Should a Christian use some Zen Buddhist meditation techniques? Should Chinese Christians use Confucius as their teacher of social ethics? Should Christian pacifists learn from Gandhi’s methods? Should Jewish Christians celebrate the Jewish holidays?
Such questions should be addressed with great care, for religion is the active, actual service of God, gods, spirits or demons. Before Christians use a mantra from a Transcendental Meditation teacher, they should be sure it is not the name of a demon, camouflaged—because it usually is! Before opening up their spirit to meditation, they should be sure it opens up to God, not to nothingness—because in Zen there is no difference! Discernment is needed, on a case-by-case basis. Indiscriminate inclusion or indiscriminate exclusion are equally unthinking.
On the one hand, Christians believe Christ has already given us everything necessary, so nothing need be added. And there is truth in the old adage “Better safe than sorry.” On the other hand, just as Christian theologians found Aristotle’s logic very useful and fruitful, divorced from some elements in his pagan worldview, so Christians may in principle be able to use techniques from other religions that are in fact only simple, human, natural, universal, without any specific religious baggage.
On the one hand, there is a rich and orthodox tradition of Christian mysticism, so why look across the world for diamonds when your own back yard is full of them? On the other hand, we can learn something from everything.
On the one hand, we must remember that Eastern methods have been developed as means to non-Christian ends; and there is an organic connection between means and ends. The Eastern end is mysticism; sanctity is only a means. The Christian (and Jewish and Muslim) end is sanctity; mysticism is only a means to or a result of this higher end. For a Hindu or Buddhist, sanctity only purifies the individual soul so that it can see through itself as an illusion. For Christians, mysticism is only a reward of sanctity or a motor for more sanctity.
Christ tells us to love God; Hindus tell us we are God. Christ tells us to love our neighbor; Buddha tells us we are our neighbor. The Eastern goal is to see through the illusions of ego, soul, body, self, other, matter, space, time, world, good, evil, true, false, beautiful, ugly, this and that. The Christian goal is to know, love, please, serve, marry and enjoy God in this life and the next.
On the other hand, while the Bible tells us a lot about the second half of its own command to “be still and know that I am God,” it tells us very little about how to do the first. In principle, some natural and neutral Eastern techniques might be separated from Eastern ends and enlisted in the service of that Christian end.
It is the saints, not the theologians, who will be our leaders in discernment here.
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