(Continued from part two)

In the first part of this series, we discussed and debunked Balgrim Ragoonanan’s tirades against Christian exclusivism and evangelistic efforts as a form of Religious Bigotry and Exclusivity. In the second part, we refuted his misuse and misrepresentation of Jesus’ teachings in order to promote Hindu pluralism over against what he deems to be The Insidiousness of an Only Pathway to God. In this third part in the series, we will be looking at the third of Mr. Ragoonanan’s articles, entitled, The Whole Truth About Those who Debase and Derogate Other Religions.[1] In his opening paragraph, he writes,

Anyone who thinks that he/she has some kind of corner on religious and spiritual beliefs and practices, and believes he/she can take another person to task for exposing the falsehood of an only pathway to God are welcome to do so. I am prepared to defend the legitimacy of all religions as I research and understand them better, especially when God and religion are purely for the transformation of the human heart to the higher state of the divine. I have been doing studies ever since I joined the membership of the Trinidad & Tobago Online Community, when it was once fashionable to deride, derogate, defame and characterize Hinduism as being outside the frame of legitimate religions.

Mr. Ragoonanan has basically restated for us (albeit in less articulate terms) the doctrine of Hindu pluralism. For our benefit, it might help to bring up a commonly used analogy, which is that of a mountain with many paths that all converge at the top. In the words of the famous comparative religions scholar Huston Smith:

To claim salvation as the monopology [sic] of any one religion is like claminig that God can be found in this room but not the next, in this attire but not another. Normally, people will follow the path that rises from the plains of their own civilization; those who circle the mountain, trying to bring others around to their paths, are not climbing… It is possible to climb life’s mountain from any side, but when the top is reached the trails converge.[2]

This common analogy fails however, for two simple reasons. The first is that it is not true that the paths converge at the same location, for not all religions seek the same goal. Surely our author will not suggest that Hindus are seeking justification and forgiveness for sins, would he? Recall that in the first part of this series, it has been shown that Hindus do not even believe that human beings have a sin nature. Since the Christian doctrine of salvation presupposes that men are by nature sinners, and that redemption from these sins is necessary, then it is impossible for the Hindu doctrine of union with Brahman and the Christian doctrine of salvation to be the same “peak” which Hindus and Christians are both striving for.

Also, Mr. Ragoonanan has to come to the internally inconsistent position of saying that elements of the Christian faith are false in order to assert that all religious faiths are equally legitimate. As has been pointed out before, for example, it is an integral part of the Christian faith that we evangelize (cf. Matthew 28:19 and 1 Corinthians 9:16). As it says in Proverbs, “he that winneth souls is wise” (Proverbs 11:30, KJV). And it is not just our view of witnessing that the author has to dismiss as false, but also our doctrines of God and man. He has to essentially juxtapose Hindu pantheism upon other religions in order to assert that these other religions are “for the transformation of the human heart to the higher state of the divine.” But in the Christian worldview (to say nothing of the other two Abrahamic faiths), there is an infinite chasm that separates God and man, and this chasm cannot be crossed by finite human beings.[3] So we see that it is impossible for the author to consistently hold to his pluralism because in order for him to do so, he has to assert the falsity of certain aspects of the very religions which he seeks to establish as being equally legitimate.

Everyday I uncover growing evidences of a misunderstanding or propaganda from the use of the single passage of an only pathway to salvation which has been the bone of contention for many when many Christians present themselves as the only ones with a legitimate religion.

The task I assigned to myself is to debunk the assertion held by some Christians that Jesus said He was the only way to salvation which I consider to be a false interpretation for a deliberate hold on many. Furthermore, as I continue my research, I cannot but help see all the connections between the base philosophies of Hinduism and Buddhism in just about all religions.

