Curious Christian

Sunil H. Stephens makes a number of observations in his article, “Doing Theology in a Hindu Context,” which is true of my own context amongst Hindus in western Sydney. 

1. Most Asian Evangelicals either read western books on Hinduism or Asian Evangelicals writing about Hinduism, using western categories of thought.
2. This also, I believe, has the tendency to focus on philosophical Hinduism, which is often elitist, neglecting popular Hinduism that is dominant among the majority of Indians.
3. The West focuses mainly on belief systems. In the phenomena of religions, they therefore tend to view other religions, including Hinduism, as mere belief-systems. This approach which many Evangelicals also share, is too a-historical and cerebral. Perhaps a Hindu critique of this might be that to compare and study religions only on the level of beliefs or doctrines would be an abstraction of, and therefore alienation from, the concrete life and practice which is supposed to be the sap of religion.
4. Finally, to concentrate on philosophical Hinduism would tend to reduce it into mere abstract propositional statements. It is however through stories, poems, parables and imageries that popular Hinduism permeates the life of the majority of the Hindus…