[Buddha-l] Memes amd me

[Richard Hayes]

On Thursday 25 January 2007 12:42, Vera, Pedro L. wrote:
 
> Following this line of questioning (and in the spirit of inclusiveness), is
> there such a thing as "catholic buddhism"? I always thought that tibetan
> buddhism, with all it's emphasis on ritual objects, deities, etc, was the
> most "catholic" of the buddhist strains. Whereas, Zen, with it's minimalist
> and iconoclastic approaches was the most "protestant", maybe even downright
> "congregational".

This is an interesting question. It reveals some of the limitations involved 
in seeking counterparts of Christian movements in Buddhism. The 
term "protestant" (which originally meant to be engaged in fervent 
affirmation, but now often means to be engaged in some sort of disapproval) 
has been applied to a very wide array of Christian movements and attitudes. 
Probably no one Protestant has all the following characteristics (indeed, 
none could have them all without being self-contradictory), yet each of them 
characterizes some Protestants.

1. Rejection of a centralized institutional committee that has the authority 
to interpret scriptures and set policy. (I guess no Buddhist movement 
is "protestant" in this sense.)

2. Rejection of a standard official creed. (I guess every Buddhist movement 
is "protestant" in this sense.)

3. Reduction or elimination of sacraments and other rituals. (A limiting case 
of this would probably be the Quakers within Christianity, since they have no 
sacraments at all and very little that would normally pass as ritual. Among 
Buddhists, only some insight meditation groups are "protestant" in this 
sense; in almost all forms of Asian and Western Buddhism there is a great 
deal of ritual.)

4. Reduction or elimination of icons and other religious symbols. (Again, the 
Quakers are a limiting case in Christianity. In Buddhism hardly anyone, 
except Goenka-inspired Vipassana, comes even close to be "protestant".)

5. A heavy emphasis on faith (as opposed to works) and on turning to scripture 
(as opposed to human virtuosos) for inspiration. (Not many Buddhist outfits 
are strongly fideist or anywhere nearly scripturally oriented as Protestant 
Christianstypically are; one exception might be the Nichiren outfits.)

I think when Richard Gombrich described some Sri Lankan Buddhism as 
Protestant, he was focussing on what in America was called the Social Gospel 
movement of the late 19th and early 20th century. This was a movement 
dedicated to putting Christian values (especially the value of helping the 
poor, weak, oppressed and disenfranchised) into practice by developing social 
and political organizations dedicated to helping those in need. As I 
understand it, some Asian Buddhist organizations quite consciously imitated 
the Social Gospel behavior of some Christians. It is they who were called 
Protestant Buddhists. 

It can be argued that the label is misleading in two ways.  First, Protestants 
had no monopoly on doing good works of the Social Gospel variety (although 
such groups as some Unitarian-Universalists and some Quakers who saw social 
work as their sole spiritual exercise may have been restricted to Protestant 
ranks). Second, few Buddhists borrowed much of anything else from Protestants 
than this dedication to social work and political reform.

That's how it looks to me. Others can no doubt help add qualifications and 
nuances and corrections to these grosso modo observations.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico