Has anyone become a Christian after spending many years researching other religions? Or perhaps after living and working in a variety of different religious environments? In other words, someone who has been an extensive "seeker" who finally decided on some form of Christianity.
It would be interesting to hear them compare and contrast their perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of Christianity with non-Christian religions, especially non-Abrahamic religions, e.g. Dharmic/Eastern ones.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
i guess i sorta qualify as one who has spent a fair amount of time seeking the ultimate Spiritual Truth in all the wrong places. i rejected Christianity in my early teens and turned instead to the trinity of the 60's--Drugs, Sex, and Rock and Roll. It took me about 25 years to escape this trap.
One thing led to another--all bad--and eventually i came to the realization that "better living through chemistry" was a myth, and what i needed to do--thanks to some input from 12-Step Programs--was seek out a higher power and a reason to live. So i began, 1 by 1 to go through all the major and most of the minor religions planet earth had to offer. i spent varying lengths of time in the different belief systems according to my experiences and my guesstimate of how much truth each contained and how well it "worked" for me.
In the beginning i rejected Christianity--again--due to past experiences with "Jesus Freaks." Eventually, however, as one-by-one i reached the limits of other belief systems, i began to reconsider my previous negative critique of Christianity and was drawn to focus on the person of Jesus Christ. i read the Gospels over and over picturing Jesus--who He was, what He was about, what He taught, and how He lived. Gradually it dawned on me that He was indeed Who He claimed to be and that He WAS the ultimate Truth i had been seeking for most of my life.
Comparisons? i dearly loved Buddhism and was in some degree of awe as to how well it "worked" for me. i also admired Buddha as a teacher and as one who sacrificed everything in his search for the Truth. i loved chanting and i loved meditation--some pretty weird stuff happened for me--but it still fell short of the ultimate in my eyes--probably because i never lost belief in a god being creator and controller of the universe and Buddha, of course, held that the existence or nonexistence of God was irrelevant to his belief system.
So, towards the end of my wanderings, i added Taoism to Buddhism--as i guess many others have also--and found great joy in the synthesis of the two, but i still hungered for a personal relationship with THE definitive manifestation of God.
To put an end to an overly long story, i was wandering through Barnes and Noble one day when, by "accident"
, i came across a book entitled Christ The Eternal Tao by Hieromonk (a Priest-Monk of the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church) Damascene and, thinking the book was about Taoism, i bought it--and devoured it--and found God through it. "WE CALL HIM THE ONE, FOR HE ALONE IS WHOLLY SIMPLE AND WITHOUT PARTS. YET HE TRANSCENDS THE ANTINOMY OF THE ONE AND THE MANY, BEING NOT LIMITED TO ANY CONCEPTS, EVEN THE CONCEPT OF THE ONE. HE IS NEITHER ONE NOR UNITY, NEITHER MANY NOR MULTIPLICITY."
AMEN!
ABBA'S FOOL,
ephraim
