Customer Reviews

Peoples of the Buddhist World: A Christian Prayer Guide

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I read following critique by Allen Carr about this book. This is all about unethical conversion to Christianity.

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Excerpt from the critique:

"Hattaway claims that Buddhists, like other non-Christians, are leading empty meaningless lives and are actually just waiting to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not surprisingly, the statistics he presents to his readers do not always bare this out. He shows that some Buddhist groups have been subjected to quite intense evangelization for years and yet have chosen to keep their faith. For example 32% of Kyerung of Nepal have heard the Gospel but 'few have understood the heart of the message.' Hattaway tells us that 'the American Baptists worked in the Tovyan area (of Burma) for many decades, but most of the converts they made were among the Karen people. They found the Tovyan people 'slow to respond to the gospel - a pattern that continues to this day.'

Dedicated and self-sacrificing missionaries have labored in Thailand for over 140 years but have made only miniscule numbers of converts. According to Hattaway there are 2000 foreign missionaries operating in Chiangmai - more than the actual number of Christians in the city."

This is not a book about helping Christians to understand Buddhism, it is a reductionist perspective of Buddhism for the exclusive purpose of "converting" Buddhists to Christianity. The track record of Christian missionaries in Buddhist areas of the world throughout history has been awful, not to mention a near perfect failure. For this reason, a new angle is being taken by Hattaway, a "know thy enemy" approach. The purpose of teaching people about the different forms of Buddhism then (from his point of view), is not done for the sake of truly understanding others, but for the agenda to understand the unique forms for the purpose of more skillful manipulation (how to convert a Thai Buddhist versus a Tibetan Buddhist). Hattaway's approach represents a fraudulent way to meet people in the first place, regardless of one's spiritual heritage. The rationalization for this evangelizing behavior is based on the notion that--since Buddhists are going to hell given their current life--all bets are off regarding the common values of forthright honesty and genuineness. In any relationship, when the goal of one person is to "change" another person, especially when it is done without their knowledge, the relationship is based on manipulation and deceit.

"Peoples of the Buddhist World: A Christian Prayer Guide" represents this type of shallow ethic...instead of being based on a respectful inquiry of Buddhism, it is based on the overt desire to eliminate Buddhism from the planet. Wasn't it Jesus who said something clever about the consequence of building one's house on a poor foundation? At least the Jehovah's witnesses who knock on my door are honest about what they are doing. They did not run a background check on me to find out how to get into my good graces beforehand without me knowing it.

I find this book is vile.

Its written as a guide-book for the religious hunter.

A hunter who can prey on individuals of other faiths.

I myself know of various groups, fundamentalists acting in many third world countries under many disguises. They use poverty or a civil unrest as a necessary pre-condition to act-upon innocent victims.

And for those groups operating in such conditions, environments, this book may be a God sent.

The value of manipulative books like this is that they alert the prospective victims, in this case Buddhists, as to how the propogandists who will use the book are going to operate- it spoils the sneak attack. But those same sneaky folks might want to be wary of taking Buddhists on- I refer those interested to the "Panadura Controversy" (check the internet, and there was at least one book about it on Amazon a while back). That occured when a luminary from Sri Lanka's Buddhist clergy agreed to engage in debate with Christian missionaries back in the 19th century. By all accounts, including the contemporary Christian ones, the Christian diety did not come off at all well in the highly publicised debate and the arrogant missionaries, who it seems were typical of at least that period, got their cans handed to them on their way to the trash heap of Sri Lanka's history. One would have hoped evangelicals would have learned from that experience, and apparently many did at the time- I first read a full account of Panadura in what amounted to a cautionary Christian tract-but of course some types of folly never go away and no lesson is ever permanent- I am told Buddha taught that sort of thing.

The author should study Buddhism so as to develop some respect for others including their religions. As one of the few truly non-violent world religions, the world need more Buddhism not less.

The evangelicals are truly religious radicals and we don't need anymore of them. This attempt to distroy Buddhism is truly lamentable - even disgusting.

I recently had the misfortune to come across this appalling book in Durham Cathedral, in the UK. I initially thought that it was a general guide to Buddhism perhaps provided to enlighten and promote understanding of other faiths. How naive of me.

Whatever happened to positive interfaith relations? Basically it went out of the window thanks to the growing tide of arrogant christian fundamentalism, of which this publication is a good example. It is basically a how-to guide to manipulating and pushing a right wing fundamentalist version of the christian religion down the throats of the people's of Asia, usually the less educated and more desperately poor of those people that make easy targets. Do not be fooled by the use of terms such as 'compassionate' in the write up for this work. Compassion has nothing to do with it. I am not a Buddhist either however I would not view Christianity as superior to this or most, if any, other religions. A world dominated by any one religious group, especially one from the belligerent Abrahamic group, would be nothing short of a disaster.

