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SF: Like to finish up with this general area about your work, with regard to maybe blending or taking the best elements of Christianity and Buddhism, and how you see that in the future for Asian American churches.

PN: My feeling is that they're two perspectives. One is in terms of the development of community. And everybody has a different perspective. I mean, you have a background that's a little different, and you develop your ideology because of all that has happened in the past -- your experience and all. And if a person happened to be a Buddhist and brought up that way, you know they're developed that way. But what is important is that there's a commonality in all of these religions in which you can really work together for peace and harmony, unity, community. We can all work together. So the first point is that we really need to see beyond the competition between religions and work together in terms of the commonalities that we have, to bring that real unity and harmony. And that goes for Buddhist, Christian, and with dialog with other groups, and then ultimately the global theology that is all-inclusive, that embraces a different perspective. So you need to have a pluralistic understanding. And that is also true in terms of races and also in terms of religion.

And the other thing is that we need to have a global, universal attitude about what we are about. And that -- 'course, this brings in theology in terms of what is the plan of the Creator, you might say, for this whole universe. What is the purpose of history? Is history going someplace? What is the ultimate end and so forth? Well, I think we need to really think in terms of the globe, the whole world; not just our own community. But to do that, we have to have a real direction as to who we are and learning to respect all the other kinds of perspectives that are involved in ethnicity and so forth. Like this ethnic cleansing that's taking place. Well, that's just working the other way. When you say one group is larger, better than the other, you're gonna have conflict. But when you begin to respect each group and begin to realize that there's good in every group and you can work together, I think this is the answer for world peace and ultimate harmony, and what Christians would call the Kingdom of God. All work together. Belongs in the small community and then universally.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.