The Unexpected Way: On Converting from Buddhism to Catholicism

Described as an “essay in radical postmodern theology,” The Unexpected Way is a record of one man's unexpected philosophical and theological pilgrimage from Buddhism to Catholicism. There are Christians who, in mid-life decide to abandon their Christian faith and become Buddhists. Paul Williams did the opposite. After twenty years spent practicing and teaching Tibetan Buddhism in Britain, scholar and broadcaster Paul Williams astonished his family and friends in 1999 by converting to Roman Catholicism. Williams explains why he joined a Church that many Buddhists and others might regard as a repressed and outdated way of life and belief. He argues that being a Catholic in the modern world is no less rational than being a Buddhist, and may in many respects, be more so. Williams’ conversion explanation interacts as much with the paramount intellectual thinkers of Western and Eastern philosophy as it does with his pet cat, doughnuts, and other seemingly innocuous artifacts of modern culture.