Baptized and Buddhist: A Personal Journey Through Faith

Part One of Two

From a young age, I didn’t just find Christianity to be a poor fit, I hated it. I couldn’t understand how my Christian friends believed in this Santa Claus figure named Jesus. This aversion grew as I got older (especially as a queer man) and words like Jesus and God carried a lot of baggage. Throughout seminary, you might as well have renamed me "Israel" because I was wrestling violently with both God and the Christian faith, one day despising the entire narrative, and the next, feeling strangely inspired by it. This back-and-forth struggle defined my relationship with Christianity for much of the recent past. During my two and a half years of full-time study in Christian theology, I never once came to call myself a Christian. Yet, after all that wrestling, after the doubt and the frustration, I have recently found peace in calling myself a Christian.

Baptism Near Mineola Texas, by Alan Lomax (1935), Public domain

I was baptized into the Christian faith as a baby, but this was more out of cultural tradition than any real engagement with the religion. My parents left the church in their early adulthood, and I was never raised Christian; it was a completely foreign religion to me. At the age of 12, I sought answers on my own and called myself a Buddhist, a tradition that answered all my burning questions, and felt like a warm hug in the face of existential bewilderment. My journey with Christianity has been anything but traditional, and my religious formation has been shaped by my engagement with a variety of religious traditions, primarily those of the East. While my spiritual axis is bound to shift again in this lifetime, for now, I have settled into the fact that this season of my spiritual journey is marked by a unique duality: I am Christian, and yet, I am something else entirely.

This twist in my spiritual identity became clear after attending a lecture by Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, a distinguished New Testament scholar. She made a statement that has stayed with me: "Christians ought to take their baptism a little more seriously." She wasn’t simply calling for a more committed faith. She was pointing to something much deeper: an invitation to understand baptism as a foundational event that links us to a living, breathing tradition, one that has carried us through centuries of evolution, doubt, and mystery.

What makes Dr. Levine's point even more striking is her own identity as an Orthodox Jewish New Testament scholar. It’s a beautiful contradiction. How could someone who is deeply rooted in the Jewish faith engage with the Christian Scriptures in such an intimate way? For Dr. Levine, this dual identity is essential. She shows us that the Jewish tradition is more capacious when it comes to dialogue. In Judaism, there’s no “in” or “out.” You are a Jew, whether you hold the “right” beliefs or not. There is room for disagreement, for questioning, for differing interpretations. This creates a tradition that is fluid, open, and full of space for creative theological exploration. This is the very freedom we see expressed by Jesus, a Jew who was highly critical of the religious norms of his time, unafraid to initiate thought-provoking dialogue.

This is the kind of freedom I see as essential in any religious tradition. In Christianity, too often, the faith is presented as rigid, a set of doctrines to adhere to or reject. But Dr. Levine’s perspective reminds me that belonging to a tradition (any tradition) does not require intellectual or theological uniformity. It allows for room to wrestle, to question, and to evolve. And it is this freedom that I found through my own baptism, through my ancestral belonging in this tradition. My Christian faith is a living tradition that I am free to challenge and shape as I see fit.

The Roots of Belonging: Embracing a Heritage That Shapes Us

When I reflect on my baptism, it’s not just the water, the words, or the theological significance that come to mind; it’s the deeper connection it represents. It ties me to my ancestors and my history. Though my grandparents were not overtly religious in their later years, they were part of the Christian tradition. My grandfather, a woodcarver, hand-crafted a wooden cross that I often wear. I remember one coffee hour after a Sunday service, looking up to see my grandmother’s photo on the church wall. These seemingly small details are symbols of the legacy I carry within me. They aren’t just relics; they are signposts that remind me of my roots in this tradition, roots that stretch back through time.

Papa's Wooden Cross, Nicho Fournie (2022)

Seekers keep on seeking,

without knowing what they yearn.

Dogmas can’t sustain the prowl,

so they learn, and they learn.

Forget the books and theories

it is written in the heart.

Fools for God may not read the Bible,

but they know the divine one’s art.

Perhaps some silent sitting

or a lot might do.

But my Papa was a woodcarver,

and my ancestors sat in Church pews.

I wear his wooden cross,

sit on the floor and giggle.

At the thought of meeting the one,

True God, in my local chapel.

Truth without a guru,or a priest,or a teacher,

surely won't do.

If not Truth,

could love do?

Excuses, excuses,

sit down and count to ten.

One to ten, and over again.

