News Flash: God Is Not Christian

So says Bishop Desmond Tutu who was not exactly pleased at the new choice for the papacy.

"Tutu urged Pope Benedict to continue the work of his predecessor Pope John Paul II in promoting interfaith dialogue.

'God is not a Christian,' Tutu declared.

'We sometimes make out that God is in the preserve of one particular faith. We need to have church leaders who are open to interfaith dialogue who are aware that truth is not encapsulated only in the Christian faith,' he said, adding that one of the 'holiest people' he had ever met was the Dalai Lama, Tibet's Buddhist spiritual leader.

Pope Benedict once called Buddhism a religion for the self-indulgent. Speaking to cardinals as they went into the conclave that made him pope, he listed relativism - the ideology that there are no absolute truths - as among tendencies he considered dangers to the faith."

The new Pope also said that Buddhism was auto-erotic and somehow, from all that I've read about the practice, I don't understand his view. The Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) seem to be fixated on sex and purity. Buddhism isn't. Perhaps that is why Buddhist monks aren't under fire for sexual abuse.