(I have include web sites that I conulted in the body of the sermon)
(VIDEO CLIPS taken from video available form Willow Creek: I have a Friedn who Thinks All Religions are the same)
SLIDE 1
Today I continue the series on Christianity and World Religions. My goal is to help you to learn more about what these other faith groups believe so that you can be better equipped to talk about your faith with others who believe differently than you do. Each week I also will be showing some excerpts from an actual worship service at Willow Creek Church –one of the churches that I visited last summer—that includes an interview with leaders in each of the world religions. Watch how the Pastor Bill Hybels introduced this discussion.
VIDEO Clip 1
Start: Bill Hybels: You said that you and a lot of your friends think that maybe all world religions are essentially the same. ……….
All we’re trying to get at is a sense of understanding of these five world religions. Stop
I’ll be talking today about Hinduism. But first I want to offer a disclaimer: I’ve spent much time preparing for this preaching series, have read various articles, watched different videos about religion, reviewed various websites developed by Hindus, and read some of the Hindu scriptures.
SLIDE 2
But the research that I have done does not an expert make. I want to make it clear that I am not an expert on Hinduism. Some of you might even know a little more than I do on the subject. That’s why I am using these video clips each week from the people from those particular religions.
There is a lot I don’t know about Hinduism, so I’ll be giving you today a summary of what I have learned. So I hope what I can do is help you to understand some of Hinduism’s essential features. Then I will conclude by trying to summarize essential differences between Christianity and Hinduism.
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I’d encourage you to take out today’s outline because I think this will help you to follow my discussion today. I’d also encourage you to continue to use the study guide I’ve provided for you so that you can read and study the Bible this week and develop your prayer life.
SLIDE 4
Each week I will try to give you a historical overview of each religion. So today I want to first give you some “pre-history” on the Hindu faith.
http://india.coolatlanta.com/GreatPages/sudheer/book2/hinduism.html
It is widely recognized that most elements of present day Hinduism descended from the amalgam of the religious beliefs of the Aryans who are said to have come into India (West Punjab) around 1750 B.C. and those of the earlier peoples who reportedly were the founders of the Indus valley civilization.
The earliest objects of worship were the forces of nature and the religion was in essence polytheistic. Later on came the personified Gods like Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva while the polytheistic nature remained unchanged.
If you were to compare a Hindu timeline with our Biblical time line, the Aryans would have been developing their religious ideas in India (in red on screen) about the same time Abraham and his descendants were developing the Hebrew Faith make in the area of Palestine.
The oldest of the Hindu scriptures are called the Vedas. They were put down in written form in about 1000 BC. about the time of King Davis’s reign over Israel.
The Vedas, a collection of poems, are considered by Hindus to be a direct revelation of God. The Hindus believe that the Vedas were given orally by God when humans could first begin to understand about 3 or 4 centuries before the time of Christ. They would have been put in written form about the same time David was writing the collection of Psalms in Israel.
The most prominent of the Hindu Scriptures is called the Bhagavad-Gita. It was probably written about the time the Jews were in exile Babylon in 500 BC—about the time Buddhism starts to develop as we’ll see next week.
So each week I’ll try to give you some time frames in which these religions develop in comparison to the Biblical history that you’re more familiar with.
SLIDE 5
What I will do next is review Hindu beliefs in this manner:
A. God’s Nature and How to Know God
B. The Scriptures or Sacred Texts
C. About the Human Condition, Salvation, and Eternity
D. The Point of View of this Faith about Jesus Christ.
Each week I’ll present video clips from a worship service at Willow Creek from a couple of years ago. Pastor Bill Hybels invited experts from each religion to come and discuss their respective faith groups.
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As Bill Hybels did during that service at Willow Creek, I’d like to ask you to put your student or learning hat on. I’d like to ask you to listen respectfully and graciously and really try to understand what these people are saying about their belief system. This is not a debate format. This is not a contest of who makes the best presentation. All we’re trying to get at is a sense of understanding of these five world religions.
At the end of each message, I’ll make closing comments to compare each religion with Christian beliefs.
