Understanding and Defining Hinduism

Hinduism
Name
Institution
Course
Instructor
Date
Hinduism
Chapter 10, Defining Hinduism: The Challenge of Transcending Christian Categories of Religion talks about Hinduism and the challenges surrounding it. The chapter explains how difficult it is for everyone including the Hindus themselves to make out of their beliefs, or even define it. As compared to Christianity, which Christians know of its origin, Hinduism is generally unique. From the chapter, the author writers that they “…tend not use religious languages or categories of thought that Christians stake for granted”, (Yadlapati, n.d. p. 146). To confirm this statement as a Christian, it is evident that we make use of religious languages especially when we need someone to believe in whatever we say. The chapter also explains the ambiguous ideas that Hindus have about Christianity, which is the same case with Christians who have little or no knowledge about Hinduism. The confusion of the two religions exists among these two religions especially on matters of deliverance; “Hindus are often confused by the Christian evangelical discussion of whether a person is saved,” (Tadlapati, n.d. p. 146).
From this chapter, it is hard to understand how Hindus unlike Christians, cannot identify themselves uniformly; instead, they identify themselves narrowly as devotees of Shiva, Vaishnavites, Swami Narayana, disciples of Sai Baba, followers of Vedanta, and the author suggests that “…. these are fluid categories that resist an easy equivalence with a Christian understanding of sects or denominations,” (Tadlapati, n.d. p. 146). Christians identify themselves as one irrespective of different churches. In addition, it is confusing for me to read that they have different gods as compared to Christians who are devoted to one God. The author also suggests that some religions like Christianity need conversion especially if an individual belonged to a different religious practice by saying that “…traditions like Hinduism, which do not seek actively to convert...