One of the great differences I have noticed between Christians and Buddhists is how much more confident Buddhists are in their faith - and more specifically their practices.
I read a lot of books about church planting, mission, fresh expressions of church, etc, etc. There's always a new book about how the Christian church should change to become more relevant, more post-modern, more this, more that. There's always a new fashionable theory: secular church, emergent church, fresh expression of church, ancient-future church, liquid church, organic church. You can write one of these sorts of books and people like me will buy them and read them. These books are always agonising about how church has become irrelevant and what needs to change to make it attractive to people again. We go to conferences all about this. We talk about it all the time.
What I have noticed is that my Buddhist friends do no such agonising. They display a deep confidence in their spiritual practice that I don't detect in Christians. Buddhists say, "This is the practice: you chant, or you meditate. You do it every day. You keep doing it. And it leads to enlightenment. Centuries of tradition has shown that this practice is a well-worn path to enlightenment. It works. That's why we're Buddhists, because we believe (and we have experienced) that it does work."
Sure, there are other things to talk about. There's philosophies and beliefs and traditions, and there's questions about community life, and whether to get a new website. But beneath all of that I see Buddhists pointing to a concrete spiritual practice and saying "this is the thing".
Why can't Christians do the same? Well I think some Christians can. I think maybe Catholics can, but Protestants have forgotten how to. Catholics can still say, "here it is: the Mass. Do it every day if you can, or at least once a week. This practice is a proven path to God. This is what we offer."
Protestants though have made the Christian faith all about beliefs and ideas (Unitarians are no less Protestant in this regard). Protestants have lost the ability to point to a concrete spiritual practice and say: this is the thing. The only exception I can think of might be Quakers. Quakers, in theory, can still say, "sit in this gathered silence. Centuries of our practice has taught us that this is a proven path to God." (In reality though, I fear many Quaker communities continue the practice while effectively forgetting what it is for).
So my plea to Protestants is to have the confidence that our tradition does contain proven practices that lead to God. This might mean returning to things thrown out in the Reformation. But at it's simplest it means having confidence that worship and prayer are practices that genuinely lead to God. Hymn-singing is a proven spiritual practice that actually leads to God; liturgy, silence, communion, this things genuinely work in leading us to God, don't they? Don't they? (If not, why are we Christians?) Millions of people still do these, and there's a reason for that.
If we don't have confidence that it is actually true that our core practices lead to God, what is the point of all this faffing around with the latest theory about how to make church relevant or appealing? I would love to see Christians have the quiet simple confidence that their religious practice is actually good and effective. That's what I see with my Buddhist friends, and it is deeply appealing. My Buddhist friends do not display a great anxiety about whether their faith is relevant. I see them saying, "Hey, this is my meditation practice, it works for me, maybe it will work for you. Come along and try it out if you like." Why can't Christians be like that?
(Image: Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Corporate_Cartoon_Guy_In_Meditation.svg)
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