Would you go into the bookstore of a Buddhist temple, monastery or other institution and find guides to converting Christians or anyone else for that matter to Buddhism? No. Compare the histories of Buddhism and Christianity and ask yourself which has the more positive, non violent approach and has generated the least amount of evil and suffering in the world, especially in regards to attitudes towards other faiths or those with none.

I am disgusted with this publication and it's whole approach. What is needed are works to promote understanding, co-existence and co-operation between peoples of different faiths (and none), not this sort of rubbish promoting narrow minded brainwashing and a disdainful attitude to peoples of other religions.

This book was written for christian missionaries...however I certainly have certain points to make to correct authors view of looking at other religions...Especially when we talk about buddhism, it already offers immense love, compassion, kindness and ways to develop one's heart fully. Look at H. H. Dalai Lama, he is immensely compassionate towards the people who have destroyed his motherland. And this is all without any kind of fear in life, especially from christian point of view - without fear of god. Buddhism hasn't become on of the largely followed religion by damaging other religions ever. Buddha's teaching state clearly, one must not be blind in following buddhism; have questions, ask questions. Rather if you are progressing in your buddhist path without questions, there mostly something wrong in your way. An open mindedness is the key. Must not be fearful in your life. If we analyze christianity, although people follow ten commandments (some of which are clearly copied from buddhism), they do so out of pure fear of god, and not a compassionate heart. Do we really want world to be fearful? No. They have to follow bible word to word, meaning even though evolution is widely accepted over the world, they still can't accept it as a fact. They cannot accept that earth can be more than couple of thousand years old. i.e. it does not have an open mind. If a text (bible) has so many flaws from the beginning, how can one trust other facts? In a buddhist country, meat is not the main source of food. Buddhists around the world certainly understand the value of life, let it be either human life or an animal life. Western christian countries live on meat, killing millions of animals daily. For what reason? Because of the false belief that all these animals have been made for humans to eat. Where is the compassion and love? Good things, if any, are done only because of fear and not a pure heart.

Does one really want to propagate such religions based on fear to replace buddhism which is based on a pure heart?

We are the human species, supposedly one with a developed brains, lets put it to some good use. Lets not be selfish in our goals. Lets be very analytical, critical. Lets concentrate on developing our heart for the earth, and all the living beings. Let us all keep an open heart and truly be a superior species. As buddha says -

Manopubbangama dhamma manosettha manomaya manasa ce paduttena bhasati va karoti va tato nam dukkhamanveti cakkanca vahato padan

(All mental phenomena have mind as their forerunner; they have mind as their chief; they are mind-made. If one speaks or acts with an evil mind, 'dukkha' (suffering) follows him just as the wheel follows the foot print of the ox that draws the cart).

And

Manopubbangama dhamma manosettha manomaya manasa ce pasannena bhasati va karoti va tato nam sukhamanveti chayava anapayini.

(All mental phenomena have mind as their forerunner; they have mind as their chief; they are mind-made. If one speaks or acts with a pure mind, happiness (sukha) follows him like a shadow that never leaves him).

As the subtitle suggests, this is a simple prayer guide for Christians. It is inherent within Christianity, and a mandate of Jesus himself, to pray that others would know Jesus Christ as "good news of great joy." The daily entries provide concise, if highly selective, information for each people group. The book, however, does not preclude knowledge and thoughtful understanding of Buddhism. Other reviewers here have simply missed the point altogether, spewing derision against Christians while advocating religious tolerance!

This book is an awesome resource for Christians working in a Buddhist world. Each people group is clearly identified and defined in such a way that the reader can easily understand what the spiritual condition is of that group. But, in addition to that, there are many excellent articles that are strategically placed throughout the book. If you are a missionary, minister, lay person, or simply have a heart for seeing the Buddhist people reached with the gospel and want to know how to pray for this unreached group, this book can be valuable tool to helping you succeed in your task.

'Peoples of the Buddhist World' is a magnificent book, similar in style to Hattaway's previous 'Operation China.' Apart from the excellent information, the most striking thing to me are the hundreds of superb color pictures of Buddhist people and situations that are found on every page of the book. Tibetans, Burmese, Thais, Koreans.... each are presented with excellence. Approx. 250 Buddhist ethnic groups and tribes are profiled, in alphabetical order, from large groups tens of millions strong, down to tiny Himalayan tribes of a few hundred.

I have no idea how the publishers are able to put out an approx. 500 page large book, all in colour from front to back, for such a cheap price. Other similar books sell for anywhere from $60 to $100. I strongly recommend it if you have any interest in Buddhism, Buddhists, or Asia in general.