Chalk up another first for the Episcopal Church USA. They’ve now elected the first openly-Buddhist bishop in the Anglican Communion.

It’s unclear how many Episco-Buddhists currently serve as priests in the U.S.

There’s at least one Episco-Muslim, who faces possible removal from the priesthood.

There are also a few Episco-Agnostics.

Kevin Thew Forrester, an ordained lay Buddhist leader, will be the bishop of Northern Michigan, if his election receives consent from a majority of the nation’s Episcopal dioceses.

Forrester’s syncretism has been welcomed by some Episcopalians. However, an Arkansas priest is reportedly concerned about Forrester’s syncretism.

The Vatican has also questioned whether Buddhism and Christianity can be embraced simultaneously.

On the Vatican’s website, The Commission for Interreligious Dialogue’s Michael Fitzgerald writes:

“Since Buddha deliberately avoided talking about the existence or non-existence of God, it is obvious that Buddhists will have difficulty when faced with the Christian belief in Jesus as the Son of God, true God and true man. Yet some Buddhists have paid serious attention to Jesus Christ. A contemporary Japanese scholar, Masao Abe, has reflected on the self-emptying of Christ as referred to by Paul (Phil 2: 5-8). He compares this kenosis with the concept of sunyata (emptiness) in Buddhism. Christ is here an example of denial of the self (ego). So it can be said that «Every day, here and now, we die as the old person, and resurrect as the new person with Christ».

Other Buddhists see Jesus as the liberator, because he teaches people the correct view of life, helping them out of darkness and blindness. Jesus does not impose liberation, but offers it, through faith in him. For the Dalai Lama it is the compassion of Jesus that is most striking. He sees the importance of the Gospel teaching on love of neighbour, kindness, forgiveness.

Buddhists naturally tend to interpret Jesus according to their own system of thought. They may be attracted by his teachings and by his example. They may be willing to recognise Jesus as a bodhisatva, one who renounces himself out of compassion for others. Yet there will still remain a fundamental difference, for they accept Jesus as a wise Teacher, but not as a divine Person.”

Here’s what Pope Paul VI said about Buddhism:

“Buddhism, in its various forms, realizes the radical insufficiency of this changeable world; it teaches a way by which men, in a devout and confident spirit, may be able either to acquire the state of perfect liberation, or attain, by their own efforts or through higher help, supreme illumination. Likewise, other religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing “ways,” comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites. The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself.(4)

The Church, therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men.”

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