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Apologia Report 18:15 (1,151)
April 25, 2013
Subject: Comparing karma and sin
In this issue:
CHURCH HISTORY - Rodney Stark's "brilliant debunking of much nonsense propagated in the sociology of religion"
HINDUISM - contrasting the concepts of karma and sin
SYNCRETISM - "How far should the gospel be 'at home' in a culture, and how far should it resist domestication?"
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CHURCH HISTORY
The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion, by Rodney Stark [1] -- this balanced review from Timothy Larsen explains that the book "is a kind of Stark's Sampler. The bibliography lists 26 previous Rodney Stark publications. ...
"Over the course of my much shorter career, I have come to value deeply various parts of this corpus. Although he twice self-identifies as a historian in this book, Stark is primarily known as a distinguished sociologist of religion, and the final part of The Triumph of Christianity puts on display his brilliant debunking of much nonsense propagated in that field. Notably, he was an early and highly insightful and persuasive dissenter from the secularization thesis, which argues that modernity inevitably causes religion to wither away. ...
"Stark is also in sparkling form explaining why the liberal assumption that religion can be made more popular by making it less demanding flies in the face of what we know from both sociology and history."
Larsen notes that in the final chapter on modern global Christianity, "Stark observes, even in Russia only 4 percent of the population identify as atheists - the exact same percentage as in America. (Stark's book appeared before the survey reporting a marked increase in Americans with no religious affiliation - the much-discussed 'nones' - but we can confidently expect that he will weigh in on that in due course.) ...
"Stark excels at explaining how Christianity was attractive to women because 'it offered them a life that was so greatly superior to the life they otherwise would have led.' Secular feminists often denounce the New Testament's perspective on women as oppressive, but they generally do this without considering the alternative on offer in Roman Society."
As for criticism, Larsen begins: "Stark is a compulsive revisionist. He is perpetually insisting; you have always thought this, but you were wrong. ... Stark's imagined reader seems to be someone who is well read in the entire sweep of church history, but who has somehow had the misfortune to invariably read the wrong thing. No one is ever uninformed, always misinformed. ...
"Stark so relishes exposing the distortions of others that he sometimes ends up himself leaving the reader with an imbalanced picture. For example, he is right to debunk the idea of the 'Dark Ages,' which serious historians have now decommissioned. Nevertheless, he does this in a way that so conceals the evidence that the old view was based upon that an innocent reader is left with an impression that will itself be in need of revision. ...
"When Stark gets the bit between his teeth, one often wishes he [were] more reined in."
Concluding on a positive note, Larsen adds: "Still ... there are useful gleanings. The section on how the medieval church nurtured science is particularly welcome." Books & Culture, Jan/Feb '13, pp25-26. <www.ow.ly/k2qmC>
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HINDUISM
Recently we discovered the undated and apparently unpublished essay, "Beyond Karma: Sin in Hinduism" by Winfried Corduan, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Religion at Taylor University. At issue here is "the question of whether there is an idea equivalent to the Christian concept of sin in Hinduism." By the time one finishes examining the issue, Corduan anticipates: "one wonders how there can be any similarity or even analogy at all."
He begins: "Popular presentations proselytizing for Hinduism (although they would probably reject that characterization) frequently go on from the observation that Hinduism does not espouse an idea of sin, thereby attempting to create the appearance that, therefore, Hinduism is tolerant of all actions and is not the condemnatory religion that Christianity is supposedly known to be.
"In what follows, I would like to demonstrate that there is, in fact, a pretty clear notion of sin in Hinduism, which even turns out to be not all that different from what Christians mean by 'sin.' However, this concept is not karma."
After discussing this at length, Corduan concludes: "My point is that if even good actions and no actions at all have roughly the same results as evil actions, then karma, even though a gigantic obstacle, is nothing like sin in this respect. The word 'sin,' after all, is usually reserved for something evil. That fact is the reason, then, why karma and sin are not equivalent.
"It would be tempting at this point to declare that since karma is not really sin, there is no 'real sin' in Hinduism, as some writers have done. ...
