I recently received an e-mail from a friend in Thailand recounting the recent festival of Loy Krathong, which I had previously not heard of. According to Wikipedia, Loy Krathong is “a festival celebrated in Thailand, held on the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar, but in the western calendar it usually falls into November.”

As my friend describes it, “Explosions ignited around us, and fire filled the sky as we walked down the banks of the main river through Chiangmai on Wednesday evening. None of it made any sense to us. Around us families were launching paper hot-air balloons into the sky in an attempt to be set from their sins. Others were lighting candles on small floats, which they then launched in the river in order to ask forgiven from the “goddess of the river” for their bad deeds over the past year and to seek good fortune for the year to come.” In other words, the Thai Buddists are seeking to atone for their sins.

What’s so interesting about this is that Buddism as a whole is based on the presupposition that human beings are essentially good; we simply make bad choices, (thus bringing bad karma culminating in a negative reincarnation). It is a system which seeks to rid its devotees of dependence upon anything (though it is certainly not arguing for the Christian view of contentment), and that suffering is brought about by desire (though wouldn’t the desire not to desire fall under this as well?). It is not a system which has a clear teaching regarding sin.

Yet, here we are presented with a widely recognized Buddist tradition in which people’s sins are “floated away.” In reality, none of us can escape the conscience God has implanted in us, nor can we escape a notion of God’s holiness and our depravity. The creation itself holds us accountable for the existence of God (Romans 1:18-23). Even in man-made religions that try to do away with the idea of sin, our consciences convict us that we are not right with God. The animistic religions of Africa and China often use sacrifices (whether they be flesh or grain) as appeasement because they too understand the need for atonement; it is inescapable because it is wired directly into our being.

Paul tells us in Romans 1 that men try to “suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18) and yet, we see that time and time again, men (and women) come back to the central truths that there is indeed a Holy Creator God who is also Judge and that we are not in right standing with Him. Various schemes, from floating offerings down a river to laying grain at the roots of a large tree have thus been concocted to “set things right.” Christianity alone understands and teaches that only an infinite sacrifice can appease an infinite God. Christianity alone teaches that man can do nothing to set things right (Ephesians 2:8-9) and everything rests on God (Romans 9:16). Salvation from God is by God through God. It is God-centered from start to finish, and yet how sad it is that many in our own country lower these glorious truths to the man-centered levels of the world’s follies.

May Loy Krathong and Romans 1 again lead us to sing with Paul the glorious truth that our salvation does not depend on a river or a tree, but on the very God who created us and that we are convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).

Read the Wikipedia entry on Loy Krathong.
Read Eerdman’s Handbook of World Religions.