Can you be a Christian and a Buddhist?

Question: During Q&A after a recent talk on Identity Crisis: Is our Sexuality designed? I was asked: ‘Why do Buddhists say you can be a Christian and a Buddhist at the same time?’ 

I love it. No matter what topic you are addressing, the younger generations ask anything.  

Answer: Great question! I explained that Buddhism is ultimately about achieving enlightenment, which means seeing through the illusions of our ordinary way of viewing reality. According to Buddhist teaching, everything that exists is marked by impermanence (anicca). Nothing is fixed or lasting—our thoughts, our bodies, even our sense of self are constantly changing. What we take to be concrete and enduring is, in fact, in flux. 

Because everything is impermanent, attachment becomes the root of suffering (dukkha). The more we cling to things that are always changing, the more disappointed we become when they slip through our fingers. Enlightenment, then, involves learning to let go—to stop grasping for permanence in a world of impermanence, and to see through the illusion that anything truly endures. 

From this perspective, Buddhism can appear very inclusive. If Christian practices or teachings help you “see through” illusions and reach enlightenment, that’s acceptable. In Buddhism, it’s not the path that matters as much as the progress toward detachment and awareness. 

But here’s the problem. If everything is impermanent and illusory, then nothing solid remains to anchor truth or meaning. As C.S. Lewis warned, 

“You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things forever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.”¹ 

That’s exactly the problem with the Buddhist vision of life. If you “see through” everything—if nothing is ultimately real—then you end up unable to truly see anything at all. Buddhism offers no concrete vision of what is, no fixed reality to orient your life toward. It doesn’t show you how to live in the real world because, in its system, there ultimately is no real world to live in. 

And if that were true—if everyone fully embraced the Buddhist view that life is an illusion and detachment the highest good—civilizations would unravel. There would be no reason to build families, pursue justice, create beauty, or sacrifice for love. A purely Buddhist society could only survive if others continued to live as though reality were real, as though truth, goodness, and love actually mattered. 

In the end, Buddhism offers not redemption but retreat. It gives no ultimate hope or solution, only an escape from the very world we were made to engage and restore. 

Christianity, by contrast, claims that ultimate reality is knowable—and it’s not an illusion to escape, but a Person to encounter. The Bible teaches that the core problem of humanity isn’t ignorance or illusion but sin: our rebellion and separation from the God who made us. And the solution isn’t detachment, but reconciliation. 

Through Jesus Christ, God entered the world He created to do what we could not—to repair the relationship our sin had broken. On the cross, Jesus bore the consequence of our rebellion so that forgiveness could be offered freely to all who believe. And in His resurrection, He revealed the true nature of ultimate reality: that life, not death, has the final word; that love, not emptiness, stands at the center of existence. 

Jesus made a way for us to live in the fullness of life—in Him, the source of all that is truly real and good. 

In Christ, we’re not told to “see through” the world, but to see it rightly, to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, to recognize creation as something real, valuable, and made good by a Creator who entered it. Jesus doesn’t offer an escape from reality; He restores it. 

And that’s why Christianity offers far greater hope—both for the individual and for the world.

Buddhism teaches you to withdraw from desire; Christianity redeems your desires.
Buddhism tells you to let go of the world; Christianity calls you to love and renew it.
Buddhism ends in emptiness; Christianity ends in resurrection. 

In Jesus, we don’t lose ourselves in illusion—we find ourselves in truth. And that truth doesn’t lead us away from the world, but sends us back into it—redeemed, restored, and ready to love as we’ve been loved.