Finding God among Our Neighbors: An Interfaith Systematic Theology

1. A Brief Introduction to Hinduism

1 A Brief Introduction to Hinduism By design, I began writing this chapter in a particularly auspicious place: sitting on the roof of my hotel in Varanasi, India, looking out over the Ganges River. Figure 1.1. On the banks of the Ganges, Varanasi, India, March 2012 The city of Varanasi (formerly called Benares) is one of the holiest cities in India, believed to have been founded by the god Shiva. It is sanctified by its proximity to the river Ganges, which is worshiped as a goddess who has the power both to purify sins and release a soul from the cycle of birth and death. 11 Millions and millions of pilgrims come here every year to bathe in the purifying waters, to die and be cremated on the banks of the river, and to worship in the temples scattered throughout the city. Though certainly touched by modernity, Varanasi continues to present an ancient face of Hinduism; and it was there, walking among sadhus, beggars, and pilgrims, that I began to think about how to introduce Hinduism to Christians. It is no easy task. Of the five major world religions (Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam), it is certainly the case that Hinduism is both the least known and the least experienced by most Americans. This state of ignorance cannot continue, however, as the Hindu population both in the United States and worldwide continues to grow. Hinduism is the third largest religion in the world, behind Christianity and Islam. The majority of Hindus are located in India (95 percent, according to one source1) and Nepal, a secular state though constitutionally Hindu, but Hinduism is on the rise in the United States as well, primarily due to immigration. According to the Hindu American Foundation, “From 1,700 people in 1900, the Hindu population in America grew to approximately 387,000 by 1980 and 1.1 million in 1997. As of 2008, the estimated U.S. population of Hindus of Indian origin is approximately 2.29 million (mainly of Indian and Indo-Caribbean descent). Estimates are that there may also be as many as 1 million practicing American Hindus, not of Indian origin, in the U.S.2 In addition, the website for Diana Eck’s well-regarded Pluralism Project (based at Harvard University) lists 723 Hindu temples and centers in the United States, and notes that there is a Hindu center and/ or temple in every state, with the exception of Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Vermont.3 HINDUISM: A WAY OF LIFE, NOT A CREED Of all the major world religions discussed in this book, in my view, Hinduism is the most difficult for Christians to engage with and understand. Partly this is because the basic assumptions Christians make about what a religion is—the characteristics it has, the role it plays in one’s life, and the questions it both asks and answers—simply do not fit Hinduism very well. Here is one example. Instinctively, when Christians begin to learn about another religious tradition, they want to know what the practitioners believe: their basic confessional statements, their unifying doctrines, etc. Frustratingly, however, Hinduism 1. Mark W. Muesse, The Hindu Traditions (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011), 6. 2. http://www.hafsite.org/resources/hinduism_101/hinduism_demographics. 3. http://pluralism.org/directory/index/?sort=state%2Ccity%2Ctitle&tradition=Hindu. 12 | Finding God among Our Neighbors simply does not have any of those things: rather, by definition, Hinduism is not a belief system. In fact, the Supreme Court of India, in the course of a ruling on a particular case, declared as one of its seven characteristics of a Hindu (listed in full later in the chapter): “In distinction from followers of other religions, one does not believe in a specific set of theological or philosophical conceptions.”4 Instead, as one Indian told me while we were touring the Taj Mahal, Hinduism is a “way of life.” What does that mean? Simply put, it means that Hinduism is more about how one conducts one’s life than about what one holds to be true. That is, Hinduism is more about “orthopraxis,” right actions, than “orthodoxy,” right beliefs. Or, as Axel Michaels says, “Belief is secondary to behavior.”5 So, where what makes one a Christian is one’s belief in Jesus Christ (and, correspondingly, baptism), what makes one a Hindu is being born and raised in a Hindu family and living...