I received an email earlier which read,

I received an email from a Christian group I am a part of calling the Dalai Lama’s  upcoming visit to DC  a “great evil”. I felt that this statement was Xenophobic and wrote back asking this group not to send me such messages. I would like to know how you balance your faith in Christ and ministry of outreach to budhists without denigrating them.

J…

Here’s my reply: 

Oxford Dictionary brief definition of xenophobic: “intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries.”

Dear  J….:

Thank you for your email. I am not sure what email you are referring to in the body of your letter, so I will withhold a judgment until I know what particular email you’re referring to. Rather than addressing your concern, be it something I wrote personally, or that someone else did, I would defer to your further elaboration, so that I may intelligently discuss your concerns. 

As for myself, I have no intense dislike of people from other countries, nor do I have an irrational fear of others. What I do have are some well-researched opinions that address issues that I believe require serious questioning. As a former Buddhist leader and scholar of fourteen years, and now as a follower of Jesus Christ since 1984, I am constrained to speak the truth on areas that would be considered “my expertise” even if others may find it a bit hard to digest. In a society that prizes “tolerance” at the cost of truth, I say, sorry didn’t cut the mustard on September 11. If there was one lesson we learned it was that “What you don’t know can kill you.” Secondly, “Someone was asleep at the wheel, but our enemy was not.” Thirdly, “We must be eternally vigilant and trust no one.”  Not trusting anyone, doesn’t mean not loving them. It simply means that “Cursed is he who places his trust in mankind, but blessed is he whose trust is in the LORD.” 

J…, its easy to reject messages that you don’t want to hear, especially if you’re a nice person who wants everyone just to get along. The problem though is that we don’t live in that type of world–it has never existed in history and will not until the new heavens and the new earth-the millenial kingdom–when the lion will lie with the lamb. 

You asked, how I balance “my faith in Christ and ministry of outreach to Buddhists without denigrating them.” First of all, I was a Buddhist and still have a love for my friends that are still involved in practicing what they believe in. At the same time, my life personally was threatened by two Buddhist leaders who wanted to get their 357 magnums and blow me away” for asking questions that didn’t meet their approval. As a mature person, I am sure you are able to discern the difference in people’s intentions. Even the Dalai Lama has said that compassion doesn’t mean no violence is ever necessary to protect oneself. 

I would say that the Dalai Lama’s visit to Washington, DC is problematic and scripturally, I do not see how the LORD JESUS CHRIST could find joy in a sand mandala which according to the Tibetan Buddhists is to house 722 deities, is being built in our National Cathedral. It is a defilement of the sanctuary of God in direct disobedience to the decalogue. The blog that I wrote Asia Briefing Links leads one into a carefully researched expose of what truely underlies the Dalai Lama’s worldview.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had a relationship that began well and ended poorly, I have. Usually, I start out believing the best of people. I am an idealist, but have become over my 56 years, more of a realistic idealist attempting to come to an understanding of what others believe and what their intentions are. Jeremiah 17:9 says that man’s heart is deceitful above all else, and who can know its way? Only the LORD who searches the heart.’  It’s not an easy journey, and sometimes warnings from others are hard to swallow. I’d say, look deeper. What are they really saying? Is there some truth to what they’re saying? So many times we just shut people out because they sound racist. You choose your battles. But other times, we love the people and because we love them, we wrestle through what we percieve as a distasteful perspective on another people. It’s very hard to understand at times. I’ve had to speak with friends who have been anti Chinese, or Anti Muslim and get down and dirty with them and say, Why? You can be of service to others if you don’t shut the door quite so fast. That’s been my hard won experience.

This last weekend I had lunch with a brother in Christ from a Tibetan Buddhist Republic. Ahead of time, he told me about his dismay about the Dalai Lama receiving the Congressional Gold Medal. When I mentioned that Tibetan Buddhist priests were also building a sand mandala in the National Cathedral, he paused and said, “What would the founding fathers of American feel about that?” As a student of American law, he knew that many of the founding fathers were believers and anchored their political philosophy on the Word of God. For him as for me, it is a grievous day when we’ve lost our way as a nation that once actively believed in Jesus Christ and in His Word.

In Christ’s refuge and strength,

James C. Stephens