The Emptied Christ of Philippians Quotes

“Such is the spirit call of this gospel—as it is of the Buddha Dharma—that we are to begin by abandoning self and its preoccupations. The same life that beats in the hearts of our enemies is the life that beats in our hearts. In one way or another, we are all Samaritans to somebody. But there is no real life difference. And all our boasting should celebrate life together beyond ethnic, nationalistic, religious, and personal boundaries. That is what it means for us Christians to be in Christ, and this understanding is so globally countercultural that it can hardly be reduced to any political program or power rearrangement.”
― John P. Keenan, The Emptied Christ of Philippians: Mahāyāna Meditations

“It is not that somehow Paul discovers a new source of inspiration within a cherished new identity. Instead, he experiences the collapse of all traditions in the immediacy of an enlightening Christ who moves him to loosen the identity boundaries that define. Only in the collapse of the powers of the standalone person does the power of the resurrection flow through these bodies of our living and dying. Otherwise, we keep thinking that we possess our own bodies and have a stable individual existence apart from the richly interdependent and interpersonal cosmos in which we have our being—that we are stable selves who might have a stable relationship with a self-”
― John P. Keenan, The Emptied Christ of Philippians: Mahāyāna Meditations

“in the Gospel meaning” (είς τὸ εύαγγέλιον) that “you share” (ἐπὶ τῇ κοινωνίᾳ ὑμῶν) will be brought to final fulfillment (ἐπιτελέσει) because gospel life erases the boundaries between life and death, enabling the formation of the community of the people in Philippi.126 If the gospel is just about how to live a good life, as Thomas Jefferson thought, then it is a failure. But it is not just about living a good life. Rather, it is about living and dying, about how we can live attentively and kindly when surely we will die and lose everything that constitutes the good life.127”
― John P. Keenan, The Emptied Christ of Philippians: Mahāyāna Meditations

“These expressions, Keenan points out, are linked to “ontotheological interpretations” of the nature of reality, relying as they do on an understanding of self-enclosed (“substantial”) being as the basic unit of all things that exist. Seen from a Buddhist perspective, this is a deluded view that prevents us from seeing the intimate interconnectedness of all things in the universe—a key insight into the nature of reality that stems from the awakening experience of the Buddha. Keenan turns to Mahāyāna Buddhist thought in seeking a different set of conceptual tools for articulating Christian doctrine that might more suitably convey the experiential meaning underlying its often convoluted expressions and that may resonate more with contemporary modes of thinking.10”
― John P. Keenan, The Emptied Christ of Philippians: Mahāyāna Meditations

“In a similar vein, Keenan’s approach to reading Christian scripture and understanding Christian doctrine seeks to place these in the context of the spiritual experience out of which scriptural and doctrinal expressions emerge: “a mystic realm of meaning in which meaning is constituted not by thinking and judging, but by the immediacy of contact, of being touched. Indeed, this base experience is the source from which all theologizing springs.”9”
― John P. Keenan, The Emptied Christ of Philippians: Mahāyāna Meditations