Christianity and Eastern Religions

The encounter between Christianity and the religions of Asia — particularly Buddhism and Hinduism — raises some of the deepest and most challenging questions in the theology of religions. Unlike the Abrahamic dialogue with Judaism and Islam, the Christian engagement with Eastern religions involves radically different conceptual frameworks: non-theistic spirituality (Buddhism), non-dualistic metaphysics (Advaita Hinduism), cyclical cosmologies, and meditative practices that have no direct parallel in mainstream Western Christianity. This lesson examines the key areas of convergence and difference with Buddhism and Hinduism, the role of mysticism as a bridge, and the pioneering contributions of Thomas Merton.

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Christianity and Buddhism

The Problem of Categories

The Christian-Buddhist dialogue is uniquely challenging because the two traditions operate with fundamentally different categories. Christianity is theistic — it affirms a personal, creator God who acts in history. Buddhism, at least in its Theravada form, is non-theistic — it does not affirm or deny a creator God but considers the question irrelevant to the central task of overcoming suffering.