Welcome to the Servants of Grace podcast hosted by Dave Jenkins. Our podcast exists to provide trustworthy, expository messages through the Bible and faithful answers to your theology questions. Now, for today's episode, let's join our host, Dave Jenkins. All right, welcome back to the Servants of Grace theology segment. My name is Dave and I'm the host for this show. And on today's episode, a listener writes in and they have a great question. And the question is this, what should Christians know about Hinduism? Now this is a really important question because we are seeing the rise of Eastern religion and mysticism all over the world today, especially in the West. Now, Hinduism is the third largest religion after Christianity and Islam. Today, 15% of the world's population is Hindu, with over 2 million Hindus living in the United States. So here are some things to know, five of them, to know about the Hindu faith. First, Hinduism is believed to be the world's oldest religion, and today is the world's third largest religion. In fact, many scholars believe that the root of Hinduism can be traced back over 4,000 years, making Hinduism the oldest religion in the world. Hinduism originated on the Indian subcontinent. In the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit, the word Hinduism means dwellers by the Indus River, which is a river that flows through northern India. After Christianity with its 2.3 billion followers and Islam with its 1.8 billion followers, Hinduism is the third largest religion with about 1.1 billion followers. The country of India is home to the overwhelming majority of the world's Hindu population. Other countries with large Hindu populations are Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Second, Hinduism has no set of rules and is a compilation of many diverse beliefs. There is no single originating source and founder of Hinduism. Hinduism itself is not a single organized religion with one set of rules. Instead, what Hinduism is, is comprised of a fusion of many philosophies, beliefs, and traditions. And within this compilation of belief systems, there are several core Hindu beliefs, including the following. Most Hindu sects are Hino-theistic, meaning they worship a single god named Brahman while recognizing the existence of gods. and the gods can take many forms but are not all manifestations of Brahman's universal spirit. Hinduism encompasses many sacred writings and not one holy book in particular. For this reason, Hinduism is referred to as a way of life or a family of religions rather than as a single religion. Hindus believe in the doctrine of karma, referring to the universal law or cause or actions and effects and or consequences. One of Hinduism's central principles is that an individual's actions and thoughts directly determine the status of that individual's current life as well as that individual's future life. And so if a follower of Hinduism behaves well in this life, that follower will improve their conditions for the life to come. And so if a follower behaves poorly in this life, they will worsen his condition in the future reincarnation. In fact, with each reincarnation, Hindus hope to reach a way of living that embodies proper conduct and morality. and the goal of Hinduism is to achieve salvation, at which point an individual's soul stops reincarnating. And so once salvation is reached, the saved soul becomes a part of what Hindus believe is the absolute soul, the Brahman, that binds all other souls. Third, there's many deities and paths to salvation in Hinduism. The supreme Hindu god is Brahman who is believed to be the ultimate force existing in all things. And so most Hindus worship additional divine beings who take on separate forms but who are each part of Brahman's singular universal force. And some of The most prominent deities representing Brahman include Rama, the god who created the universe and all living things, Vishnu, the god who preserves in the universe, Shiva, the god who destroys the universe to prepare for its renewal. Now the ultimate spiritual goal of Hinduism is to achieve salvation, which ends the cycle of a death and rebirth. A follower can achieve salvation in Hinduism by detaching from the material world and accepting the overriding unity of all things with one universal soul, Brahman. So salvation in Hinduism can be achieved through many different paths, including through the selfless acts of service to others, uniting oneself with Brahman intellectually, through steady devotion to one's personal gods. Fourth, Hindus revere all animal life and consider the cow in particular to be a sacred animal. Hinduism reveres animal life generally and many Hindus are vegetarian. Traditionally, Hindus have considered the cow in particular to be a sacred animal, and the cow is not seen as a god nor is it worshipped as such. Rather, certain Hindu scriptures identify the cow as the mother of civilization, providing milk to sustain humanity, and as such, Hindus view the cow as a sacred symbol of life to be protected, and esteemed never consume. Cows are allowed to roam free in cities and villages alike in heavily Hindu countries. In fact, so great is the protection of cows in the predominantly Hindu India, for example, that a person can be imprisoned for harming or even killing the animal. Fit. Hinduism in India, home to one billion of the world's Hindus, exposes a caste system. Throughout its history, Hinduism in India has observed a caste system or a hierarchy categorizing people into defined social classes. An individual standing in the caste system is believed to be linked to that person's accumulated merit in their past life, namely their karma. And a person's caste is hereditary with its own rules as to a person's social, professional, and religious thinking. Last names in India are indicators of what caste a person belongs to, and there are four main castes within Hinduism. All the top of the social hierarchy are the priest and other educated professionals. Next on the social chain are the protectors and the public servants of society. Next are the skilled producers involved in commerce such as merchants. And the last rung of the caste system includes unskilled laborers. And there are many subcategories within each caste. There are also people that Hinduism considers to be outside of the caste system. This social class is referred to as the Dalits or as the Untouchables and its members are viewed by some Hindus as the lowest members of society. These Untouchables do the unclean work in India such as leather work and street cleaning. In 1950 India's constitution banned discrimination based on caste and so today many Hindus no longer follow the caste system. And with that said, incidents of violence continue against those considered to be the lowest level of the Hindu hierarchical system. And so furthermore, it's still common for Hindus to avoid marrying outside of their particular caste. And so Hinduism is fundamentally different from Christianity in many ways. And so understanding some of the basic beliefs of your Hindu friends and neighbors and how they live and their beliefs and convictions, it's going to help you to be ready to give an answer for the reason for the hope that you have and to do so with gentleness and respect and to ground your answers to them in the Word of God. Well, I want to thank you for listening or watching this episode of the Servants of Grace Theology Segment. 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