Hi Gerald. Well, as you may remember, I am a Christian too, although I usually add, not one that most Christians would recognise as such. It depends on what you mean by Christianity of course. Do you mean what Rome put together at the Council of Nicea? Or some other version? Are we talking about the Christianity put out by the Church for public consumption, or the Christianity of the great mystics: Boehme, Eckhart, Hildegard von Bingen? What about the Nag Hammadi texts? And so on, and so on.

Keep diving more deeply into those eastern spiritual and philosophical traditions. There may be much that separates them from Christianity, but then one could argue that this is a problem for Christianity, in that the Church created a religion in order to maintain its power base, and therefore wanted one that seemed different.

I currently stick to my current belief in the Perennial Philosophy, that at their core, all religions are saying the same thing, sort of. I therefore seek to reconcile Christianity with these other traditions. My take is the opposite to yours; it's Christianity that needs to change. Then we can consider in what sense it has a message deeper and more relevant to our times than that of the other traditions.

I assume you're referring to Belonging to the Universe with David Steindl-Rast. It sounds familiar, and I think I have a copy of it, but can't immediately locate it. I certainly haven't read it yet. The title, however, doesn't suggest anything specific to Christianity. It could just as easily, and perhaps even more so, be related to Paganism. I'll see if I can find my copy.