If a relative of mine is getting influenced by Christian missionary propaganda, what should I do?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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Question. If a close relative of ours is affected by Christian missionaries and is giving many arguments in criticism of our culture, our tradition, how much should we try to respond to those arguments? Or should we just let things go on their own course? I would say there are three different factors to be considered. One is, first of all, what are the specific arguments? Second is, what is the nature of the relationship? And third is, what is the attitude of that particular person within making that arguments? Now, actually the fact is that there are many valid criticisms of what is called as Hinduism.
And like for example, the caste system which can be very discriminatory. And we don’t have to be in any way an apologist for the caste system as it exists now. But generally what I stress is that the Bhakti tradition of which we are a part is an internal reform system within the tradition.
So, it’s not that outsiders have to tell us that this is bad. We also, our own tradition also, within the tradition only, people recognize that there are problems with it and have worked to reform it. Many of the saints were persecuted.
So, basically, there are valid criticisms and there are valid responses to those criticisms also. So, for some people, they have never thought of these things. And when first time they hear these criticisms, they become, oh really this is like this.
I never thought of it like that. So, for example, there were these movies OMG and PK, to OMG and PK where these things were, where lot of criticism of basically Hinduism was done. So, what I would suggest is that look at the specific arguments.
Some arguments just come from, I would say ignorance, in the sense that one side of the story is told, but the other side of the story is not known. And when reasonable people hear the other side of the story, then often they say, oh this is like this. So, that would be one aspect to the nature of the argument.
Sometimes, some arguments especially come for say deity worship. So, now I have written a book, Idol Worship, which deals with many of the objections which many Abrahamic religions have about deity worship. So, this is the one aspect.
What is the nature of the arguments? If they are reasonable arguments in the sense that they are questions which a thoughtful person will get. And there are reasonable answers for them also available. Second is the nature of the relationship.
Sometimes, even when we are discussing spiritual subject matters, often the power dynamic of the relationship matters a lot. And say for example, an elder may not be able to listen to a junior. When I asked, how do I preach to my parents? So, he replied by letting anyone except you preach to them.
So, the point was that, he said that they cannot learn, usually it is very difficult for parents to hear from their children. They have seen the children grow from babyhood. So, sometimes that relationship is such that we may not be the best person to address their questions.
So, if you could get someone whom they will find it more easy to be a little more open minded about or little more respectful about. May be somebody of their age group or somebody of maybe their intellectual level or basically somebody who they will not see through the filter of the mutual relationship. Now, the next part is, in this case, another point is that, the person who is in a close relationship with us, what is the nature of their attitude towards our bhakti? Is it that they are going to interfere with our bhakti very severely? Or is it that they want to do their own thing and they let us do our thing? Or is it that they are actually trying to prove that what we are doing is wrong? And then it becomes a serious problem.
There was one person, a devotee, Mataji’s husband who converted to Islam and then he wanted to destroy their altar because he said this is worship of the devil. And then that was a very serious issue. Because if people want to practice something, it’s up to them to practice.
But if they are going to interfere with our practice, then we have to take much stronger action. And lastly, actually this third point relates to the first point only. It’s more of the attitude.
Sometimes we find that we have, there are some questions and logical answers and there are logical counter replies and then this goes on for some time and eventually some resolution comes up. But sometimes when people choose a particular path, they also become very emotionally invested in it. And at that time logic doesn’t work.
So in such a situation, it might be best to let them, so if it’s simply becoming very nasty and argumentative, where now the positive resolution is coming, only a very large amount of bitterness is being created, then it’s best not to take things forward any further than that. I’d say that there are, but if there’s a little more open-minded, there are books written by some devotees. There are two books written by Satyaraj, Krishna Consciousness and Christianity, a dialogue between Professor Hart and Stephen Rosen.
And there’s another book where the Ganga meets the Jordan. These are reasonably good books which talk about similarities between Christianity and Hinduism. Vaishnavism more specifically.
And I also have a series on world religions on my website. So in that there’s a talk on Christianity. There are a couple of articles where also I talk about this.
So basically there’s no one blanket thing what to do. But in general, especially if it’s a close relative, we can try our best to respond in a way that facilitates reasonable discussions. But if it is becoming bitter, if it is creating animosity, if there is a lack of rationality in the criticism or the defense, then it is best to keep a distance.
Sometimes when there is influence by a particular path, in the initial stage, there is a lot of defensiveness towards what one is doing. And not just defensiveness, there is also righteousness. You know, I have chosen this, so it must be right.
So that self-righteousness can also block rationality. Generally new converts to any path, they have insecurity that they cover by aggression, by aggressiveness. So if we try to address that insecurity by pointing out logical loopholes, then that only they sometimes clamp down.
But if they don’t feel threatened somehow, if they just feel that we are having a discussion, somebody understands what my concerns are, and then there is address, then sometimes there is able to be resolution. So there has to be a practical approach based on a time-place circumstance.