So the first video clip, representing Hinduism is Deo Maharji. There are 760 million Hindus worldwide, and Dale is a full-time Hindu monk. He teaches at a Hindu mission in Chicago and travels the world teaching Hinduism.
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A. God’s Nature and How to Know God
Listen to what this Hindu monk has to say in response to the question from Bill Hybels: What is the concept of God, or who is God from a Hindu perspective?
VIDEO CLIP 2
Start: Bill Hybels-- So first, representing Hinduism is Deo Maharji. There are 760 million Hindus worldwide……
Bill Hybels: And you’re working toward attaining godhood now?
Deo Maharji: Yes Stop
So what is God like in the Hindu conception?
Hinduism is sometimes said to be a religion of millions of Gods. Yet it is based on a firm belief in the Absolute Divine—the singular force that joins all facets of existence. So this is something new that I learned in my research this week.
Hindus believe that there are god-heads, as your heard the monk discuss, but all the god-heads or deities are the manifestation of the one true god, although the Absolute takes on many forms. So worshippers pray to different Gods and Goddesses who embody the power of the Divine.
There are 2 conceptions of God’s presence in Hinduism:
1—Brahman—is the one who is transcendent. Brahman is the very space and the entire universe, with billions of galaxies and interstellar spaces and much more than that. The idea of Brahman probably entered the consciousness of ancient Hindu seers as they contemplated upon the vast expansive sky and the star studded mysterious night skies. Hindus have a grand view of this Absolute and highest god of Hinduism. He is the incomprehensible, unapproachable radiant being whom the ordinary senses and ordinary intellect cannot fathom grasp or able to describe even with partial success. He is the mysterious Being totally out of the reach of all sensory activity, rationale effort and mere intellectual, decorative and pompous endeavor. This is the nature of God that is unknowable
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2—Then there is the aspect of God that is knowable. God can be know through the worship of the various manifestations of the various deities. They are all windows into understanding the one God. You will find statues or idols of the gods in Hindu temples. Some are animals, some are human like forms. People come and bow before them and make their offerings.
http://hinduwebsite.com/brahmanmain.htm
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/meeting_god/intro/index.html
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B. The Scriptures or Sacred Texts
VIDEO CLIP 3
Start: Bill Hybels: Let’s go back over to Deo. From a Hindu perspective, what are the sacred texts of Hinduism? ….
Bill Hybels: And you follow the writings in the Veda and so forth in order to guide you in that?
Deo Maharji: Yes. Stop
The monk in the latter segment of the video referred to the Vedas. There are four Vedas. The Vedas are the primary texts of Hinduism. They are considered to be a direct revelation from God. The Vedic deities are not only forces of nature, but also forces that exist in the physical body and help the individual in his spiritual progress to overcome certain impediments
The Vedas contain hymns, incantations, and rituals from ancient India. They are among the most ancient religious texts still in existence. Besides their spiritual value, they also give a unique view of everyday life in India four thousand years ago. The Vedas are also the most ancient extensive texts in an Indo-European language, and as such are invaluable in the study of comparative linguistics.
(http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/)
Then there is the Bhagavad-Gita. Is the book of authority for the Hindus. It literally means ’Song of the Divine’. It actually appears in the middle of a mythological epic. The Bhagvad Gita is in the form of a spiritual dialogue between Sri Krishna and Arjuna on the battlefield.
The dialogue concentrates on the use of spirituality in daily context. Arjuna is torn between his duty to fight for justice and his love for his kinsmen - whom he has to fight. He becomes dejected and debates with Sri Krishna that no war can be justified on any grounds. Sri Krishna, through this dialogue convinces him that he has to fight; there is no other way. The discussion brings into focus various interesting aspects of the Hindu philosophy.
http://www.btinternet.com/~vivekananda/gita1.htm
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C. About the Human Condition and Salvation
How does the Hindu understand the human condition? What are we like as human beings and how are we made right with God?
VIDEO CLIP 4
Start: Bill Hybels: Next question, and we’ll start with you again, Deo. A person comes to you and says, “My life is a mess….
Deo:……..Now this is the grace of God that you have to have the craving to go to God. Then he will give you his grace. And this all comes true only by the grace of God. Stop
For Hindus, as I understand from my research, the soul in you is actually a part of God. God has placed a little of himself in you. So your soul is not sinful—although the monk on this clip made reference to sin—but he think he got to a point where he was sinless.
