Source: www.newsindia-times.com
USA, September 1, 2010 (by Francis Xavier Clooney, S.J., a professor and a Roman Catholic priest) I recently came across a column by Loriliai Biernacki [HPI note: see previous post]. A friend of mine, she is a professor of Indian religions at the University of Colorado, and a specialist in the study of Hinduism. She suggests that Hinduism today is becoming much more widely established in different parts of the world, and it is flourishing in many parts of the U.S., both among Americans of Indian ancestry, but also among many converts to Hinduism.
I am tempted to confirm her insights out of my own experiences. But my thought now goes in a different direction: If there is truth in Biernacki’s insights, and there is, then what does this say about Christian identity in the U.S. now? Catholic identity?
Just think of the example of the growing comfort of a wide range of Americans – surely including Church-going Catholics – who accept reincarnation as a good spiritual possibility. This is no small change in the way people think.
If our neighbors are practicing yoga (even Christian yoga), meditating, visiting gurus, and enjoying the prospect of multiple deities and multiple births – then we have to bear down, and think more deeply about who we are and how we speak, act, live.
It is not enough to broadcast our faith without listening, or to insist with open mouths and closed ears that Jesus is the way and that Christian faith is superior to religions such as Hinduism, when we – the Church – seems not understand Hinduism except in a most superficial way, and have no clue why Americans might embrace reincarnation.