Manali Missives, Christmas, 2014
Is there anything unique about Christmas?
I (David) have been in Delhi for 5 weeks, studying Hindi at a small company that offers foreigners tuition one to one or in small classes, and customised to students’ situations, ability and experience in the language. Teachers quickly perceived that I could write and read Hindi, but that I understood little of what was communicated to me; nor could I communicate much myself. I needed to know the structure of Hindi grammar, how it works. I simply wasn’t picking it up as children do - by listening to people speaking around them and to them. So they placed me in one-to-one situations with teachers who focussed on conversation for part of each lesson, then grammar. They helped me to speak in Hindi, correcting me as we went along. Importantly, each teacher spoke slowly and clearly, and was positive and encouraging.
My main teacher was a woman I’ll call “Indira”. She often guided our conversations to everyday events, and to topics that were important to me. Soon she discerned that I had a stronger than usual commitment for an “angrez” (westerner) to the Christian faith. It emerged that though she was Hindu she had attended a Catholic school. Within the constraints of her task she started asking questions. “Why,” she enquired, “do some Christian crosses feature the body of Christ whereas others did not?” That gave me practice in the mighty verb “lagna”, among whose 50 meanings “to be attached” is prominent. To say that Christ was attached to the cross sounds in poor taste in English, but works well in Hindi; the way a Hindi speaker says that they’ve been shot means, literally, “I’m attached to a bullet!” It also allowed me to speak, in an explanatory rather than an advocatory way, of the two central aspects of the Christian story the crucifix and the empty cross point to: the significance of Christ’s crucifixion and of His resurrection.
In the school’s small common area is a simple table upon which artefacts from several religions have been placed. Above the table a tiny shrine is attached (“lagna” again!) to the wall. One of the duties of the young man employed as a caretaker is to keep this religious area in good order. Though the school’s teachers and management seem all to be observant Hindus, they respect other religions. Respect for others is prominent in the school’s ethos. So as I produced a Black Forest gateau to celebrate the completion of my Hindi course last week the caretaker had placed a small Christmas tree on the table - yet another religious artefact, and a way of showing respect to a major religion and its devotees who attended the School.
Respect and tolerance are prominent among Hindus I’ve encountered over the years. These qualities are also popular in the West. Tired of religious conflict and corruption in churches, but drawn to expressions of spirituality, many westerners have found this tolerance for diversity and other aspects of Hinduism attractive. One could almost say that to be politically correct in the West today one must be tolerant in and of all things - except, perhaps, of intolerance itself! To the extent that some of the roots of this tolerance in the West come from Hinduism it may be helpful to examine why Hinduism itself is so tolerant.
It’s often been said that Hinduism is not so much a religion as a way of life. Its tolerance to variations in belief and its broad range of traditions make it difficult to define as a religion according to traditional Western conceptions. Some suggest that Hinduism can be seen as a category with "fuzzy edges" rather than as a well-defined and rigid entity. That is, while some forms of religious expression are central to Hinduism others, though not as central, still remain within the category. Indeed, Hinduism has been described having a "complex, organic, multileveled and sometimes internally inconsistent nature.” It does not have a "unified system of belief encoded in a declaration of faith or a creed", but is an umbrella term comprising the plurality of religious phenomena of India. Unlike other religions in the World, the Hindu religion does not claim any one Prophet, worship any one God, believe in any one philosophic concept or follow any one act of religious rites or performances; in fact, it does not satisfy the traditional features of a religion or creed”. Neither does Hinduism have a single historical founder. It is a synthesis of various traditions.
Also, Hinduism does not have a single system of salvation, but consists of various religions and forms of religiosity. Some Hindu religious traditions regard particular rituals as essential for salvation, but a variety of views on this co-exist. Some Hindu philosophies postulate a theistic ontology of creation, of sustenance, and of the destruction of the universe, personified in the gods Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Sustainer and Shiva the Destroyer, yet some Hindus are atheists. I first encountered this diversity of views within the one religion while on a boat to the Elefanta Caves, on an island off Mumbai, in 1977. A Hindu pilgrim engaged me in conversation: “We Hindus believe in 33 million gods,” he explained. “But as a Hindu you can also believe in 3 gods, or 1 god. And some of us believe in no gods at all.” A western dualist, brought up to believe that “A cannot be not-A”, this casual, monistic incorporation of contradictory beliefs into one rattled my (then) 20 year old cage! Perhaps I need not have been so confused. Hindu atheists tend to view Hinduism more as a philosophy than as a religion. Alongside that, however, Hinduism is sometimes characterised by a belief in reincarnation (samsara), determined by the law of karma and the idea that salvation is freedom from this cycle of repeated birth and death. That summary view of Hinduism that has penetrated the West furthest.