But research suggests that the primary problem is not to get sin out of you life but to rid yourself of ignorance. If you can wipe away the ignorance you can begin to see the glory of God shining through you.
Thus, knowledge is the answer along with deed, i.e., fulfilling your mission on earth. I think that’s what the monk was getting at in his response to this question on the video.
Three words are essential to understanding salvation in Hinduism:
· Dharma—
· Karma
· Reincarnation
Dharma—duty, apart of which is gaining spiritual knowledge so that we can be set free from our ignorance. Yoga is used as a path to spiritual knowledge in Hinduism.
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Karma—to the extent that you do good deeds in life, then you’re building up good karma. When you do bad things you’re building up bad karma. If at the end of your life you’re good karma weighs your bad karma that good karma will carry you into the next life. You will be reborn at a higher state and will continue to learn more about the path to spiritual knowledge. So if you build up bad karma in this life you’ll carry that with you into the next life. I guess it’s like an old song that goes, “What goes around, comes around.” If you’re having a rough time it could be because you built up bad karma in the last life. So you want to work all that out and get it right this time. The goal is to eventually you’re your soul united with the eternal soul so you don’t have to keep going through these life cycles. Eventually you will no longer have to go through these cycles of life and death.
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As you can guess by now this karma is closely associated with the idea of Reincarnation
VIDEO CLIP 5
Start: Bill Hybels: In just 15 or 20 seconds, Deo, what about the life after this life? …….
Deo … Before any creation that is the state I will go back to, where there is no misery or pain or anything. Stop:
In conclusion, in Hinduism, reincarnation is the passing of the soul from one body to the next. Life is truly a circle of birth, death and re-birth. In this view: We never die; we merely change our physical form. Being Human is the highest form of Life on this planet.
So why do we keep coming back to life? We are re-born to exhume our Karma. We build our Karma during our life and we must come back to face the reactions to all our actions.
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Finally, what is The Point of View of Hinduism about Jesus Christ?
VIDEO CLIP 6
Start: Bill Hybels: All right, let’s stop there. While we’re on the subject matter, Deo, from a Hindu perspective, what do you think of Jesus Christ? Who is Jesus of Nazareth? ……
Deo ……we tell everyone, “Go pray to your god if you have that belief. Continue what you’re doing and let it mushroom and grow.” Stop:
So in Hindu terms Jesus was a holy man. He preached a universal message, love of God and love of brother. He is seen as an Avatar, an empowered incarnation, among many other gods.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/features/hindu_eyes/index.shtml
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III. Essential Differences Between Christianity and Hinduism
A. God: transcendent vs. intimate
Although it appears that there could be similarities in Hinduism and Christianity when you compare some of their early literature, there are certainly marked differences.
The ten commandments is clear that we are not to make graven images of God or to bow before idols in order to worship God.
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And God spoke all these words:
"I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. "You shall have no other gods before] me. "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them.” Exodus 20:1-5
That was an important commandment in the times of the Hebrews. Other cultures tended to fashion idols out of stone or clay or wood. And what happened is that human beings tended to focus on the object rather than what the object was to represent. God knew that if the Jews were allowed to worship some form of him, that they would begin to worship what they had made with their hands rather than the Creator.
When David wanted to build God a temple, God’s response was “you’re going to build me a temple, as if you think I can be contained in some object you human beings have built?”
We who are Christ followers know that God became flesh in Jesus, but that looks different than what I’ve been gathering from the Hindu traditions.
Perhaps the biggest difference in our concept of God is that in Hinduism God is unknowable, that he is this huge transcendence that is beyond all things. So the myths and stories of their texts have to paint a picture of that God in some fashion.
In our Bible, from the beginning God created human beings for a relationship with us. God created humans so that God might have a relationship with us and so that we could be recipients of that divine love. Listen to Genesis 1:27:
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So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
The Biblical stories depict God’s desire to become intimate with his creation, which is most profoundly portrayed in the sending of His Son Jesus Christ. God longs to be known by you and wants you to experience his spirit’s presence in your life. That’s very different from the Hindu view of God that he is so transcendent that we can never understand God.
