By Leo D. Lefebure. Faith Meets Faith Series. Maryknoll N.Y.: Orbis, 
            1993. Pp. xxiii + 239. $18.95.

            A thoughtful comparison of the traditional accounts of Christ and 
            Buddha, Japanese Mahayana (Zen and Shin) and Christianity 
            (Pseudo-Dionysius and Augustine), and Buddhist and Christian 
            responses to modernity (Thich Nhat Hanh and Gustavo Gutierrez). 
            Lefebure sees similar structures (the simultaneous striving for 
            self-perfection and altruistic activity) within the context of 
            different doctrinal presuppositions (creation and interdependent 
            arising). The strongest features of the book are its emphasis on 
            practice and experience, the attention to both cataphatic and 
            apophatic systems and spiritualities, the solid discussion of 
            Engaged Buddhism and Liberation Theology, and a refusal to make 
            simplistic identifications between Buddhism and Christianity or to 
            force closure on the new and complex issue of the dialogue. 
            However, except for the section on Nhat Han and Gutierrez, only 
            secondary sources are used. And although L. has read extensively, he 
            leaves us with the misleading impression that there is an ultimate 
            reality of some sort (variously identified with emptiness, nirvana, 
            Buddha, Nature, Dharmakaya, etc.) in Mahayana Buddhism, despite 
            quoting Nhat Hanh on the Heart Sutra, who correctly equates 
            emptiness and interdependent arising (which Nhat Hanh calls 
            "interbeing"). We can certainly say that Christianity has an 
            ultimate reality (God) but we can at most say that Buddhism leads to 
            seeing reality as it ultimately is. Christianity goes to a "there," 
            but Buddhism dismantles the illusory "here" so that the nonillusory 
            "here" self-manifests: this is the identity (better, nonduality) of 
            samsara and nirvana which L. reports was such a problem for Tillich. 
            
            L.'s heavy reliance on D. T. Suzuki and Masao Abe leads him to be 
            overly suspicious of conceptual statements about emptiness. A 
            discussion of Tendai or Gelugpa would have provided a more effective 
            foil to Augustine's doctrinal statements.