No Forgiveness for Buddhists?

(First, a brief aside...)

Keith Olbermann has demeaned himself and his listeners with regard to his childish gloating over the personal failings of Tiger Woods. While he’d never use this word, Olbermann is a prophet when he does his commentaries. Real prophecy is the willingness to speak truth to power and Keith certainly does that -and- with the eloquence associated with great orators such as Obama, Kennedy, Churchill, Lincoln and others. However, he demeans himself and deeply discourages me when he ridicules people like Tiger for the weaknesses we all have in common. He makes himself no better than the Religious Right when he does so. Truly, for Christ’s sake, stay on the high road, Keith! We need you.
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A couple of weeks ago on Fox News, Brit Hume commented that Tiger Woods would be forgiven his sexual recklessness if only he would abandon his Buddhist practice and become Christian. What? God doesn’t forgive Buddhists now? You can get a better deal with Christianity? What is this Christianity which isn’t really Christianity? This thing that began with Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and others really isn’t Christianity at all but in fact, stands Christianity right on its head. And where are the Catholics? The Orthodox and the Episcopalians and the Protestants? Are you too lazy to speak out? Too lacking in faith to stand up?

This whole obsession with the sexuality of Bill Clinton, Tiger Woods and others, conservatives and progressives alike, is precisely what Jesus of Nazareth said NOT to do. Don’t judge he tell us because the judgment comes back upon you. There’s a reason why the silly tattle-tale Christianity has come about. In the 10th century, the Roman Catholic Rite, largest of twenty or so Catholic rites, became celibate in order to swindle the inheritance of married Catholic priests away from their children. At that time, celibacy was certainly the norm for monastic life but it was not for diocesan priests. Once celibate, the priests took a stand against the life force present in each and every one of us, and the number one threat then for the celibate was not hypocrisy, was not injustice, but was the fear of sex. Thus, sex became the number one sin in Christianity and displaced hypocrisy, judgmentalism, and injustice as well as the lack of compassion and the lack of peacemaking which Jesus stated as the number one sins. Jesus mentioned sex twice. The first time was with regard to divorce law and the second was to comfort the woman caught in adultery. (Where was the man? Last time I looked, it took two!) In doing so, he tells her clearly that he does not condemn her. We are non-Christian when we do what was done to Clinton and Woods who are in fact textbook sex addicts suffering from a disorder. We are non-Christian when we overlook hypocrisy, judgmentalism, injustice, inequality, condemnation, racism and the like. And Buddhism? Gautama Buddha, like all great teachers, had a number of favorite sayings among which was this one: “Pursue your salvation with diligence.” If, as is held by the Gospel of John, Jesus was the Incarnation of the Light which emerged in the Big Bang, then the whole cosmos, Earth, life and culture, all cultures and Scriptural traditions are expressions of that One Light. Whether or not Jesus of Nazareth ever went to India is irrelevant. Buddha was an expression of the Light, the same Light identified by Christians as the ChristLogos. The Third Millennium Christian will follow Christ, whether they do so as Buddhists or Christians or whatever else.