gnosis92

Anat's our resident Jewish expert. messianic judaism is a concoction that uses Christian theology with Jewish beliefs, practices, symbols, and terminology. They actually use Hebrew at the so-called Messianic Synoguges but use as much Orthodox style religious and cultural practices, such as passover and circumcission and Kosher as possibe. At least part of the impulse is interfaith marriage between Christians and Jews.

Here's a link with pics http://www.messiahnj.org/

Which got me thinking: if there are a lot of Christian-Hindu interactions and marriages between Hindus and CHristians, say in India, how about a Hindu-Christ as Yogi religion, which combines Hindu beliefs and practices and culture, with Christian New Testament Scripture? I wonder what Anat's Hindu counterpart, our hindu woman might think of this.


Or in cultures where there are Buddhist-Christian intermarriage, such as Vietnam, maybe Korea or Japan or Laos or Burma, Church-Temple of the Buddha-Christ, where Christ is an incarnation of Buddha.

There is a Muslim-Christian synthesis called B'Hai.

aupmanyav

We do not need a synthesis till Jesus, the son of God, is the only savior of the world. It is a person's deeds that decide his afterlife (for those who believe in it) irrespective of his personal belief which does not contribute to a person's salvation. It would not be christianity if Jesus is removed from his pedastal. So I do not see a hindu-christian synthesis. In hindu-christian marriages, partners can follow their own religions or one partner can change to the belief of the other for all we care.

adren@line

You cannot mix the New Testament with Hinduism.

For one the NT preaches a Semitic-oriented dogma and is against idolotry while Hinduism is liberal and not against idolotry.

Further, Hindus view Jesus as just another wise-man/Guru who was enlightened and preached to his people.

And like many Gurus, he became extremely ego-centric and made all kinds of claims that he was God and no one can attain God unless they go through him (this is even seen with many modern Hindu Gurus today...they have large egos and claim to be God).

The problem with this is that Christians see Jesus as more then some enlightened Guru. They see him as the son of God and as the only way to Heaven, when Hindus dont even believe in Heaven to begin with.

premjan

Christian-Hindu synthesis would basically produce the Christian version of Hare Krishnas. Jesus pretty much fits the definition of a yogi or an avatar already. All that is needed is to consider Jesus as an incarnation of Vishnu (he fits the definition pretty well already).

aupmanyav

I have nothing against that, Jesus can be an avatar of Vishnu, who is just one aspect of the Supreme, Brahma and Shiva being the other two, christians may have to accept that, creation and destruction being just as important as preservation, that is the way of life, Ritam, or Tao.

Waning Moon Conrad

I don't think it's either viable or necessary.

If those of us who are religious could just see other religions as being different cultural expressions of the human urge towards spirituality, then would there be a need for synthesis?

One of my best friends is a contemplative Catholic who spends much of her time either in St Patrick's cathedral meditating or in Scot's Church playing the organ.

She has seen my Buddhist shrine and we talk about spiritual stuff and we both see different religions as different vehicles for travel to the same destination.

That wouldn't be possible if she was a fundamentalist of course.

Waning Moon Conrad

Deary me! Jesus is the only way!

Yeshi

Forawhile, i fancied the idea of writing a guru yoga style tantric saddhana with visualization etc as a prayer for my mother, based on Jesus or Virgin Mary. I think it would/could be a powerful practice in our (western) millieu.

But, then, the danger of giving technology to obsessed/obscured is there. It could start new cults/sects etc. Better to keep things pure. I think HH Dalai Lama also mentioned somewhere it is not good to mix practices and deities in between different religions.

If nothing else, the correlation of Jesus to the 'jelous god' (by definition:asura) Jahve, the brother of Baal is unclear. Helping some spiritual tradition that then promulgates bloodshed and ethnic cleansing of neighbour tribes (see: Canaanites, etc), is prolly NOT good karma.

gnosis92

Yeah Mainstream Jews say the same thing yet here we have Messy Jews.



To atheists and Jews, the Old and New Testament contradict one another.


It would be a concoction to accommodate Hindu-Christian interfaith marriage.

CCromwell

I know a lot of non-Catholic Christians who would disagree very strongly with a statement. In Protestant theology, salvation is attained by faith in God rather than how many good works one does in life. This is what gives Protestants the license to be outwardly evangelistic, as well as being the top of a slippery slope at the bottom of which one finds the loud, discriminatory minority of Protestantism.

But that is for another discussion entirely.