A Former Buddhist on the Zen Buddhist Bishop

Others have noted this first. But it is so prescient, I have to note it as well.

“Bill,” a former Buddhist cuts straight to the heart of the matter of the Episcopal Church’s Buddhist bishop in two respects.

First, trying to be both Buddhist and Christian doesn’t fly:

Having been a Buddhist, I also tried the whole, "I can be a Buddhist and a Christian at the same time." Eventually, I realized, no, you really can't ... unless you do some pretty serious intellectual violence to both religions.

Second, there is more than a little “bad faith” in non-Christians hijacking churches:

It's bad faith to attend a church where you don't believe its tenets. It's bad faith to attempt (and succeed) in taking over an existing church (or diocese) knowing you've re-interpreted the people's beliefs so that you don't really believe what they believe. If you believe something different — a universal church, or some kind of synthesis — have the guts to start your own church.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. And this succinctly summarizes the history of the mainline denominations. I’ve long been provoked by non-Christians hijacking what were Christian churches. And, like Bill, my problem isn’t that people have different beliefs than me, it’s that people who have completely different beliefs than the catholic church through the centuries try to hijack large portions of it (with much success I’m sad to say).

I have more respect for the Church of Satan than for such bad faith. At least the Church of Satan is somewhat honest about what they are up to. Instead, the pseudo-Christians, to paraphrase 2 Peter 2:1, secretly brought in their heresies into the mainline denominations, waiting until they were fully in control to reveal them. Even now, they still cloak them in churchy language and in liturgies they don’t believe.

It is dishonest. It is bad faith. And it should be called out as Bill has done. Kudos to him!