It’s likely that Hinduism’s complexity and diversity of belief and practice is caused by India’s long, complex history. Hinduism has an unparalleled ability to absorb and indigenize foreign traditions, just as India has absorbed and “indianized” many foreign invaders. The best comparison with this complexity in European history, until the process of “reverse colonisation” in recent decades that has brought millions of people from formerly colonised territories to live in the very nations that had colonised them, may have been the emergence of modernity in the 16th and 17th centuries. Simply stated it went like this. During the Middle Ages the Catholic Church defined almost entirely how its citizens understood reality, both in this life and the next. The Protestant Reformation and the terrible wars it provoked changed that. Suddenly two versions of Christianity, both claiming to represent truth, competed violently for Europeans’ allegiance, and killed them off. It’s estimated that half of the population of the German states perished during the 30 years’ war! What could Europeans now trust? Where could they/we find meaning and purpose in life? The Enlightenment, the movement that elevated human reason and science, was one answer to this search. It, too, failed, as another terrible conflict, called “The Great War” by Europeans, demonstrated. And so, inevitably, the West has entered the so-called “post-modern” era, characterised by no trust in any worldview, institution or leader. “The new metanarrative is that there is no metanarrative” is one way philosophers describe this. Some even say that we are now in a “post-post-modern”period. No wonder, in the face of this sudden diversity of worldviews, the quality of “tolerance”, which includes religious tolerance, is now so highly prized in the West. And no wonder that there are also reactions that hark back to the certainties of previous eras.
But though understandable, is it true and helpful to assume that all worldviews and faith traditions are equally valid expressions of the same religious impulse? At the hearts of three of the great world religions are claims to uniqueness. The famous “Shema” of Judaism says, “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is One…” (Deuteronomy 6.4) Jesus showed his commitment to the Shema, then identified Himself with that “Oneness” of God: “I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except by me.” (John 14.6) And for a person to qualify as a Muslim they must recite the Shahada: “There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his messenger.” The faith placed in tolerance by Hinduism and Western postmodernity is commonly contested from within the Abrahamic faith traditions, which happen to be world’s largest, second largest and the one which helped give rise to both.
Call me a western dualist, but how can belief systems that make contradictory truth claims all be equally valid and correct? For example, is there anything unique about Christmas? While early Christians did appropriate pagan midwinter festivals that celebrated the return of the light, they insisted what is unthinkable to Jews and Muslims, though commonplace for Hinduism: that God came into the sphere in which humans live as a human. But, contrary to Hinduism and pagan religions Christians claim that God did this only once, and for a very specific, paradoxical purpose: He came to die, and to be raised from death, so that the whole creation could be released from the grip of its rebellion against God, and consequently, of death. The idea that God allowed Himself to be executed in the most degrading way was a complete scandal to ancient pagans, as it is for Muslims today. Christians, however, think this was the strange fulfilment of the Jews’ long wait for Messiah, who would set God’s people free, but that in Jesus the concept of “God’s people” was expanded to include the whole creation. Jews, of course, have another view. Speaking of Jesus’ resurrection, there are stories in various cultures of people and gods being raised from death. Some suggest that Jesus is a “remake” of the Egyptian god Osiris who, just as the Nile River provided new life each year by flooding, himself died and was restored to life annually to symbolise and provide new life. Christians, however, insist that despite the surface resemblance, Jesus’s one-time resurrection as the harbinger of God’s restored creation was fundamentally different from Osiris’ annual dying-and-rising.
To insist that religions are the same, when they are in fact different, deprives each of its unique character, and so disrespects it. Just because religions deal in the same issues doesn’t mean they do it in the same way, though there are certainly similarities. In multi faith contexts such as Manali, people commonly cooperate with those of other religions while maintaining their distinct religious identities and convictions. The “tolerant” assumption that religions are basically the same is also the wrong “tool” to use in the struggle against religiously motivated intolerance and violence. Religion is just one of many justifications that we broken, sinful humans use to oppress others. The right tools, I think, are mutual love and respect. It’s far better to engage in the kind of fact-seeking, relationship-building discussion “Indira” and I started than either to assume that our beliefs are the basically the same or to descend into religiously motivated conflict.
Christmas, the Hindu Diwali, Jewish Hanukkah and various other festivals, in their unique ways, celebrate the coming of the Light. A follower of Jesus, I am convinced that He is the world’s true light. But that does not prevent me from respecting and appreciating the convictions and traditions of others. After all, they, like me, are searchers for truth. Whatever your personal convictions, may you be blessed in this ending-and-beginning time of the year that many people around the world celebrate as Christmas.
Lena and David Reichardt, Christmas, 2014
