From
Shri Rajiv Malhotra's Discussion Group: A comment by him, x-posted here by his consent.
Subject:
Mathews George Chunakara, the World Council of Churches and WCC's views on Hindu Dharma
I want us to not get confused with this mixed signal they send. With one had its a discussion about pluralism with special sensitivity to Hinduism. On the other hand, its an unending crusade to convert using newer and cleverer tactics. Most Hindus I come across lack the background to make sense of this, so they ignore one side or the other of this binary stance.
A book I am trying to finish up is entirely about how a series of prominent Christian theologians from the 1800s till today have intensely studied Hinduism with great sympathy towards many of its philosophical ideas, and even started out criticizing Christianity for its deficiencies. Over the years they start looking for similar sources within Christianity, even if that requires stretching their imagination quite a bit. The typical digestion of Hindu ideas into Christianity follows. Some end up later rejecting Hinduism while others never do that and remain positive towards it, even as they uturn back into Christianity.
As a result of work done by a dozen major figures that I am researching, these serious theological journeys have produced a new liberal Christian approach towards pluralism and especially Hinduism. This is often present in Christian thinkers today. They hide the Hindu origins of these ideas and when pointed out they cite some obscure or reinterpreted western sources.
(Recently in Toronto, at the Chinmaya Mission the Indian lady in charge of education who hosted my day-long discussion, and a young man training to become a Hindu sadhu, each had a persistent position that matched this Christian position. They cited that the Essene and various other Western mystics had all the same ideas as Vedanta already, hence their support for sameness. My point is that many educated, sophisticated Hindus, incl leaders of serious seva, are also in this camp.)
The smoking gun on liberal Christian pluralism:
To make sense of whats going on in Christian pluralism one must understand the following emerging theology, whose most sophisticated developer and proponent was the late catholic theologian Raimon Pannikar:
1) Christianity is re-interpreted with all the great ideas from Vedanta, Shakti traditions, yoga, etc that fit.
2) This digestion of Hinduism also allows them to make Christianity compatible with modern physics, biology, etc.
3) Hinduism is to be respected and not denigrated.
4)
The quandary to make both Christianity and Hinduism seem legitimate gets resolved by making Hinduism a subset of Christianity. It has everything except the historical Jesus. Making Jesus' history-centrism fit alongside nondualism has been the complex problem that has occupied a century of theologians. (Hence BD's central target is to show the mutual incompatibility between dharma and history-centrism.)It takes a lot of intellectual gymnastics, hubris, etc. by these theologians. This is one issue where I have detailed compilations of their arguments and my rebuttals.
5)
Christianity is described as the global truth, but there are also local truths in each civilization that must be respected as subsets and as preparation for the final truth that only Christianity brings.
6)
The global-local relationship is similar to Pizza Hut as global making local products for each market such as paneer tikka pizza in India. This is the philosophical foundation for inculturation.
7) Such conferences as the one mentioned in the post above have been held hundreds of times to do their purva paksha on Hinduism and thereby constantly improve their localization of global Christianity.
8 ) Father Bede and Raimon Pannikar were openly talking of Christian Vedanta as part of the global metaphysics and citing old Christian texts as source for whatever they learned from Hinduism.
9) They were coining phrases like "Indian Christianity" as the localized version meant for teaching to Hindus in ways that appear respectful of Hinduism and Indian culture.
10) In the end they said that Hinduism must be taught as a great religion that was the local Indian version of global Christianity.
TRAGICALLY, VERY FEW SO-CALLED HINDU INTELLECTUALS HAVE THE BACKGROUND OR INTELLECTUAL MATURITY TO UNDERSTAND THIS PROPERLY.
Hence the overabundance of irrelevant responses, or going off on tangents. Even those who have tried to help me accelerate my research into this mountain of data to be examined, invariably run out of stamina rather soon, and cop out under different pretexts. The Hindu tends to be intellectually weak, wanting quick benefits. Consequently, the acquiescence I found in the Toronto Chinmaya Mission by a few prominent members tends to be the common way our people reconcile all this for their own comfort. It gives them a googdy-goody feeling about remaining Hindu while at the same time agreeing with whatever Christianity teaches. This root problem of Hindu morons has been ignored too long. Even many Hindu groups are avoiding me because they find my position too provocative and controversial. Before most of my talks there tends to be a private "negotiation" to make sure that i will tone down my message and avoid discomfort among the members - who are Hindus spending lots of time and money as leaders at temples and other organizations. This is the truth you wont find out sitting at your keyboard pontificating everything going on in the world.
Sumant Balakrishnan wrote:Rajiv Malhotra wrote:....the acquiescence I found in the Toronto Chinmaya Mission by a few prominent members tends to be the common way our people reconcile all this for their own comfort. It gives them a googdy-goody feeling about remaining Hindu while at the same time agreeing with whatever Christianity teaches. This root problem of Hindu morons has been ignored too long.
I don't see how calling some members of the Chinmaya Mission (a known collaborator in Rajiv ji's efforts) on a widely read Group like this one can help the cause.
I have a thesis called MORON SMRITI. Thats what I referred to. Perhaps I should have clarified. It says that people who are ordinarily very intelligent in other matters, often behave in a certain way when it comes to the relationship between their dharma and Abrahamic faiths. This behavior (and not the entire person) is what I gave the technical term "moron smriti". In fact, when I discuss with such persons in the open, I often explain my theory of moron smriti rather candidly. In Toronto I mentioned it as well.
It is also important to note that most large Vedanta based organizations encourage free thinking and there are wide varieties of views among their members. I find this in RK Mission, Chinmaya Mission, among others. This is a good sign and it differs from the more bhakti oriented groups where they seldom question. I found in my recent visits with RK Mission in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Calcutta, Belur Math, that each swami is very individualistic in his interpretations and positions on various issues. Individuals are free to have their personal positions and these do not represent the organization as such. Consequently, one cannot turn a comment on one individual and see it as applicable to an entire organization.
Regarding Toronto's Chinmaya Mission: The lady I referred to is not a swamini there, and she is a lay person who runs their education program. In fact, the swamini in Toronto is very supportive of my work and very much in resonance with me. It was she who invited me in the first place, after hearing my provocative debate at Univ of toronto in an earlier visit. But despite the swamini's own views, other members are encouraged to have their own views individually - a good thing. But by the same token, I am also free to take each individual separately and argue on my own terms. I did not find the members I argued against to take my criticism personally.
