However much he tried, Mr. [Paul] Knitter found that certain longstanding Christian formulations of faith \u201cjust didn\u2019t make sense\u201d\u009d: God as a person separate from creation and intervening in it as an external agent; individualized life after death for all and eternal punishment for some; Jesus as God\u2019s \u201conly Son\u201d\u009d and the only savior of humankind; prayers that ask God to favor some people over others.<\/p>\n
Mr. Knitter\u2019s response, based on his long interaction with Buddhist teachers, was to \u201cpass over\u201d\u009d to Buddhism\u2019s approach to each of these problems and then \u201cpass back\u201d\u009d to Christian tradition to see if he could retrieve or re-imagine aspects of it with this \u201cBuddhist flashlight.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
He was not asserting, as some people have, that religions like Christianity and Buddhism are merely superficially different expressions of one underlying faith.<\/p>\n
On the contrary, he insists they differ profoundly. Yet \u201cBuddhism has helped me take another and deeper look at what I believe as a Christian,\u201d\u009d he writes. \u201cMany of the words that I had repeated or read throughout my life started to glow with new meaning.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n