," said Kamenetz. "In the meantime, you're going to continue to see all of these hybrid forms. People are taking pieces of this faith and combining it with pieces of that faith. ...

"This is all so, so American."

Which Church of the Nativity?

The Gate of Humility into the Church of the Nativity is just over four feet high and was added in 1272 A.D. to help repel raiders.

Visitors must stoop or bow in submission. Once inside, most tourists - about 1.25 million a year, in peaceful times - quickly queue on the right side of the 5th century Orthodox basilica and wait to enter the Grotto of the Nativity beneath the high altar.

I passed through the gate two years ago and headed for the altar icons. A priest appeared.

"You are American? You are Orthodox?", he asked, before assisting me. "We have so few people who come here to pray."

Frankly, I was glad to have a guide in the maze. The main lesson I learned was that the Church of the Nativity is not one building.

Nevertheless, most news about the recent Bethlehem siege described it has one church served by 30 or more priests, monks and nuns. Sadly, the reality is more splintered than that and recent events may have deepened the cracks.

Journalists said Palestinians in "the monastery" exchanged fire with Israeli troops. Which monastery? There are separate Roman Catholic and Greek monasteries and an Armenian Orthodox convent. "The priests" said they were not held hostage. Which priests? Gunmen raided food supplies and trashed monastic cells. In which cloister?

It is not even clear how the Palestinians entered "the church."

Time reported that they used the Gate of Humility. Yet it's hard to imagine several dozen al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade leaders, Tanzim militia, Hamas fighters and Palestinian Authority police being allowed through the Gate of Humility with 90 weapons, including assault rifles, and enough explosives for a reported 40 booby-traps.

Newsweek and numerous other publications say they shot their way through the main doors of the Roman Catholic Church of St. Catherine, a 19th century sanctuary adjoining the Orthodox basilica. But some reports said the Franciscan priests opened these doors, perhaps due to fear of being taken hostage.

Either way, how did gunmen get from the Franciscan passageways into the ancient basilica? Why did Palestinians - as shown in news photos – end up sleeping on its cold stone floor, rather than in the Catholic sanctuary's pews? Orthodox churches do not have pews.

The Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem believes these are not trivial questions. His words could not have been more blunt, as reporters surveyed the Greek monastery after the siege.

"All the media concentrated on the Franciscan quarter, where little damage was done," said Patriarch Irineos I, according to a Washington Times report. "Why? The Franciscans actually let the gunmen in then guided the gunmen to our rooms. ... The Franciscans then blocked their own rooms' doors with iron bars."

The New York Times and other publications reported that the most militant Palestinians appear to have lived, fought and died in the quarters of the Orthodox monks. Greek clerics feared Muslims would even attempt to claim these bloody sites as shrines. At one point, gunmen tried to bury one of their dead in the Greek monastery's garden.

Franciscan priests did report that gunmen tore up Bibles for toilet paper. The organ in their church was damaged, as was a mosaic. Meanwhile, Palestinian and Israeli leaders traded accusations about who caused fires in the monasteries. The militants stole candelabra, icons and other golden objects, but left them behind with their weapons. Everyone leaving the basilica passed through a metal detector.

A Vatican envoy quickly ruled that St. Catherine's had not been defiled. The first Mass after the siege was celebratory, complete with the sound of a tambourine. Reporters noted that this church's main gate had been repaired, since it appeared that gunmen shot off the lock.

Next door, Patriarch Irineos led solemn reconsecration rites, before the first Divine Liturgy in his violated sanctuary. One altar had been used a common table, the baptismal font as a washtub and parts of the nave as latrines. The Grotto of the Nativity was used as a morgue. And Eastern Orthodox believers were unable to celebrate Holy Week and their Easter on May 5.

Was this another tragic first in the history of one of Christendom's oldest churches?

The siege raised agonizing questions inside the Church of the Nativity, as well as outside of its ancient walls.

Not a rookie, at faith

Jim Morris came of age in a West Texas town, which means the locals didn't need to use street addresses to tell where they lived.

All he had to say was that his house was one block from Wood Creek Baptist Church and a vacant lot away from the Camp Bowie Sports Complex. That would cover the essentials, out where nobody talks much about the separation of church and sports.

"The first thing you need to understand about West Texas is that even local video stores have announcement boards out front with messages like, 'Keep Christ in Christmas,' " said Morris, in the first line of "The Rookie," the book about his middle-aged ascent into major-league baseball. "The second thing to understand is that, if Jesus Christ himself were to show up on a Friday night in the fall, he'd have to wangle a seat in the high school stadium and wait until the football game ended before declaring his arrival."

