Cults & Minor Religions, World Religions

by Craig Branch –

How often have you heard the expression, “as far as the East is from the West…,” to note the tremendous gap existing between two objects? But that is no longer an appropriate usage. The East has now come to the West, and the West has slowly been mutating into the East. This issue of Areopagus Journal provides a working knowledge of four of the largest and historical religions of the East and the world—Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism.

Why We Should Care About the Eastern Turn
There are several reasons why the Body of Christ needs to become acquainted with these religions. One reason is our missional calling and responsibility both at home and
abroad. Another reason is that there are many contemporary off-shoots of these parent religions that are impacting Western culture and gaining followers. A third reason
is the concern not only for the spiritual death of its followers, but also the growing physical harm, persecution, and murder being conducted by certain militant subgroups of Hinduism in the Far East.

Let’s look first at the missional component. Hinduism is the third largest religious group in the world, making up about 14% of the human population. Researchers place the number between 900 million and 1.5 billion. The discrepancy is due to the difficulty in counting the numbers in hard shell communist countries like China.

As stated earlier, the East has also come to the West. Prior to 1965 and the passing of the Immigration and Nationality Services (INS) Act, Hindu immigration to the U.S. was isolated. But following the INS Act, the U.S. began to see a flood of Hindu professionals, workers, and even spiritual leaders (Swanis). According to the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) of 2008 the adherents of “Eastern Religion” (not Buddhists) grew from 687,000 in 1990 to 1,104,000 in 2001, to 1,349,000 in 2008. The United States Department of States’ _u International Religious Freedom Report of 2004 put the number at 1,478,670. Figures listed on Buddhist adherents also reflect a wide gap in estimation.

They range from 376 million to 1.5 billion worldwide, contingent on the likely high numbers in China and other communist countries.

In addition to this huge mission field in the East, Eastern religions have come to America. For example, according to the ARIS surveys, the number of Buddhists in the U.S. rose 170% between 1990 to 2001, from 404,000 to 1,082,000. Their 2004 estimate was 1.5 million while other scholars in the field have estimated twice that. For example, Dr. Richard Seager, author of Buddhism in America, says, “1.5 million is a low reasonable number.”¹ The Pew Forum’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey put the number at 2 million, showing “surprising shifts in American religion,” and ranking Buddhism as the 4^th largest religious group in America. The survey also showed that three out of four Buddhists in America are converts to Buddhism. So here again, like the cults, there is a huge and growing mission field, abroad and at our doorstep that needs a lot of intentional engagement with the gospel.

A cause and result of this neglect is the growing post-Christian nature of American culture with its postmodern relativism, pluralism, and universalism. The 2007 Pew Forum poll indicated that of the 83% of Americans who identified themselves as having a religious affiliation, only 24% said that their religion “is the one true faith leading to eternal life,” and 65% said that “many religions can lead to eternal life.” The very disturbing statistic is that 57% of “evangelical Protestant church members” believe that.

As we have repeatedly noted in Areopagus Journal and our Worldviews newsletter, the lack of worldview discipleship and a missional mindset and lifestyle in the Church has resulted in our light being hidden under a basket, and the darkness is spreading. Another example of that reflected in the 2008 Pew Forum Research is that 60% of Americans 70 and older are Protestant, yet only 43% of those 18-29 are. Barna research has consistently reported that only 34% of American adults believe that moral truth is absolute and only 9% of Americans have a Biblical worldview. ² The impact of the decline in assimilating a biblical worldview is dramatically revealed in the growing gap between the generations regarding belief in absolute truth. While 64% of adults over 35 reject the existence of absolute truth, 75% of those 18-35 and 83% of teens reject it!

This loss of any true reference point begins to feed and develop man’s natural rebellion against God and His rule. But being made in God’s image, man naturally gravitates toward spirituality, although a false one. As you will see this spiritual postmodern relativistic and pluralistic mindset opens the door to Eastern religions and its new age mutations.

America used to be (and still is by some) referred to as a “melting pot,” because as foreign immigrants settled here, most adopted our values, formed by a Judeo-Christian worldview. But now it can be better described as a “tossed salad” consisting of a mixture of many independent religions with their adherents giving strong allegiance to the values, and beliefs, and practices of each religion’s parent culture.

