A Response to an interview with Paul F. Knitter regarding "Double Belonging"

A quick response to this article on the author's attempts to integrate Buddhist thought into his Christian faith: http://bit.ly/sKSEBV

This man's beliefs are interesting, but they are not Christian.

Some examples:

(1) "this ever-present spirit, this ever-present, interconnecting energy that is not a person, but is very personal, that this is the mystery that surrounds me, that contains me, and which I am in contact with in the Eucharist, in liturgies, and especially in meditation."

In the Bible, the Holy Spirit *is* a Person. Definitely not an "energy" to be accessed in meditation.

(2) Knitter's entire paragraph on the inadequacy of words as symbols is completely unbiblical. The first chapter of John's Gospel could not be more clear: "In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God and the Word was God. ... The Word became flesh, and made His dwelling among us." In Genesis, God creates via His Word. Paul says we speak in spiritual truths expressed in spiritual words. We have limitations in our understanding, but it is not the fault of the words.

(3) Perhaps Knitter's most egregious departure from orthodoxy is in his view of human nature: "But our problem is that we are not aware of this. Because we’re not aware of this, because we think we are separate individuals rather than part of the interconnected whole, we think we have to protect ourselves. We think we have to gain things in order to establish our identity and, therefore, we act selfishly. We’re acting selfishly, not because we are fallen, not because we are evil in our natures, but because we are ignorant." In the Christian worldview, ignorance is not humanity's fundamental problem. We are not merely unenlightened. We are sinful, we are selfish, we are fallen. One particularly colorful Scripture says that even our righteous acts are like soiled menstrual cloths. We were created good, but we rebelled. Denial of this core teaching cannot meaningfully be associated with Christianity.

I wish people who found biblical Christianity unsatisfying in some respect would just reject it outright rather than confuse others. (His view of the afterlife cannot be reconciled with Scripture either, but I won't dwell on that.)