The article in question published by Newsweek is entitled, “We’re All Hindus Now.” (Perhaps, though, the author has some suppressed Calvinist within him, given she uses “all” to mean Americans in a broad sense, not every single American. Hmmm..)
The author, Ms. Lisa Miller, writes:
…..recent poll data show that conceptually, at least, we are slowly becoming more like Hindus and less like traditional Christians in the ways we think about God, our selves, each other, and eternity.
Then:
The Rig Veda, the most ancient Hindu scripture, says this: “Truth is One, but the sages speak of it by many names.” A Hindu believes there are many paths to God. Jesus is one way, the Qur’an is another, yoga practice is a third. None is better than any other; all are equal. The most traditional, conservative Christians have not been taught to think like this. They learn in Sunday school that their religion is true, and others are false. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.”
The first comment to made is that her statement of what Hindu beliefs are is true, but that statement necessarily involves believing in nonsense, or at least a redefinition of truth. A fundamental when discussing truth is the law of contradiction (or non-contradiction, depending upon your training) – “A” cannot be both “A” and “non-A” (at the same time in the same relationship). Christianity, which teaches Jesus is the only way, cannot be true at the same as Islam, which teaches that Allah is the only way or Hinduism, which teaches that contradictory claims made by Christians and Muslims can both be true at the same time.
The crux of the matter, though, is this statement:
According to a 2008 Pew Forum survey, 65 percent of us believe that “many religions can lead to eternal life”—including 37 percent of white evangelicals, the group most likely to believe that salvation is theirs alone. Also, the number of people who seek spiritual truth outside church is growing. Thirty percent of Americans call themselves “spiritual, not religious,” according to a 2009 NEWSWEEK Poll, up from 24 percent in 2005. Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University, has long framed the American propensity for “the divine-deli-cafeteria religion” as “very much in the spirit of Hinduism. You’re not picking and choosing from different religions, because they’re all the same,” he says. “It isn’t about orthodoxy. It’s about whatever works. If going to yoga works, great—and if going to Catholic mass works, great. And if going to Catholic mass plus the yoga plus the Buddhist retreat works, that’s great, too.”
She’s absolutely right. Which is quite sad.
Far too many Christians, are, in fact, functioning Hindus. How many Christians that you know honestly and sincerely believe that God couldn’t be so strict as to “only provide one way of redemption” – that “good people” of other belief systems have attained salvation in whatever that system is?
The real question is not “How could God be so harsh and only provide one way,” but “Why was God so gracious in providing ANY way?”
