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In the 13th Century, Nicolo Polo (father of Marco Polo) was visiting the court of the grandson of Ghengis Khan - Kublai Khan.
Kublai Khan was the Emperor of China and he had never met Europeans before. He was delighted to meet this visitor from Venice AND he was strongly impressed by the religious faith of this man; therefore, he sent a letter back to Europe urging that some educated men be dispatched to instruct his people in the teachings of Christianity.
But, because of political upheaval and infighting that was taking place in Europe, there was a long delay in anybody coming. In the end, only 2 representatives of Christianity were sent and even they lost heart soon and turned back.
Because of the failure of the church of that day, Kublai Khan turned instead to Buddhism and that has been the predominant religion in the area from that day to this.
SOWING THE SEED: A COMPARISON
In the 13th Century, Nicolo Polo (father of Marco Polo) was visiting the court of the grandson of Ghengis Khan - Kublai Khan.
Kublai Khan was the Emperor of China and he had never met Europeans before. He was delighted to meet this visitor from Venice AND he was strongly impressed by the religious faith of this man; therefore, he sent a letter back to Europe urging that some educated men be dispatched to instruct his people in the teachings of Christianity.
But, because of political upheaval and infighting that was taking place in Europe, there was a long delay in anybody coming. In the end, only 2 representatives of Christianity were sent and even they lost heart soon and turned back.
Because of the failure of the church of that day, Kublai Khan turned instead to Buddhism and that has been the predominant religion in the area from that day to this.
By contrast, just last Sunday, we baptized a father and son into Christ – Bill & Isaac. Bill was not the most promising of candidates for salvation. Most people pictured him more as the stony or weedy soil. He’s lived a hard life and had held God at bay for a number of years. His wife had faithfully planted seeds in his life, as have others in this congregation. But until last Sunday it seemed fruitless. But now he’s surrendered to Christ, and tonight he’s bearing fruit.
In Bill’s neighborhood, there have been a number of boys that Bill had created a “paintball” club for. But once Bill gave himself to Christ, he wanted to give Christ to these young boys he’d been working with. Three of them are being baptized tonight, and more may be turning to Christ in the near future.
SOURCE: Jeff Strite in "You Can’t Reap them All" on www.sermoncentral.com
I LOVE JESUS--AND BUDDHA TOO
I’ve made my choice," wrote the basketball star. "I love Jesus Christ and I try to serve Him to the best of my ability. How about you?" No, those are not the words of David Robinson, A. C. Green or any other Christian currently playing in the NBA. That testimony is from a tract written thirty years ago by Bill Bradley, the former United States Senator who is now running for president. In a recent Breakpoint Commentary, Chuck Colson talked about how Bradley professed faith in Christ while he was a student at Princeton University. There he became very active in The Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and by the time he was playing for the New York Knicks, he was a very outspoken Christian. But things have changed. In his 1996 memoirs, Bradley says he was put off by the exclusive truth claims of conservative Christianity and bothered by the uncharitable and racist attitudes displayed by some Christians. He now says he embraces all religions, from Buddhism to Islam, "so long as they seek inner peace."
SOURCE: Chuck Colson, excerpts BreakPoint. October 5, 1999.
OTHER FAITHS ON HEAVEN
Heaven has many cartographers, and through the centuries many different heavens have been charted. To the variety of celestial landscapes in the West, Islam and Buddhism have raised their own particular paradises: the Koran details a heaven filled with beautiful, large eyed "companions" and youths of perpetual freshness; the sutras speak of a multiplicity of "Buddha fields," pleasant way stations on the journey to Nirvana. Adding to the plenitude, the New Age is now unrolling its own versions of eternity. The best selling author, internationally renowned medium and healer Rosemary Altea, for example, speaks of her vision: "Heaven is not a place; it’s a state of awareness. Heaven is where your heart is, where your soul needs to be."
Muslims have a specific plan of paradise in mind, based on the stories of the Prophet’s miraculous night journey to heaven. rising into the skies on the Buraq, a fantastic creature often described as part woman, part horse, part peacock. Muhammad meets Adam, who resides in the lowest heaven, and Jesus who is only in the 4th level. Abraham welcomes him in the 7th heaven before the Prophet is ushered into paradise for his encounter with God. It was in heaven, according to one tale, that Muhammad, on Moses’ advice, bargained down God’s original demand of 50 prayers a day to 5, the number of times a day each devout Muslim must face Mecca.
Buddhism has as many paradises as there are Buddhas. Each enlightened being has his or her own heaven, a concept probably borrowed from Hinduism, in which gods and goddesses inhabit a series of heavens. The primal heaven, however, was probably the one called Sukhavati, which may itself have borrowed some elements from the florid paradises of Zoroastrian Persia (whence the word pairi-daeza, or enclosure, the origin of our word paradise). As Sakyamuni, the Buddha of our cosmos, teaches, if the denizens of Sukhavati "desire cloaks of different colors and many 100,000 colors, then with these very best cloa...
Howard Flynn
Have you ever heard of the Lotus Effect? The lotus is a beautiful blossom with dazzling whiteness. It is the national flower of India, the sacred flower of Hinduism, and prominent in Buddhism. It begins its life in the mud of a pond, shoots up through the muck and scum, and blossoms with a dazzling white flower.