"But this is not right either." Corduan proceeds with a discussion of words and concepts for sin in Hinduism, concluding: "Hindus cannot dispense with right and wrong any more than any other people can. Some people may find the idea of a religion without sin attractive, but just because someone may say that this is the case for Hinduism doesn't make it so. Hinduism recognizes the fact that humans fall short of objective standards, and that should not surprise us." <www.ow.ly/k2org>.
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SYNCRETISM
When visiting Brazil, most American evangelicals are stunned to discover the degree to which indigenous and African occultic beliefs are mingled with Roman Catholic worship. Around the world both religions and individuals can be found using a cafeteria approach to forms of belief and practice. In "How Much Syncretism Is Allowed?" Lynn D. Shmidt, associate professor of cross-cultural ministry at Asbury University, uses the title to reflect a college student's curiosity about the subject. Shmidt unpacks the complexity that prevents a quick and easy answer. He begins by writing that "The heart of the question lies in the age-old [missional] discussion of contxtualization vs. syncretism. What one assesses as good contextualization another will label syncretism and heresy. ...
"Lesslie Newbigin asks the question, 'How far should the gospel be 'at home' in a culture, and how far should it resist domestication?'
...
"One of the more prominent examples of this is struggle is Messianic Judaism; however, former Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus are also wrestling with it. ...
"H.L. Richard refer[s] to an 'insider paradigm' - believers who retain their cultural involvement. The key is maintaining one's faith in Jesus while living contentedly (legally and socially) within one's society. ...
"A general definition of syncretism suggests the blending of religious traditions. Simply put, a person who draws from two or more belief systems at the same time is guilty of syncretism. He or she is reaching for the best of two religious worlds."
Shmidt finds a "more appropriate explanation of syncretism" in Darrell Whiteman's "culture/faith matrix by which effective communication of the gospel moves an indigene from the pagan/indigenous quadrant of the matrix to the Christian/indigenous quadrant. The goal is to communicate the Bible through indigenous cultural forms so that no cultural dislocation takes place.
"However, an ethnocentric approach by a cross-cultural minister may introduce Western Christian forms without adequately conveying the associated Christian (biblical) meanings. ... Whieman suggests that syncretism may result through the ascription of local or indigenous meanings to Christian or Western forms used in the church. ...
"Whiteman's explanation of syncretism causes us to rethink our response to syncretism. Meanings communicated must be Christian, whether the form used is Western, Hebrew, or indigenous to any other culture. ...
"[T]he struggle for Christian authenticity has been a long-standing missionary worry in each culture and society touched by the gospel. Wilbert Shenk summarizes [that missionaries have always] 'had to make many choices in working out a presentation of the gospel that was culturally and linguistically understandable and yet faithful to what they understood it to be. Missionaries continually walked a tightrope between adaptation to culture and rejection of those features that could not be reconciled with the gospel. An uncritical accommodation led to syncretism that diluted or denatured the gospel, while failure to adapt would have meant that the gospel remained foreign and inaccessible.' ...
"If I take the view that syncretism has been and is in the Church, then my questions may rather need to be, 'How much syncretism should be expected?' and 'What is the appropriate response to the syncretism found in the church?'
"The Bible presents an ongoing struggle between contextualization and syncretism within the lives of the people of God. A Bible/theology colleague rightly points out that simply reading the Bible is a serious cross-cultural experience and the task of the Christian today is to re-contextualize the gospel."
Shmidt reviews two out of "a multitude" of syncretism examples in the Bible: Exodus 32 (the golden calf) and Acts 8 (Simon the sorcerer). He adds that "Two voices that direct us to a proper response to syncretism are Gailyn Van Rheenen and Paul Hiebert. Van Rheenen reminds us that Paul teaches in Colossians to stay centered on Christ as a 'check on syncretism.' Hiebert acknowledges the necessity to study scripture, but adds that we should not 'reject the study of humans [culture] for fear of losing the Gospel.'" The discussion is followed with references. Shmidt also provides an acrostic as a handy tool for avoiding syncretism. Evangelical Missions Quarterly, Jan '13, pp26-33. <www.ow.ly/koNUL>
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion, by Rodney Stark (HarperOne, 2011, hardcover, 512 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/6n2qnuz>
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