Dear Editor,
I enjoyed reading Rani Joshi’s article in the March edition. Is this going to be a regular column? [Yes, every few months – Ed.] I am thankful that Joshi is seeking to make sense of her heritage in the light of her relationship with the Lord Jesus. She appreciates much that is good, which is encouraging.
As Joshi herself writes, people who turn to Christ from the Hindu traditions often struggle with a sense of loss as they seek to re-evaluate their heritage. Sadly, many in this situation are not helped by well-meaning but poorly informed Christians, who discourage such attempts at re-evaluation and challenge new devotees of Jesus to put as much space as possible between themselves and their tradition.
Joshi seeks to ‘navigate the complex relationship between faith and culture’, finding it ‘challenging to separate the two as they were deeply entwined’. Thankfully, it is not going against the heritage to become a devotee of Jesus, as the tradition of bhakti (devotion to a chosen deity) is entirely acceptable. But there are many customs in which it is indeed impossible to distinguish between ‘faith and culture’. The issue then is not whether a particular custom is ‘Hindu’, but whether it is idolatrous. We need to pray for the writer and others like her who are treading this often lonely path.
I would like, however, to suggest a couple of clarifications on Joshi’s reflections:
‘Puja’ is glossed as ‘worshipping Indian deities’. In fact, puja simply means worship. So it is common for followers of Christ in South Asia to offer puja to Jesus Himself. At every church service in Nepal, for example, the worshippers are exhorted to offer puja to the Lord, and many worship songs to Jesus include the term.
‘Yoga’, as it is used in the Bhagavad Gita, does indeed involve ‘yoking oneself to…Krishna’, but is used in the Hindu traditions in multiple and widely varied ways. So there should be no difficulty with talking of yoga with Christ (Gal. 2:20).
Furthermore, it has been well documented that, contrary to popular opinion, modern postural yoga does not have ancient roots in India, but rather comes from borrowing of 19th-century European exercises (see this review: https://markpickett.blogspot.com/2015/04/yoga-body-guest-book-review-by-h-l.html). Exercise yoga should not in itself, then, present the participant with any question of conscience. Some yoga teachers may indeed include idolatrous practices in their routines, but the follower of Jesus should easily be able to explain that they do not wish to participate in such practices.
As Joshi writes, ‘moksha’ is indeed found only in Christ. Let us all be in prayer for such Christ-devotees of Hindu heritage as they continue the hard task of working out their discipleship in their situation with fear and trembling.
Yours sincerely,
Mark Pickett
By email
Rani Joshi responded: I’m grateful to Mark for sharing his thoughtful feedback. I think in this scenario I was reflecting on what puja meant to me in the context of then being a Hindu, involving the worship of Hindu deities. I agree with Mark that puja extends beyond Hindu gods and is rightly interpreted as ‘worship’.