Naturally, a whole lot of praying and Bible reading vanished when Walt Disney Pictures got a hold of this story. But the good news for fans of old-fashioned movies is that God wasn't totally written out of the plot when the "The Rookie" moved to the big screen. It's hard to drain the faith out of a West Texas tale full of baseball, babies, wedding rings, tears, tough love and nuns appealing to the patron saint of impossible dreams.

Morris was natural athlete who almost reached the big show as a youngster, before his body broke down. So he got married, settled down, started teaching school and coaching a little baseball.

Then the kids on his ragged high school team make him promise to give baseball one more shot, if they won the district championship. The team won district. Morris went to a free-agent tryout and discovered that his blown-out shoulder was serving up 98 mile-per-hour fastballs – light years past what he threw in his prime. With the stunned blessing of his wife and three kids, Morris headed to the minor leagues and then, at age 35, to the big leagues.

Roll out the clich? No Hollywood ink slinger would dare concoct such a story.

"It was God," said Morris, who is busy as a motivational speaker in both religious and secular settings. "What other explanation could there be for what happened?"

"The Rookie" has already passed $70 million in ticket sales, which means Disney succeeded in creating a feel-good hit for baseball season. But the movie also raised eyebrows with its G rating, which is often box-office death with adults.

The key is that "The Rookie" is basically an updated version of one of old Hollywood's most popular products - the inspiring story of a good man who beats the odds and wins big. Moviemakers used to tell this kind of story all the time and they almost always included a healthy dose of faith and family.

As it turns out, this formula still works - if the story is good enough.

"Quite frankly, faith played a big role in my life, so it would have been impossible to have left that out of the movie," said Morris. But the producers of the movie "didn't draw much attention to the religious side of the story."

They didn't have to. It was shocking enough to watch Hollywood tell a simple story about grown-ups and kids chasing their dreams, while keeping their vows and saying a prayer or two. But those who read the book will wonder, in particular, what happened to its major theme – which is the pitcher's ongoing efforts to fathom "God's mysterious ways" of working through both the agony and the triumph of his life.

Nevertheless, God remains in the details, soaked into the images of family and commitment. Morris said his story makes "no sense whatsoever" without faith.

"They just sort of hit it, then back away a little," he said. "I thought that was appropriate, to tell you the truth. They didn't try to jam anything down anybody's throat. You didn't want people sitting in theaters saying, 'What are you trying to do here?' ... This is a movie. You really can't preach at people."

Canterbury's 'unique' statement

As the college student knelt at the altar rail, another parishioner pointed accusingly and loudly said: "Don't give him communion. He does not believe. He is mocking us all."

Stunned, Father George Carey asked the student for his response. He looked up and said: "I am confirmed. I am here because I want to follow." The priest served him communion.

This scene occurred at St. Nicholas Parish in Durham, England, years before Carey began his decade-plus service as the 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury. Today, he still uses this story as a parable about spiritual seekers and those who are quick to judge.

But this kind of story has several levels, said the archbishop, speaking last week at the 25th anniversary celebration of the Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pa. The student's simple confession indicated that he wanted to start a journey. What spiritual leaders are supposed to do is embrace seekers and show them where God wants them to go.

This implies that there is an ultimate destination and even a true path. It is a sign of the times that making such a claim is controversial. So be it. Carey said he was delighted that the primates of the worldwide Anglican Communion recently took just such a stand.

They said: "We believe that God the eternal Son became human for our sake and that in the flesh and blood of Jesus of Nazareth God was uniquely present and active." The archbishop added: "The statement is a full-blooded recommitment to the historic faith of the church. And to that wisdom of glory and weakness all Christians commit themselves."

The key words in the primate's statement are "uniquely present." Many Anglicans, especially in the Third World, are convinced their communion's powerful left wing believes that all spiritual paths are ultimately the same and have the same end. Jesus is one path to salvation, clarity, enlightenment or whatever. But other paths work just as well.

This fundamental disagreement leads to legions of bitter conflicts about biblical authority, creeds, sacraments and, of course, sexuality.

"God has given us sexuality. It is a mysterious gift," Carey told a circle of reporters, before his address. "But I'm of the belief, and I have been consistent on this throughout my tenure, that any sexual relationships beyond the confines of heterosexual marriage is a deviation from scripture. ... I don't approve of that."

The archbishop is used to hearing this question, because fights over the status of sexual acts outside of marriage have been tearing up the Anglican Communion for decades. This is true of virtually all mainline religious groups.

