Buddhism and Christianity
THERE is an undoubted tendency to eliminate from Christianity those essential features which distinguish it from false religions, and to substitute for a revealed gospel of salvation from sin a speculative human philosophy. There is evidence of this fact in many quarters. In the June number of The Missionary Review of the World we find some editorial comments upon this subject which are well worth reproducing. After referring to the “loyalty to the inspired Word and the old-fashioned gospel” which has been shown by Dr. Griffith John, a venerable missionary to China, the Review says:— In contrast to Dr. John’s steadfast adherence to the old truths and the faith once delivered to the saints, we regret to see, on the part of some, a weakening of adherence to the apostolic and primitive standards. In the March number of the Foreign Field of the Wesleyan Methodist Church is an article (page 247) in which we find such a sentence as this:— “When the light of modern criticism shall have blown away the chaff, then the best Buddhists and the best Christians will clasp hands over these buried truths, and instead of attacking each other as enemies, will co-operate to take up the cross as the children of God for the salvation of their fellow men,” etc. How “light” of any sort can “blow away chaff” is a problem; but it is not with the rhetoric, but with the sentiment, that we feel disposed to take issue. There is an increasing disposition to eliminate radical differences between heathen systems and the Christian, and to claim for all religious systems alike a community of essential truth. To our minds, the divergence between the gospel and all other fields is absolute. The resemblances are incidental and unimportant in comparison with the differences which are central and irreconcilable. It is not that Buddhism and other heathen systems embody no ethical truths, but that the vital doctrine of sin, salvation by atonement, justification by faith, regeneration by the Spirit, are not found outside God’s own Book. All attempts to blend these religions with Christianity in one eclectic system means the dropping out of what is most distinctive in Christianity and most offensive to the carnal heart. All heathen systems of religion have one point in common—they make no provision for any barrier against sin.6They provide no saviour, no atonement, no real salvation from sin. They minister to human pride by declaring or implying that there is that in man of himself which is able to lift him up to a higher and still higher plane of existence, and to bring him finally to unalloyed bliss. This is the principle of evolution in religion—the principle of development from within rather than of creation from without. And with all the rest, it is simply a variation of the teaching that a divine inspiration, or a divine presence, or a divine power which is defined to be God dwells in every man, and only waits for the proper environment in order that it may be revealed in glory and beauty. This principle of the divine immanence, whether it is taught by a professed Buddhist or a professed Christian, minimizes sin, belittles the one only Saviour, and sets aside the atonement. It is the very essence of heathenism. The gospel of God manifest in the flesh in the person of his Son, and of “Christ in you the hope of glory,” not by the natural birth or by development, but by being born from above, needs to be proclaimed “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,” as against all compromises with heathenism in any form whatsoever. Apostate Protestantism, Spiritualism, and Romanism may form a triple alliance, but pure Christianity will remain distinct and wholly separate from all false gospels of human devising. We must maintain the apostolic standard of “the truth as it is in Jesus.”