An example of this transition was noted in a recent article in The Birmingham News titled, “Face of Faith Changing in Once Monolithic Alabama.” The article stated, “The city now has multiple Islamic mosques, Hindu temples, and Buddhist centers…. We can look forward to increasing diversity. We will have to learn more about various faiths instead of taking a negative approach.” The article concluded, “Christians need to realize their mission field has arrived at their doorstep.”³

Another reason to become conversant with the early historical religions of the East is that they are the source of many of the New Age cult practices popular in the West today. Transcendental Meditation, yoga, Hare Krishna, Tai Chi, Christian Science, Scientology, Unity School of Christianity, many alternative “medicine” approaches, and celebrities like Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup series), Deepak Chopra, Oprah Winfrey, the Dali Lama, Marianne Williamson, Richard Gere, and Brad Pitt, all are part of these Eastern spiritualities.⁴

The final reason to take the time to study and understand these religions is to encourage policy and missionary activity to help diminish or eradicate the militant abuses carried out by some factions of Eastern Religions. For example, you may have heard or read about groups of Hindus in India fighting against Muslims in Pakistan. Plus there are Hindu groups in India attacking Christians. Christianity Today reported on “fresh attacks” by Hindu militants on Indian Christians.” Their reason? Because they say Christians are “forcing Hindus to convert.” The story continues, “Last Christmas, militants killed four Christians and burned 730 homes and 95 churches in Orissa.”⁵ We have a duty to do what we can to end this persecution of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

In This Issue
This Journal issue begins with “Hinduism: Empty Diversity” by Dr. Winfried Corduan. Corduan begins by helping us understand that Hinduism is far from monolithic. He explains the beliefs, scriptures, and practices which the many subgroups hold in common, but he also explains the areas where differentiation is found. It is something like Christianity and all of her varied denominations and pseudo Christian cults. But unlike Christianity— which has the foundational authority of sola Scriptura (Scripture alone)—Hinduism has no unified source of authority and tradition.

Corduan identifies the historical developments of Hinduism along with its various schools of philosophy, the three main schools of devotion, and the three ways of “salvation.” He focuses in on the two most popular expressions—Vedantic and Temple Hinduism. He exposes the internal contradictions of Hinduism as well as offering numerous Christian counter responses to Hinduism.

Our second article is “On Buddhism” by Dr. Keith Yandall. Buddhism, like Hinduism, is not monolithic. Buddhism is a religion of many nations and independent traditions which include dominant ethnic and national beliefs, and traditions accumulated from ancient folk beliefs. But there are some common basics which include a reverence of its founder Gautama Buddha, goals of attaining nirvana through “enlightenment,” a denial of individual personhood, and reincarnation.

The two most prominent expressions of Buddhism are Theravada (or Hinayana) Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism. Therevada means “teaching of the elders” and Hinayama means “lesser vehicle” and is also called “Southern Buddhism.” Mahayana means “greater vehicle” and is referred to as Northern Buddhism. Dr. Yandall provides an overview of the common beliefs plus a summary of some of the different perspectives within Buddhism. Most importantly, he shows that the Buddhist denial of a substantial self leads to absurdities.

The third article, “Confucianism and Taoism: A Brief Summary and Biblical Appraisal” is written by Patrick Zukeran of Probe Ministries. Regarding Confucius, he writes, “Confucius is considered the greatest of Eastern philosophers,” and his writings on civic duty, responsibility, morality and character became very influential in China and remain so to this day. Zukeran also addresses Taoism (“the road or way to eternal truth”). The movement has had a significant influence in the East, especially as blended into folk religions. Its influence in the West is most noticeably seen in the concepts of yin and yang, the idea that reality is comprised of opposite forces that must be brought into harmony. Zukeran shows that, among other things, both Confucianism and Taoism suffer from the same underlying flaw: they begin with the false assumption that human beings are basically good and only need to be taught well to live well and achieve salvation.

For a more thorough understanding of the intricacies of these religions and an apologetic response, I recommend the books listed elsewhere in this journal (available through the Apologetics Resource Center).

Craig Branch is the director of the Apologetics Resource Center, Birmingham, Alabama. He is also the co-author (with John Ankerberg and John Weldon) of the book, Public Schools: The Sorcerer’s New Apprentice?

NOTES
¹ Jane Lampman, “American Buddhism on the Rise,” Christian Science Monitor (Sept 14, 2006).
² See www.barna.com.
³ Greg Garrison, “Face of Faith Changing in a Once Monolithic Alabama,” The Birmingham News (Nov. 23, 2008).

Recommended Books

The World’s Religions
by Norman Anderson (Eerdmans).

Clash of Worlds: What Christians Can Do in a World of Cultures in Conflict
by David Burnett (Monarch).

Asia’s Religions: Christianity’s Momentous Encounter with Paganism
by Lit-Sen Chang (P & R).

Apologetics in the New Age: A Christian Critique of Pantheism
by David K. Clark and Norman L. Geisler (Baker).

Neighboring Faiths: A Christian Introduction to World Religions
by Winfried Corduan (IVP).

Sharing Your Faith with a Hindu by Madasamy Thirumalai (Bethany House).

Sharing Your Faith with a Buddhist by Madasamy Thirumalai (Bethany House).

(First published in Areopagus Journal Vol. 9 No. 3 – Eastern Religions)