Mr. Ragoonanan seems to think that the doctrine of Solus Christus is only to be found in one isolated verse in the entire Bible (i.e., John 14:6, although the author never actually quotes this verse, or any other verse from the bible, for that matter). Of course, no serious bible student thinks John 14:6 is the only place which teaches that Christ alone provides salvation. The teaching is found throughout the New Testament, and is at the very heart of the Christian Gospel. The whole premise of the Gospel is that fallen human beings are unable to reach God by their own efforts, which is why God “gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16, NASB). Later on in this same chapter of John, it is written: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.” (John 3:36). Without this teaching, there will be nothing left of Christianity, which once again demonstrates the intellectual bankruptcy of this idea that Christianity can be just one of many equally legitimate religious options. C.S. Lewis said it best when he stated: “One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.”[4]

Also, Mr. Ragoonanan has once again demonstrated his inconsistency by superimposing “the base philosophies of Hinduism and Buddhism” upon other religions whose worldviews are worlds apart from anything that even remotely resembles Hindu or Buddhist metaphysical claims. Do Christians believe in reincarnation, or do Muslims in karma, or Jews in the notion of this world as being illusory? Obviously not. At best, one can say that there are superficial similarities in our ethical beliefs, but this is due to the fact that God has revealed His moral order in every human conscience (cf. Romans 1:19-20, 2:14-15).

Yes, it is historically true that Sanathana Dharma or Dharam, (eternal truth) better know as Hinduism is a way of life, and was given the status of a great religion only a few hundred years ago by the British, sometime after they arrived in India. Yet, these are the same people who later tried to show that the source of Hinduism, the Vedas, was the writings of childlike saints and sages, and that Hinduism was a false religion. They at first ridiculed the Vedas openly and went so far as to pay enormous sums of money to Max Muller who never set foot on Indian soil. The only purpose, as documented, was to research and prove that the writings of the Vedas, were false teachings, and not worthy as religious beliefs and philosophies which he confirmed at first, but later had to change as his conscience would not permit it.

Sanathana Dharma, like Islam, is truly a way of life, with religious and spiritual practices governing every aspect of life, from birth to death and beyond. The Hindus had no need to change their spiritual practices and call Sanathana Dharma a religion, but the British wanted to bring it into the fold of the great religions of the world, and so it is today the common practice to refer to Hinduism as a religion and also a way of life. Who can object to that, other than some Christians, claiming to belong only to the true religion of the world, as they try to destroy all non-Christian religions?

Of course, anybody who has even the slightest knowledge of what Islam teaches will find this attempt at comparing it with Hinduism to be intellectually bankrupt. Sure, one can claim that both present all-encompassing systems of living life. Then again, so are certain political systems, such as Orwell’s dystopian police state, or Marxist-Leninism. That does not mean that they are in any way parallel with each other, as these similarities are very superficial. Besides, even the Islamic system is fundamentally different from the Hindu system. Can Mr. Ragoonanan cite, for example, anything in the Hindu system that will parallel the following injunctions laid out by the Qur’an?:

And whoever desires a religion other than Islam, it shall not be accepted from him, and in the hereafter he shall be one of the losers.
(Sura 3:85)[5]

So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
(Sura 9:5)

Say: O unbelievers! I do not serve that which you serve, Nor do you serve Him Whom I serve…
(Sura 109:1-3)

Once again, the obvious answer is no. These are fundamentally opposite systems, as Islam is just as opposed to Hinduism’s pluralism as Christianity is (with the exception that the Lord Jesus has not commanded us to wage holy war against unbelievers). Thus, this is a meaningless attempt at finding a parallel.

The Jews now say to Hindus that Idol worship by Hindus is ok. The Jewish Rabbinate of Israel learned from Hindu leaders that Hindus internalize all concepts and Idols of God as consciousness into the Atman which is Brahman or God in the hearts of all beings. They then relented to a new understanding of Idol worship, and now believe that Hindus are not Idol worshippers, since God in the heart of man cannot constitute Idol worship. So the question is why Christianity, a child of Judaism, can’t do the same?

What can be more debasing, deriding, derogating, humiliating, dehumanizing, etc., than to criticize or reject someone’s belief in God that he knows to be right for himself in worshipping, and having a loving relationship with his concept and understanding of God as the ultimate reality? One who sincerely believes in his favorite form of God and experiences God will be hard pressed to give up his religion, and would not want the same for another, isn’t it? Why should one understanding of God negate another? His ways of worshipping God and reaping the benefits of his religious and spiritual practices become sacred to him, and it is morally wrong to interfere with them or chastise them for their beliefs in the same God of all.

