Attitude To Other Religions
Buchman's willingness to work with people of different religions without demand that they convert to Christianity was often a source of confusion and conflict with other Christians. In a speech in 1948 he said: "MRA is the good road of an ideology inspired by God upon which all can unite. Catholic, Jew and Protestant, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and Confucianist - all find they can change, where needed, and travel along this good road together." He had several meetings over the years with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, whom he greatly respected saying: "the sphere of his usefulness will be sainthood, and a compelling one at that." He also expressed the hope that Muslim countries should become "a belt of sanity to bind East and West and bring moral rebirth".
Yet, according to his biographer, Garth Lean, Buchman would always give those at his gatherings, whatever their faith or lack of it, "the deepest Christian truths he knew, often centred round the story of how he himself had been washed clean from his hatreds by his experience of the Cross at Keswick and how Christ had become his nearest friend. This was done with the utmost urgency - that everyone must face the reality of their own sin, and find change and forgiveness. But he never added that those in his audience must break with their traditions, or join this or that church."
Read more about this topic: Frank Buchman
Famous quotes containing the words attitude to, attitude and/or religions:
“A completely indifferent attitude toward clothes in women seems to me to be an admission of inferiority, of perverseness, or of a lack of realization of her place in the world as a woman. Or—what is even more hopeless and pathetic—it’s an admission that she has given up, that she is beaten, and refuses longer to stand up to the world.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“Something magical happens when parents turn into grandparents. Their attitude changes from “money-doesn’t-grow-on-trees” to spending it like it does.”
—Paula Linden (20th century)
“Politics at all times lead to bloody wars, and not only politics, but also religions as well as social and economic systems of all times are spattered with blood. Invariably the big ones devoured the little ones, and the little ones the tiny ones.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)