Think of the ways that you experience God’s presene in your life:
1-Through music
2- Spending time in prayer and meditation
3—You sense God’s presence in your daily activities.
An important part of Christian spirituality is that all people can have a relationships with God who seek him. But in Hinduism only those few who ever progress to the top of the highest spiritual pinnacle can have that kind of experience, as I understand it.
Another key difference:
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B. The Human Condition and Salvation: Part of God vs. image of God; good deeds vs. God’s gift
In Hinduism your soul is God itself, a part of God within you. Our problem is ignorance and the salvation from that ignorance is spiritual knowledge. So this salvation so to speak gets worked out by the law of karma. You d0 too many bad things you’re going to pay for that in the next life—if you do more good things in this life you have the opportunity to move up in the progressive stages of knowledge through the process of reincarnation.
What’s the Christian point of view? We believe that we were created in the image of God but we are not the same as God. Your soul is distinct from God, just as a painting is distinct from the artist. All creation is the handiwork of God but it is not the same as God.
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The psalmist realized that when he penned these words in psalm 8:3-5:
When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?
For You have made him a little lower than the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.
God stands above the creation and creates all things. God’s holy Spirit dwells in us but that still is distinct from your spirit. In fact, the Biblical teaching teaches that your human soul is broken, that often you have the propensity to do the wrong things.
SLIDE 19
Paul echoes the thoughts of many of you in Romans 7:19-21 in the Message:
I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up.
Even spiritually mature people struggle everyday. Good people often succumb to this sinful pull. It’s a part of our human condition.
Our Christian belief is therefore that we cannot save our selves. We are good to do good deeds but our good deeds are not our salvation. There is such a gap between God’s holiness and our own lives. So we realize that we need the grace of God. God chose to do something about our human condition by becoming one of us in order to redeem us.
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Know in some ways we believe as do the Hindus in their thoughts about Karma that for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap, in the words of the Apostle Paul (Galations 6:7). But as Christians we believe that Jesus cam as God’s son to take on the all the bad karma of the human race. God did this because he knew you could never have enough good karma to overcome the bad karma.
Jesus was the only human being with perfect karma. He credited to your account his good karma. This is what we read in our passage from Ephesians 2 today:
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And so God can always point to us as examples of the incredible wealth of his favor and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us through Christ Jesus. God saved you by his special favor when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. (vv. 7-8).
We don’t become holy by working harder at it—we become holy by inviting God’s holy spirit in to our lives to shape us and reform us over time.
Do we work hard over and over in various lives as Hinduism teaches? Or do we rely on God’s free gift of grace to us until we pass from this life to the next life when good completely dissolves the bad karma of our lives.
SLIDE 22
God credits to us his good karma—it’s not something we earn ourselves, as Paul goes on to say in Ephesians 2:9: Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.
Finally, what happens in
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C. Life after Death: Nirvana vs. God’s Presence
In Christianity, Hebrews 9:27 (NLT) states It is destined that each person dies only once and after that comes judgment.
Reincarnation is not popular in the Bible. It is not a scriptural idea. The biblical view is that each one of us has one opportunity to get it right. You don’t have to come recycling back through this world to figure it out. You don’t have some previous existence or you don’t have to come back and keep getting your hard drive cleaned again.
The Christian conception is that we come into God’s full presence after death. We enter a place called heaven, not Nirvana.
SLIDE 24
Jesus spoke of this realm in John 14:2 NIV:
There are many rooms in my Father’s home, and I am going to prepare a place for you.
It’s a place where
He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good--tears gone, crying gone, pain gone--all the first order of things gone. Revelation 21:4 Msg
SLIDE 25
Jesus assures you and me: "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again.” John 11:25 (NLT)
My hope is that when I die I will be reunited with my loved ones—the relationship will be different for sure—because we’ll all be one in Christ. But I don’t have to come back here and try to get it right.
