Just SO Many Things Wrong with This

Hard to know where to begin--or stop--commenting.

From Newsweek's Beliefwatch:

China Regulates Buddhist Reincarnation

China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation."

Now, the impulse here is to chuckle at those crazy commies, maybe make a joke about how long it'll be before our Congress tries it, while noting how interesting it is that the Chinese at least take religion seriously enough to try that.

But this is apparently a pretty serious effort by the Chinese government to pick the next Dalai Lama.

By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.

At 72, the Dalai Lama, who has lived in India since 1959, is beginning to plan his succession, saying that he refuses to be reborn in Tibet so long as it's under Chinese control. Assuming he's able to master the feat of controlling his rebirth, as Dalai Lamas supposedly have for the last 600 years, the situation is shaping up in which there could be two Dalai Lamas: one picked by the Chinese government, the other by Buddhist monks.

It's likely that the monks will pick a Tibetan-exile, maybe even from the U.S. (like what almost happened to Bobby Hill), where Gallup tells us 20% of adults believe in reincarnation.

On the one hand, I thought the 20% was a little low, reassuringly so--but wait, we're not done with poll numbers--we can still be appalled by the findings!

Recent surveys by the Barna Group, a Christian research nonprofit, have found that a quarter of U.S. Christians, including 10 percent of all born-again Christians, embrace it as their favored end-of-life view. (emphasis mine)

Granted that Barna's definition of born-again is a bit loose, and his respondents are self-identified as such, his numbers are generally seen as close to reality. We've got 10% of supposedly regenerate people disagreeing with the principle that:

it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment

It's disturbing enough that they believe in it, but I can live with that. It's the idea that it's their "favored end-of-life view." Favored. Ten percent of those who name the name of Christ would prefer coming back and doing this all again (including acne, high school, and driver's education) to passing immediately into glory and being with their Lord and Savior. Thankfully, the majority still agree with Paul.

to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain...My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.