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One of the other hats I wear, is the role of a religious educator at my Unitarian Universalist church. I recently helped develop the curriculum for a 7th grade class called neighboring faiths. It gives the youth exposure to other faith traditions as they venture on a free and responsible search for truth.

The approach I take to looking at other faith traditions is grounded in the yogic tradition. It all begins with introspection and works its way out. To do this I have the youth look at how each faith tradition regards three things. First, how does the faith tradition view the individual? Next, what does it hold to be sacred? Third, how does the faith tradition view the world.

The final question I ask is how does the faith tradition inform us on how to live in relationship to the sacred and to the world around us. For instance, here is a highly simplified view of Christianity based on this approach. Individuals are Gods creation. Christians worship and receive the Grace of God. The world was created by God and man holds dominion over it.

By the nature of these relationships we can infer a great many things about how a Christian might conduct themselves. In relationship to the creator, a Christian would be indebted to and and deeply grateful to God for the gift of life. In relationship to the world around them, Christians would be grateful for the bounties that sustain them. They would be obliged to foster good stewardship over creation. Each and every person, flower, animal, and mineral contributes to our well being and can be viewed as a gift from God.

In this respect Christianities view of the world is highly consistent with Buddhism. In fact it would be difficult to find any religion that, when viewed through this prism, would contradict these principles of relationship. The particulars of what is defined as sacred will be different, one God, many Gods, no God, but the outcomes would be the same.

Just sayin’.

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