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I’ve done many funerals in my role as Christian pastor. I imagined this week what would I say to the family of the deceased if I were Hindu? Well, you’re loved one is probably not worked out all the bad karma to have that ultimate release yet. And if a death happens tragically, I’d probably say well this person died this way as a result of bad karma in his or her life. He’ll be coming back but he won’t remember you. She will never know you when she comes back. You’ll never remember him. But after a series of life and death cycles, his soul will be reunited to God like a drop of water in the ocean and finally she’ll have a oneness with God. What a beautiful thing.
But that is different from what I proclaim to families and friends at the death of a loved one. I can tell people that the last word in their loved one’s life is the grace of God. That person who is in Jesus Christ is with him today. That person’s pain is over—they are experiencing the joy Christ promised us. That person can see things that we can only imagine on this side of eternity. And there is the promise that one day you will be reunited with your loved one again and I believe you will know one another in that place God has prepared for us.
I have enjoyed this study of Hinduism and there’s a lot of beauty in the literature. But after having gone through this process this week I am even more grateful for the good news of Jesus Christ and God’s love for me. In the words of Paul in our Bible reading today: It is only by God’s special favor that you I been saved.
PRAYER:
Lord, I give you thanks for your great love for me. I cannot even begin to imagine what you have been willing to take upon yourself my bad karma, my sin, and to credit to my account your good karma, even though I don’t deserve it. I am grateful that, as Paul states it, I am saved by your grace through faith, not by my works. And I can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from you. But thank you that through my faith I have been called by you to do good works. Thank you for your love. On this day once more I commit my life to you. Help me to follow you and grow in knowing you. Help me to share your love with my friends of other faiths in a way that is respectful, encouraging, but offers them the good news. In Jesus name I pray. AMEN.
http://www.everystudent.com/features/connecting.html
http://www.himalayanacademy.com/basics/nineq/nineq_1.html
http://www.hindu.org/dharma/#Scripture
http://www.sivanandadlshq.org/multimedia/multimedia.htm
http://www.digiserve.com/mystic/Hindu/glossary.html
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001469.html
http://www.gospelway.com/religiousgroups/
Hinduism
Christianity and the Religions of the World
Ephesians 2:1-10 (NLT)
Once you were dead, doomed forever because of your many sins. You used to live just like the rest of the world, full of sin, obeying Satan, the mighty prince of the power of the air. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. All of us used to live that way, following the passions and desires of our evil nature. We were born with an evil nature, and we were under God’s anger just like everyone else. But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so very much, that even while we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s special favor that you have been saved!) For he raised us from the dead along with Christ, and we are seated with him in the heavenly realms—all because we are one with Christ Jesus. And so God can always point to us as examples of the incredible wealth of his favor and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us through Christ Jesus. God saved you by his special favor when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
Introduction: Disclaimer
Pastor Don is not an ______________ on Hinduism and other world religions
I. Hinduism from Historical Perspective
Both the Old Testament and the Hindu Vedas record pre-historic and ancient traditions.
Hebrew Timeline:
Abraham Slaves in Egypt Moses David Exile Jesus
2000 B.C. 1600 B.C. 1200 B.C. 1000 B.C. 586 B.C. 5 B.C.
Hindu Timeline:
II. Hindu Beliefs
A. God’s Nature and How to Know God
2 conceptions of God’s presence in Hinduism:
1—Brahman—is the one who is _____________.
2-- God can be know through the worship of the various _____________.
B. The Scriptures or Sacred Texts
· 1-- The Vedas: considered by Hindus to be a direct ___________ of God.
· 2-- Bhagavad-Gita. Is the book of _________ for the Hindus-- literally means ’Song of the Divine’.
C. About the Human Condition, Salvation, and Eternity
· Dharma:
· Karma:
· Reincarnation:
D. The Point of View of this Faith about Jesus Christ: Jesus was a ________ man
III. Essential Differences Between Christianity and Hinduism
A. God: __________ vs. _______________
Exodus 20:1-5; Genesis 1:27
B. The Human Condition and Salvation: ____________ vs. _______________
____________ vs. _______________
Psalm 8:3-5; Romans 7:19-21; Galations 6:7
C. Life After Death: _______________ vs. _________________
Hebrew 9:27; John 14:2; Revelation 21:4; John 11:25
Conclusion