How does it stay so clean in such an environment? Dr. Welhelm Barthlott of the University of Bonn began to study the phenomenon, and he discovered what he calls the Lotus Effect. The key is surface roughness. For example, imagine a board full of nails. If a piece of paper should float down onto the nails, it will not stick; in fact, a drop of water flowing down the nails will dislodge the paper.
This is how the lotus blossom stays clean. If dirt particles should lodge on the petals, the morning dew will sweep them away without even getting the petals wet. By the same analogy, when we clothe ourselves with the righteousness of Christ, it takes and changes our spiritual epidermis so that the filth rolls off because it can’t stick.
Buddhism in the US has grown 170% since ’90 when there were 401,000 adherents, now there are 1,082,000. (Discipleship Journal 3-4/03)
Kagawa is a famous Japanese Christian. He said that in the cross he found Christianity’s greatest uniqueness. He said, “I am grateful for Shinto, for Confucianism and for Buddhism. I owe much to these faiths. Yet these three faiths utterly failed to minister to my heart’s deepest needs. I was a pilgrim journeying upon a long road that had no turning. I was weary, I was footsore. I wandered through a dark and dismal world where tragedies were thick. Buddhism teaches great compassion … but since the beginning of time, who has declared, “This is my blood … which is poured out for many unto the remission of sins?”
It’s a good question. What other religious leader has paid the penalty for your sin?
the saga of Mitsuo Fuchida.
Fuchida grew up loving his native Japan and hating the United States, which treated Asian immigrants harshly in the first half of the twentieth century. Fuchida attended a military academy, joined Japan’s Naval Air Force, and by 1941, with 10,000 flying hours behind him, had established himself as the nation’s top pilot. When Japanese military leaders needed someone to command a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, they chose Fuchida.
Fuchida’s was the voice that sent his aircraft carrier the message "Tora! Tora! Tora!" (Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!) indicating the success of the surprise mission. Later, he too was surprised when he learned that, of the 70 officers who participated in the raid, he was the only one who returned alive. He had another close call when he was shot down during the battle of Midway in 1942, but despite serious injuries, he survived again.
By 1945 he had attained the position of the Imperial Navy’s Air Operations Officer. On August 6 he was eating breakfast in Nara, Japan, where a new military headquarters was under construction, when he heard about a bomb dropped on Hiroshima. He flew to investigate, then sent a grim report to the Imperial Command.
On the same day, an American P.O.W. named Jacob DeShazer felt moved by the Holy Spirit to pray for peace. DeShazer had been in captivity since 1942, when, as a member of Doolittle’s Raiders, he dropped bombs near Tokyo and then was forced to parachute into China. While imprisoned, first in Nanjing and later in Beijing, DeShazer had become a Christian. He found his heart softened toward his Japanese captors. After being liberated, DeShazer wrote a widely distributed essay, "I Was a Prisoner of the Japanese," detailing his experiences of capture, conversion, and forgiveness.
Fuchida and DeShazer met in 1950. DeShazer had returned to Japan in 1948 as a missionary. Fuchida had read DeShazer’s testimony, bought a Bible, and converted from Buddhism to Christianity. DeShazer had recently finished a 40-day fast for revival in Japan when Fuchida came to his home and introduced himself. DeShazer welcomed the new convert and encouraged him to be baptized. While DeShazer continued to plant churches throughout Japan, Fuchida became an evangelist, spreading a me...
At a Billy Graham School of Evangelism, Dr. George Hunter, professor of evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary, gave the following explanation of secularism and meaning for the church today.
Throughout the Middle Ages the church exercised control or heavy influence over all of Western culture.
At the height of her power, the church owned about half of all the land of Germany, half of France and between a third and a quarter of Great Britain. When ambitious princes with military power began to seize the church’s property, the property was said to be secularized.
How have people changed because of secularization? Great numbers now live and make their decisions without conscious regard for the Christian faith. People are now influenced by many religions, philosophies, life-styles and assumptions, not just by Christianity.
That has affected our vocabulary. Most people do not know the meaning of the basic Christian terms, like redemption, justification and sanctification.
One thing that has not changed about secular people is that they are still religious beings. We have American Civil Religion, in which the symbols of Christianity have been maintained but have taken on pagan meanings and are used for non-Christian ends.
People are religious in many different ways. Every person wants his life and history to make sense. People yearn to contact and be right with whatever it is that is Ultimate.
Human beings long for self-understanding and justification and seem to sense they are dependent upon being right with Reality.
But church is no longer the only religious option open to people. They now reach out in increasing numbers, in many religious and quasi-religious directions from astrology to civil religion to witchcraft to Zen Buddhism.
Forty to fifty million people per day in this country read their horoscope. There is extensive interest in the occult.
Our generation has seen the rise of new kinds of religions, para-religions and even strange religions. People worship just about anything these days.
Kagawa is a famous Japanese Christian. He said that in the cross he found Christianity’s greatest uniqueness. He said, “I am grateful for Shinto, for Confucianism and for Buddhism. I owe much to these faiths. Yet these three faiths utterly failed to minister to my heart’s deepest needs. I was a pilgrim journeying upon a long road that had no turning. I was weary, I was footsore. I wandered through a dark and dismal world where tragedies were thick. Buddhism teaches great compassion … but since the beginning of time, who has declared, “This is my blood … which is poured out for many unto the remission of sins?”