While known as conservative, Carey is - in keeping with the style of his office - a soft-spoken British diplomat who strives not to tread on ecclesiastical toes. He knew that he was in the United States and that its Episcopal hierarchy has a de facto policy of ordaining non-celibate gays and lesbians and allowing same-sex union rites. A church court has ruled that Episcopalians have no "core doctrines" on marriage and sex.

Yet Carey was speaking at an evangelical seminary, one that has served as a strategic bridge to Anglicans in the Third World, especially Africa and Asia. Thus, he gave journalists a candid answer and repeated this stance in his speech.

It is impossible to separate theology and morality, stressed the archbishop. At some point, church politics bleed into real life. The political becomes the personal.

"There have to be boundaries to pastoral care which result in pastoral discipline, just as there are boundaries to doctrinal orthodoxy," he said. "To say, 'Jesus is Lord,' is to accept his discipline. It is to place ourselves under his obedience. We cannot do what we please or believe whatever we decide suits us personally."

There are those who disagree, often hiding their views in lofty language. Carey said he was reminded of one jester's version of the Caesarea Phillippi encounter which begins with Jesus asking Peter: "Who do men say that I am?"

A postmodern Peter might answer: "You are the existentialist flux of Being shimmering in the signifying chains of inchoate Reality. You are the pre-existent Ground of our Being."

To which, Carey noted, Jesus would certainly reply: "I am WHAT?"

It's the doctrine, stupid

Rome would not issue a bishop a red hat and send him to New York City unless he had demonstrated at least some ability to stay cool in a media firestorm.

So reporters in Rome must have been baffled last week when Cardinal Edward Egan uttered this twisted response when asked about his views on gays in the priesthood.

"I would like to say this," the cardinal told the New York Times. "The most important thing is to clean up the truth. And the truth is that I have never said anything."

Yes, most U.S. bishops are saying as little as possible right now, especially about the issue that dares not speak its name. One reason the cardinal of New York was so flustered was that the dean of his own cathedral, the Rev. Msgr. Eugene Clark, had just preached a sermon that echoed in newsrooms as well as in pews. Clark said the Catholic hierarchy has been sinfully silent on homosexuality, in part because it feared being accused of fanning the flames of prejudice.

"When it was said that homosexuality was fixed at birth (which is not true), and therein required civil rights protection, many bishops and others hesitated to criticize homosexual demands for moral acceptance," said his printed text. "Some priests drifted into homosexual circles, then into homosexual license and then into man-boy relationships. ...

"The failure of church authorities to approach the subject as a problem gave these delinquent priests a freedom they should not have had."

A few parishioners stormed out of St. Patrick's Cathedral, while others applauded.

What was lost in the furor was that this sermon was not primarily about homosexuality. Clark didn't just attack homosexuality. He attacked the whole sexual revolution, with a special emphasis on its impact in Catholic higher education – especially in seminaries.

But this crisis is not just about sex. It's about doctrine. Specifically, Clark said the current scandals are rooted in a fad in moral theology called "Proportionalism." The Vatican condemned this theory in the 1980s, yet it remains popular, he said.

"Simply, it said that while abortion, fornication, adultery, divorce, remarriage and contraception all remained sins, they could be permitted" if someone had a serious enough reason – a "proportionate reason" for committing the acts, he said. "It severely damaged moral sexual life among vast numbers of college students and young married Catholics. While most priests and seminarians saw the obvious flaws in Proportionalism, it is now clear that some did not."

Some priests, said Clark, decided that their emotional and psychological needs were so great that they had just cause to break their vows and seek sexual release. After all, weren't the experts – Catholic and secular – saying that celibacy was an out-of-date concept, one that might even be unhealthy?

"A priest who believed this," said Clark, "could see it as a proportionate reason to put aside sexual abstinence."

This would lead many priests - gay or straight - to remain silent about church teachings on sex and marriage. This would lead some priests to argue that "celibacy" may not always be the same thing as "chastity."

This would surround the church's clerical structures in a fog of secrecy and stall reform.

Thus, Pope John Paul II told the U.S. cardinals that the current crisis is not just about priests with sex problems. It's about children, parents, marriages, homes and a warped culture. It's about doctrine. The church must deal with its own problems, so it can get back to healing souls

To do that, it will need bishops and priests who will answer tough questions.

"People need to know that there is no place in the priesthood ... for those who would harm the young," said the pope. "They must know that bishops and priests are totally committed to the fullness of Catholic truth on matters of sexual morality, a truth as essential to the renewal of the priesthood and the episcopate as it is to the renewal of marriage and family life.

"We must be confident that this time of trial will bring a purification of the entire Catholic community, a purification that is urgently needed. ... So much pain, so much sorrow must lead to a holier priesthood, a holier episcopate and a holier church."