The still point inside,

Who are you?

Who are you?

Every religion, sect, and tradition carries with it a unique sensation, a texture, a colour, an abstract impression that’s hard to put into words. I could feel this richness in Buddhism, and I imagined that receiving my grandfather’s mala beads would have been all the affirmation I needed. But that never came. It’s not my place, nor is it my world. My world has been shaped by the cross, whether I like it or not.

Baptism, then, is an outward symbol of an inward reality: I belong. When I sit in church, no one questions my presence. I am not an outsider; this is my home. The rituals are familiar, the prayers echo through my family’s history, and the scriptures, once foreign, have come to feel like my own words, speaking across generations. This sense of belonging is deeply ingrained in my identity, something no one can take from me, and it forms the foundation of my spiritual journey.

How Baptism Creates the Freedom to Explore

But here’s where the twist deepens: belonging to a tradition doesn’t mean blind acceptance. In fact, I’ve come to realize that my deep connection to Christianity gives me the freedom to question, to challenge, and to explore. As a gay person, I am an outsider in most religious spaces, including the Christian tradition. Yet, I now feel that my baptism gives me the right to assert my voice from within the tradition. I don’t need to prove my worth or my place in the community. I belong. And that sense of belonging empowers me to ask hard questions, to critique, and to seek new ways of engaging with the faith.

During my time with the Hare Krishna movement, I was an outsider, a visitor, a convert. I was acutely aware of my position as someone who hadn’t been born into the tradition. I didn’t feel I had the right to challenge or alter its teachings. Though I had chosen to join the movement, I couldn’t shape the tradition to fit my understanding. That authority belonged to those born into it. While I deeply respected their commitment, I felt disconnected, unable to carve out space for myself to influence or transform the practice. When my beliefs didn’t align perfectly with the teachings, there was nothing to hold me to the tradition, and belief could only bend so far. At the time, I was living in a village in Panama, hiking mountains every day. As I would climb, singing the name of Krishna, I’d reach the summit only to find a cross waiting for me. Krishna, it seemed, had become an increasingly distant choice, disconnected from the reality of my surroundings, where nothing related to Indian mythology seemed to fit.

Christianity, however, is different. Because of my baptism, because of being born into the Western world, I am not merely a guest; I am a member of this tradition. It is my tradition, and I have the freedom to engage with it deeply, to challenge what doesn’t sit right with me, and to imagine a version of Christianity that is both authentically mine and true to the spirit of the faith. When my faith gets stretched, I am bound to these narratives, as they have shaped the world that I know and live in.

This is where my dual identity as both Christian and Buddhist comes into play, as my spiritual journey has shaped me into someone who is neither bound by tradition nor free from it. I can bring my Buddhist practices, my questions, and my contemplative insights into my Christian faith and allow them to inform one another.

Embracing My Path as a Baptized Buddhist

I was raised in a secular household, far removed from any religious tradition. But I always felt that something was missing. As an adult, I searched for meaning in various spiritual traditions, but nothing felt like home. Christianity, however, invited me in, not as a perfect, unchanging dogma, but as a living tradition that was mine (if I can call any tradition truly mine).

My baptism was a turning point in this journey. It wasn’t the start of a simple Christian life; it was the beginning of a more complicated, more profound path. It marked my place within a story that has been unfolding for centuries, a story that is as much about the future as it is about the past. Baptism didn’t just make me a Christian; it gave me the space to explore the complexities of faith, to ask questions, and to engage with a tradition that is still very much alive.

While I now find myself at church on Sundays, I still long for the unique texture of Buddhism. I reminisce about the ring of a deep orin bell, sitting on the floor, eyes lowered, observing my breath. I'll never shake the feeling of my first autumn zen retreat in the hardwood floored living room of a heritage home, surrounded by serious seekers, for hours in silence. Incense and candles warmed our silent vegetarian lunch. And with all that I have said thus far, church tuna sandwiches have never filled that deeply nourishing experience that my formative years learned to call home. I often wonder how to move forward from here, but perhaps this tension will never be fully resolved. For now, I am both a baptized Christian and a Buddhist, doing my best to hold both truths in my heart.

In the next article, I will explore how my Buddhist path has intertwined with my Christian faith and how both traditions have shaped my spiritual identity. I’ll dive into how I practice both religions, not as conflicting identities, but as complementary paths that inform my understanding of the divine, of suffering, and of Truth.

Live like dust, lit by fire,

Nicho