Each one understands the concept of God in his own unique ways. To say that there is only one way to follow and love God or to have a relationship with God, and gain salvation is as demonic as it gets. To say that any other way, but the Christian way, characterized as the wrong way or a demonic way is as debasing and deriding as one can get? That and more is the language of usage by the proselytizers. We heard it all, and hear and see the aggression of the proselytizers every day at our doorsteps and when they break our temples, desecrate out sacred images and altars, and uproot our prayer flags. These are facts, not propaganda, as some will have us believe. They are well know to all Hindus and Christians alike in Trinidad and Tobago and elsewhere.

It is worth remembering that modern Judaism is not the same religion as the Judaism of the first century, from which Christianity sprung up. The worldview of the Bible clearly teaches us what the nature of God is, and His nature is nothing like the Hindu concept of “supreme being.” What this means is that even if one reduces all of Hinduism’s various idols to a pantheistic monad (Speaking of which, how does one establish a “loving relationship” with a pantheistic monad, anyway? That doesn’t really make any sense.), one is still left with a God other than the true and living God that is declared to us in scripture. Perhaps the Jews who signed this declaration need to heed to once more what their scriptures say regarding the One who alone rules the universe and is worthy of all praise and worship:

“Answer me, Yahweh, answer me, so that this people may know that you, Yahweh, are God and are winning back their hearts.” Then Yahweh’s fire fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this they fell on their faces. “Yahweh is God,” they cried, “Yahweh is God!”
(1 Kings 18:37-39, NJB)

Once one gets past the emotional rhetoric, it should be clear that when different religions proclaim mutually contradictory concepts of God, those concepts cannot all be right at the exact same time and in the exact same sense. The very fact that the author identifies God as an “ultimate reality” signifies that he recognizes that God’s nature is real and objective, not bound up by human perceptions. That being said, it would be a loving thing to correct one who is mistaken in his or her view of God, since a mistake regarding the nature of the One “in [Whom] all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17) is the most grievous mistake one could possibly make. When Christians tell non-Christians that they are mistaken in their view of God, they do so (or at least ought to do so) out of love, since we are concerned about the eternal destiny of that person. This is best stated in what is written in the Old Testament Proverbs:

There is a way that seems right to a man,
but in the end it leads to death.
(Proverbs 14:12)

All a man’s ways seem right to him,
but the LORD weighs the heart.
(Proverbs 21:2)

“True worshipers,” as Jesus put it, “will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks” (John 4:23). One cannot be said to be worshiping the true and living God if one is not worshiping Him according to the truth. And what is truth? The answer: Truth is a person. We already went through John 14:6, so it is unnecessary to elaborate on this.

Also, it is deplorable that some Christians have mistreated non-Christians in their evangelistic efforts. This should not be so, since we are admonished to “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15), That does not, however, invalidate the plain and simple message of the Christian Gospel. Now, moving on:

Current proselytizing and recorded history of proselytizing show the full extent of the debasing and derogating of all other religions by mostly Christians, only on the basis that Jesus is the only way to salvation. This is not something new, anything just made up, or something that is done in secret. It is openly confessed by Christians, themselves, that they have the right to bring others under the Christian umbrella at any cost or means.

The Jews and Muslims know the Christian arrogance of being the only true religion too well, for they, too, and others vehemently deny Jesus as God, but only a messenger of God. Hindus do not go that far, because they understand the concept of God with more openness, clarity and richness than any other prevailing concepts of God held by non-Hindus. Man and God, for Hindus, are One, and Godhead and salvation is available to all in any one lifetime, in the same way Jesus realized his divinity and arrived at Godhead at age twenty five.

