Can Christians Learn from Hinduism?

IS Christianity merely another religion? Can well-informed Christian ministers learn as much from Hinduism as could the Hindus from Christianity? According to certain religious leaders of the United States, the answers to those questions should be Yes. For example, Sheldon Shepard, minister of the Hollywood Wilshire Universalist Church, writing on the subject “Start with Yourself”a begins by quoting from Jesus’ sermon on the mount regarding not judging others and then in support thereof gives quotations from Taoism, Jainism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Hinduism. Representative of the Hindu wisdom he quotes is the expression: “Each one ought to raise himself by himself.”

Of the same mind is Floyd Rose, professor of World Religions and Church History, School of Religion, University of California. In his article “Beyond Tribalism”b he expresses the opinion that the holding of Christianity as superior to other religions is a form of tribalism and that it is as realistic to send Christian missionaries to Japan as it would be to send Hindu missionaries to America. He then quotes with approval from the Roman Catholic priest Gathier, who says (In Cross Currents, Winter 1953): “The Hindus could ask us . . . whether we too have not something to learn from the millennial wisdom of India. Without hesitation I would answer we have much to learn. . . . Hinduism invites us before all to interiorization, to the welcoming of thought on the Self. It hopes to find the final truth not in books, but in ourselves. . . . Properly understood the contact with Hindu thought can be a seed of life.”

Is the truth in ourselves rather than in books? Can we raise ourselves by ourselves? Has the Christian much to learn from Hinduism? Since Christ Jesus well said, “By their fruits you will recognize them,” let us see just what fruits this millennial wisdom of Hinduism brought forth prior to the twentieth century.

HINDUISM AND MORALITY

We quote from an address given by Dr. Pentecost at the World Parliament of Religions held in Chicago, Illinois, 1893, which he was aroused to make because of the attacks of delegates from the Orient upon the status of Christendom. After noting that their Oriental temples “are the authorized and appointed cloisters of a system of immorality and debauchery the parallel of which is not known in any Western country,” Dr. Pentecost went on to say: “I could take you to ten thousand temples, more or less—more rather than less—in every part of India, to which are attached some two to four hundred priestesses, whose lives are not all they should be.

“I have seen this with my own eyes, and nobody denies it in India. If you talk to the Brahmans about it, they will say it is part of their system for the common people. Bear in mind this system is the authorized institution of the Hindoo religion. One needs only to look at the abominable carvings upon the temples, both of the Hindoos and Buddhists, the hideous symbols of the ancient Phallic systems, which are the most popular objects worshiped in India, to be impressed with the corruption of the religions. Bear in mind, these are not only tolerated, but instituted, directed and controlled by the priests of religion. Only the shameless paintings and portraiture of ancient Pompeii equal in obscenity the things that are openly seen in and about the entrances to the temples of India.”

After observing that, consistent with India’s caste system, he has never been able to find “a single text in any of the Hindoo sacred literature that justifies or even suggests the doctrine of the ‘fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.’” Dr. Pentecost went on to say: “If there is any brotherhood of man in India the most careless observer need not hesitate to say there is no sisterhood recognized by them. Let the nameless horrors of which the Hindoo women of India are the subjects answer to this statement.

“Until the English government put down with a strong hand the ancient religious Hindoo institution of Suttee, hundreds of Hindoo widows every year gladly flew to the funeral pyres of their dead husbands, thus embracing the flames that burned their bodies rather than to deliver themselves to the nameless horrors and living hell of Hindoo widowhood. Let our Hindoo friends tell us what their religion has done for the Hindoo widow, and especially the child widow, with her head shaved like a criminal, stripped of her ornaments, clothed in rags, reduced to a position of slavery worse than we can conceive, made the common drudge and scavenger of the family, and not infrequently put to even worse and nameless uses. To this state and condition the poor widow is reduced under the sanction of Hindooism. Only two years ago [in 1891] the British government was appealed to to pass a new and stringent law ‘raising the age of consent’ to twelve years, at which it was lawful for the Hindoo to consummate the marriage relation with his child wife. The Christian hospitals, filled with abused little girls barely out of their babyhood, became so outrageous a fact that the government had to step in and stop these crimes, which were perpetrated in the name of religion. So great was the excitement in India over this that it was feared that a religious revolution which would almost lead to a new mutiny was imminent.”—The Battle of Armageddon, C. T. Russell, pages 207-209.

In view of such fruits what can Christians learn from the millennial wisdom of Hinduism? How much of bettering of oneself by oneself does this represent? Concentration upon Self rather than the wisdom contained in books may be the philosophy of Hinduism, but the fact remains that the important improvements that have taken place in India, particularly since the above speech was given, were not the result of Hinduism’s “interiorization” but of the influence of the Bible.

HINDUISM AN ECONOMIC CURSE

Not only morally but also economically Hinduism has been a blight to the people of India and still is. Until the new Indian government put a bounty on monkey heads, monkeys were eating $2 million of foodstuffs a day and destroying another three billion tons of grain each year. Monkeys are considered sacred, and so they were fat and sleek while people starved to death. Peacocks, which consume much precious grain, are also considered sacred. Snakes also are held to be sacred and even to think of killing them is considered a sin, although they cause the deaths of 50,000 Indians annually.

According to one of the foremost members of India’s largest political party, “cow protection is a part of Indian culture and as such . . . the cow should be afforded full protection even if it leads to the collapse of the country’s economy.” It is considered a sin to kill a cow, regardless of how old, how sick, how unprofitable it might be to keep it. India boasts of some 215 million cattle, but it starves because beef is repugnant to its people because of their religion.

Karma or fatalism keeps the Hindu doing the same thing his father did regardless of how impractical it is. Because of karma ten lawyers will practice where but one is needed; because of karma Europeans or well-to-do Indians will have from six to ten house servants instead of two: the one who cooks may not set the table; the one who sets the table may not sweep the floor; the one who sweeps the floor may not wash the clothes; the one who washes the clothes may not wash the car, etc. Why not? To do so would be to break caste, the social crime of India. Incidentally, India also has ten million religious beggars that do not produce a thing.

That it is the Hindu mental attitude that is responsible for India’s plight is apparent from what Maurice Zinkin wrote in the April-June, 1952, issue of the India Quarterly. According to him many underdeveloped countries would like to have material prosperity but they are unwilling to change their mental attitude to make this possible. After telling that the Indian considers a lawyer or minor civil servant as more honorable than a sales manager or a production engineer, he goes on to say:

“The attitude toward work also needs to be changed. Contemplating under a coconut tree is a better way of developing the soul [?] than carrying the stones for a new railway embankment, but societies where all the emphasis is on leisure, where work is merely an unpleasant necessity to be done as quickly as possible, may be high-souled—they will never be rich. If what the underdeveloped countries now want is to get richer, then it is upon getting richer they must concentrate; if, in the process, they lose some of the graciousness and attractiveness of their lives, that is a sacrifice which must be accepted. It is reasonable to pay some price that two thirds of their people who have always been left ignorant and hungry may at last be fed.

“It is not that the Asian peasant or African tribesman is ignorant, though he is usually illiterate. It is rather that his education, based on traditional lore, is inappropriate to modern society.” Note that the term “traditional lore” actually means Hinduism as far as the Indian is concerned.

Mr. Zinkin argues for literacy, but according to Prime Minister Nehru of India that makes matters only worse. The New York Times, May 28, 1953, telling of his plea for honest labor, reported: “In a country where 80 per cent of the population is dependent upon crops nurtured painstakingly in inhospitable ground by [ancient] methods, there is an anomalous revolt against common labor that Mr. Nehru finds exasperating. He considers it a most dismaying aspect of present-day India that almost every peasant who gets a little education wants to leave the farm and become a babu or white-collar worker.” He pleaded for “honest labor” and condemned the concept that implied that “the highest were those who did nothing at all.”

That not mere literacy but a change in the Hinduistic mental attitude is needed is apparent from Mr. Zinkin’s further observations: “The West owes more of its advance than is commonly realized to the Puritan doctrine which made thrift and quiet living a moral virtue pleasing to God. There is no corresponding belief in any underdeveloped society.” Where did the Puritans get that doctrine? From the Bible.

The United States Congress voted two million tons of wheat for starving India in 1951, which provided temporary relief. In view of the foregoing might not the question be asked, Was India starving because of its bad weather and insect scourges or because of its bad religion? And therefore may not two million Bibles have done more toward permanently remedying the situation than two million tons of wheat?

BIBLE’S SUPERIOR WISDOM

Let Universalist minister, Roman Catholic priest and university professor of world religion and church history keep looking to Hinduism for its “millennial wisdom.” The Christian who has faith in the Bible as God’s Word and understands it will make no such mistake. He knows that Jehovah God is the fountain of life, that life is his choicest possession, a blessing and not a curse. (Ps. 36:9; 118:17; Rom. 6:23) He knows that by taking a wise course he makes Jehovah’s heart glad.—Prov. 27:11.

He knows that true wisdom or truth is not innate or original with himself, that it ‘is not in man that walks to direct his steps,’ but that all this can be found in books, the sixty-six books of the Bible. (Jer. 10:23; John 17:17) He knows that the Bible is a light for his path. (Ps. 119:105) From it he learns that God has made from one man all nations and that God does not recognize caste distinctions. (Acts 10:34; 17:26, NW) He knows that far from considering any of the lower animals as superior to man, God gave man dominion over the lower animals to serve man’s purposes, for joy of association, for beasts of burden, and for food and clothing. (Gen. 1:26; 3:21; 9:3) He knows that a husband should treat his wife with consideration, loving her as himself. (Eph. 5:28; 1 Pet. 3:7) And he knows that diligence and thrift are pleasing to God and that he condemns indolence and wastefulness.—Prov. 6:6; 18:9; 22:29.

He also knows that to make over his personality requires, not “interiorization,” but the making over of his mind with God’s thoughts, with an accurate knowledge of the truth. (Matt. 16:23; Rom. 12:2; Col. 3:9, 10, NW) And the prospect that thrills him is not total extinction or nirvana, but the hope of everlasting life in God’s new world of righteousness.—John 17:3; 2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:4.

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