The idea that Christians can bring others to the faith “at any cost or means” is simply false, and is based on a misinterpretation of 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (a misinterpretation which, unfortunately, is constantly being perpetuated by Islamic apologists who seek to discredit Paul). What is being advocated is the fact that there are certain cultural customs or expedient traditional practices which are not essential to the Gospel and may be compromised or temporarily laid aside should they pose an unnecessary stumbling block to witnessing to others.[6] With that out of the way, it is quite clear that although Jesus commanded Christians to proclaim the Gospel to every nation, He never commanded Christians to do it in dishonest or violent methods. That certain people who claimed to be Christians committed heinous crimes in His name does not change the fact that they did this contrary to what the Lord Himself taught.

Also, it is quite true that Jews and Muslims disagree with Christians on the deity of Christ. The fact that we have this disagreement shows that we take the idea of truth seriously enough to attempt to reason with each other about who Jesus truly is. What the author does not realize is that the idea that “Man and God… are One, and Godhead and salvation is available to all in any one lifetime” is not an expression of open-mindedness, but an abject denial of the Creator/Creature distinction that is so vital to all three Abrahamic faiths. One ought to wonder how it is not equally “intolerant” for the author to pontificate using his own view that God and man are Monistic, and that human beings can find divinity within themselves, rather than acknowledging the sovereignty of God over the whole created order. Not only that, but one ought also to wonder how it is not equally “intolerant” for the author to essentially revise the New Testament teaching of Jesus by superimposing his pantheism and claiming that Jesus “realized his divinity and arrived at Godhead at age twenty five.” No, Jesus has eternally been God (John 1:1), and He is the Creator and Sustainer of all things (Colossians 1:15-17). Furthermore, Jesus, who is the eternal Word of God, “became flesh and dwelt [ἐσκήνωσεν, literally "tablernacled"] among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten [μονογενοῦς, literally "one of a kind"] of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Interestingly, Mr. Ragoonanan never actually accomplishes what he set out to do at the very beginning, which was to debunk the plain meaning of John 14:6. All he provides us is this feeble paragraph:

Besides, the only way doctrine was misunderstood from the beginning. It is now believed by some of the more enlightened and renowned Christians of today that Jesus is not the only way to salvation. But this is after two thousand years of incorrigible aggression, based on a false belief or a false doctrine, by misinterpretation, perpetrated on innocent people. But who can doubt that it is better late than never?

Even though he never mentions to us who these “more enlightened and renowned Christians of today,” He is undoubtedly citing the liberal theologians and the postmodernists. He is appealing to the John Shelby Spongs, Barry Lynns and the Gretta Vospers of this world to support his point. And yet, he does not so much as provide us actual argumentation, only a fallacious appeal to people who wear the label of “Christian” yet would undoubtedly be condemned by Jesus Christ Himself as being “lukewarm” (cf. Revelation 3:16). Mr. Ragoonanan offers us no exegesis; no analysis of Jesus’ actual words; no real reasons to reject Christ’s own exclusivity claims. In the end, the truth remains the same:

What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Oh! precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow;
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.[7]

End Notes

  1. Ragoonanan, Balgrim. The Whole Truth About Those who Debase and Derogate Other Religions. Crusade Watch. <http://www.crusadewatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1095&Itemid=128>.
  2. Smith, Huston. The World’s Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991. p.73.
  3. Although human beings can never become God, this is not to say that the chasm cannot be crossed from the other side. Indeed, Christianity asserts that salvation has come to humankind because God can and has crossed the chasm when He took on flesh and dwelt among us (cf. John 1:14, 18).
  4. Lewis, C.S. God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1994. p. 101.
  5. All Qur’anic quotations are taken from the M.H. Shakir translation of the Qur’an, which may be viewed in the following website: <http://www.muslimaccess.com/quraan/translations/shakir/MHShakir.htm>.
  6. See the following article by Sam Shamoun: 1 Corinthians 9 and the Charge of Christian Missionary Deception. Answering Islam. <http://www.answering-islam.org/BibleCom/1cor9_19-23.html>.
  7. Lowry, Robert. Nothing but the Blood. Big low & Main, 1876.

Other related Aristophrenium articles: