Opposition To Hindu Temples In The West

[G.Subramaniam]

http://www.tcgcohio.org/Numrich/CH1_CND_Hi...temple_0207.htm

[From The Church Next Door: Local Christians Face America’s New Religious Diversity, draft manuscript by Dr. Paul D. Numrich. Please do not quote or cite without author’s permission.]



Chapter 1: A Hindu Temple Comes to Town



[figure approx. here: reproduction of Beacon News headline and figure, April 23, 1985]



“Aurora could be home for the largest Hindu temple in America.” This front-page story in the local newspaper in April of 1985 informed the residents of Aurora, Illinois, of plans to build a Hindu temple named for Sri Venkateswara, a deity revered in southern India. Four days later, the newspaper’s weekly Religion section ran an article about Hindu religious practices, with a photo of a local Asian-Indian woman worshiping at a temporary altar in the former farmhouse on the proposed temple’s property. The article was positioned between regular features about Aurora Christian churches, including a column called “God’s open window” contributed by Christian clergy. The positioning symbolized the changes about to take place on Aurora’s religious landscape.

In the mid-1980s, this blue-collar city west of Chicago was home to dozens of churches and a Jewish synagogue. For Aurora, historically populated by Euro-Americans, African Americans, and Latinos, Indian Hindus represented both a new ethnic presence and an unfamiliar religious tradition. For several months in 1985, Aurora Christians engaged in a public debate about the merits of the proposed Hindu temple, citing both theological and civic positions.

The first letter to the editor of the local newspaper came from Laurie Riggs, wife of the pastor of Union Congregational Church, located in neighboring North Aurora not far from the Hindu site. She offered a biblical warning: “I, for one, am frightened by the erection of temples to other gods. When Israel as a nation did that [in the Bible], God had to chasten and bring judgment upon their land and people.” Mrs. Riggs also voiced concern about the direction of the American nation: “Are we going to be proud of something that will again take us away from the religion on which this country was founded?”

Riggs’s husband, Rev. John Riggs, was interviewed for an article in the evangelical periodical, Christianity Today, a few years later. “Biblically oriented Christians in this community were naturally afraid of the propagation of a polytheistic faith in their community,” Rev. Riggs said. “I thank God for the religious freedom we have in this country,” he continued. “But I wanted to make sure we demonstrated a strong Christian witness in this community, and point up the incompatibility of Hindu and Christian beliefs.” Quoted in a rebuttal piece to the Christianity Today article published in the Hindu periodical, Hinduism Today, Rev. Riggs reiterated his distinction between civic freedoms and theological truth claims: “I do believe in freedom of religion, but shall not give any quarter to non-Christians.”



Excerpt from Christianity Today article (February 19, 1988):

Aurora, Illinois (pop. 90,000), sits in the middle of small farms, 30 miles west of metropolitan Chicago. . . . [A]ll along Randall Road, the community’s northern approach, fields of corn and soybeans guard its rural virginity.

This pastoral calm is rudely violated as one approaches the city’s northern limits. There, rising out of the cornfields like a mountain jutting upward from a grassy plain, is a massive Hindu temple with spires that dwarf a Congregational church’s white steeple two pastures away.



Excerpt from Hinduism Today (June 4, 1988) rebuttal of Christianity Today article:

You write, “This pastoral calm [of Aurora] is rudely violated [by] a massive Hindu temple with spires that dwarf a Congregational church’s white steeple two pastures away.” The choice of words conveys not just an “out-of-place” temple, but an “intrusive, wrong, threatening” temple. After our talk, we trust it is accurate to say the temple is no more a “violation” of Aurora’s bucolic beauty than the nearby church.

(Note: The editors of Hinduism Today and Christianity Today had a phone conversation before this rebuttal appeared in print.)



Plans for the Sri Venkateswara temple came up for review by the Aurora City Council in May of 1985. A week before the hearing, Aurora resident Donna Kalita asked in a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, “Does Aurora want to be known as the ‘home of the largest Hindu temple in America,’ or as a ‘God-fearing little city in America?’” She adamantly opposed the presence of “a temple for gods other than the living God of Abraham, creator of all things.” The City Council hearing featured a stirring debate, representing what Mayor David Pierce later characterized as the best and the worst in Aurora’s citizenry. Christians took a variety of positions on the proposed Hindu temple and what it symbolized, which continued to play out in the local newspaper long after the Council approved the temple’s plans.

At least three positions can be identified among Christian participants in this public debate. The first two have already been intimated. One position, articulated by Laurie Riggs and Donna Kalita above, saw the presence of a Hindu temple in Aurora as contravening the will of God and biblical injunctions, and thus it should not be allowed by the citizens and public officials of the city. William W. Penn labeled City Council members non-Christians for “knowingly and willingly going against the Holy Bible” in making “a decision that will, if the temple is built, place Aurora in judgement according to God’s word.” Michael J. Mallette asked, “Is the God of the Bible the one, true God? If so, then we are facing a provoked, jealous, almighty God who has sworn to take vengeance on all disobedience. I, for one, fear that our city is standing on the threshold of a new and dreadful future.” In this view, Aurora would break the Bible’s commandment against idol worship by allowing the Hindu temple to be built.

A second position in the debate, expressed by Rev. John Riggs above, shared the theological evaluation of the first position that Hinduism is a false religion worshiping false gods. Nonetheless, this second position recognized the constitutional rights of Hindus to practice their faith and build their temple in Aurora, along with the Christian duty to oppose Hindu truth claims. “Christianity in its true form is a much different religion,” wrote Bobbi Rutherford. “It must not be lumped together with the others. However, the Hindu people have every right to build their temple and worship freely and peaceably—without harassment. This is guaranteed them in the Constitution of our great country.” Ms. Rutherford pointed out a theological justification to her fellow Christians, in addition to the legal one: “Christians who oppose this view should be reminded that God Himself gave man freedom of choice. No one has the right to deny another that choice.”

For Ms. Rutherford and others, the new Hindu temple in Aurora offered a missionary opportunity. Jane Jafferi considered “this temple of idolatry . . . an abomination to God and to us,” yet she called upon Christian Aurorans to “stand on God’s word to use this situation to bring Him glory and to work in us.” Although she prophesied that “Spiritual darkness shall fall on our city and all manner of evil will increase . . . both in the spiritual realm and in the physical,” she did not fear the future: “God is drawing us together as his ambassadors to these who are in darkness. . . . We need not fear, brothers and sisters in Jesus. We know how the book ends. We’re on the winning side.”

Pastor Charles Rinks of Souls Harbor Open Bible Church, located a few hundred yards from the Hindu temple property, said, “If I had my ‘druthers,’ I’d rather them [Hindus] not be here. We ought to say they’re here and to show them the superiority of Christianity.” Although Pastor Dorothy Brown of Mustard Seed Tabernacle Bible Church, also nearby the temple, viewed Hinduism as a cult, she did not oppose the presence of Hindus in Aurora. “I tell my congregation to pray for the Hindus, that their understanding be enlightened so they can see the only true God, our father Jehovah,” she explained. Rev. Stephen Miller, pastor of Christian Fellowship Bible Church, taught his congregation to support religious freedom for all, but also to stand up for the truth of only one religion, Christianity. “The more people I can affect with the truth,” Rev. Miller said, “the less people the Hindus will reach.”

Rev. Larry Hodge, pastor of Aurora First Assembly of God, characterized himself both as “an American who cherishes freedom and as a Christian who serves the Christ.” With respect to the first point, “As long as the owners of [the Hindu temple] meet the legal requirements for construction, they should be allowed to build whatever they choose.” With respect to the second point, wrote Rev. Hodge, “I must stand in opposition to the teaching and practices the owners of this property will bring to this community. Their teaching and practices produce no real spiritual hope or lasting social redemption.” Come what may, Rev. Hodge pledged “to proclaim Jesus Christ as the only hope for this world and its inhabitants.”

Rev. Paul Dobbins from the nearby town of Plano admitted that it would be disconcerting for many Christians to bump into “what the Old Testament calls a ‘foreign god,’ right in your city’s back yard.” Even so, he suggested that America’s monotheistic Judeo-Christian heritage would resist “pagan” trends like Hindu polytheism. “It will simply be more important than ever,” wrote Rev. Dobbins, “for all of us to think more clearly so that in the give and take of ideas among a free people, which we should be glad to be, the best elements of our way of life may have the best opportunity to prevail.”

Rev. Man Singh Das, a former Hindu who was converted by Presbyterian missionaries in India and then became a Methodist minister, attended the Aurora City Council hearing and came away “shocked to hear irrational viewpoints expressed by a small group of Aurorans in the name of Christianity,” including fears about rat infestation and drug abuse in Hindu temples. Rev. Das led a three-part seminar, organized by the Church and Society Committee of Westminster Presbyterian Church (USA) in Aurora, in order to present an accurate understanding of Hinduism. “We should accept the temple, not their teachings,” Rev. Das advised his fellow Christians. Ethnocentric bigotry has no place in a Christian approach: “I want to win the soul [of the Hindu]. But, before winning the soul, I want to win his heart.”

As we have seen, Christians who agreed about the falsity of Hinduism took two different positions regarding the presence of a Hindu temple in Aurora. Some sought to prevent the erection of the temple, citing biblical injunctions against idolatry and the potential for divine retribution on the city and its inhabitants, while others recognized both the temple’s legal right to exist and its members as a missionary field. A third Christian position considered the proposed Hindu temple a positive contribution to the community. “We welcome the temple as adding to the cultural and religious diversity that we all treasure so highly as Americans and as citizens of Aurora,” wrote four local Lutheran pastors in a joint letter to the editor. They also expressed chagrin over the controversy: “We suffer Christian embarrassment and deplore the bigotry that has been expressed, often by persons of the Christian faith. We see this kind of sanctimonious self-serving as alien to the faith of the church of Christ.”

Although these Lutheran pastors shared Rev. Das’s concern over the lack of Christian charity exhibited by some Christians, they did not express the missionary goals of Rev. Das and others described above. This third Christian position welcomed the Hindu temple without feeling a need to evangelize its members. Rev. Clara Thompson, pastor of First Baptist Church, deplored what she described as “prejudice raising its ugly head here in Aurora,” equating local Christian opposition to Hindus with anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany. “Aurora is not a Christian city,” Rev. Thompson argued. “It is a city that has Christians in it, as well as Jewish people, Hindus, other religions or non-believers in any religion. If Hindus should not be here because they are not Christians, how about these others, and how about people who say they are Christians, but don’t act like it?”

Some Christians advocated reaching out to the local Hindu community in formal dialogue about the beliefs and practices of Hinduism. For instance, New England Congregational Church, a United Church of Christ congregation, organized an adult study group on Hinduism and took a contingent of 50 members to tour the temple when it opened. Rev. Marshall Esty, a United Methodist minister, suggested that Christians could learn valuable lessons from Hinduism: “The reverence for life that is fundamental to the Hindu way of life at its best may prompt us to rethink our life-denying ways.” Rev. Esty also advised Christians concerned about a Hindu temple violating the biblical commandment against idol worship that Jesus had identified two other commandments as greatest of all, namely, “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” William Balek asked, “Have those who so bitterly oppose this [temple] in the name of God forgotten that the Bible teaches us that we are all God’s children?” Mr. Balek continued: “Those who deny the establishment of another home of worship in the name of Jesus seem to have forgotten that His teachings were those of love and tolerance.”

In the Aurora Hindu temple controversy, the notion of tolerance carried both civic and theological connotations. Most of the Christian participants in the debate acknowledged the importance of civic tolerance of religious diversity as guaranteed by law and established in mainstream American culture. Theological tolerance proved a complicated matter, however. A small minority of local Christians—vocal and controversial, but still a small minority—considered Hinduism’s beliefs and practices so intolerably false as to abrogate any expectation of civic tolerance. For them, the Hindu temple simply must not be built under any circumstances. Other Christians combined theological intolerance with civic tolerance—Hinduism is a false religion, but the Hindu temple had a right to be built. For these Christians, truth, not tolerance, is the highest theological consideration, and thus tolerance of religious untruth constitutes no virtue. For yet other Christians, Hinduism deserved both theological and civic tolerance—differences in religious truth claims should be respected and the Hindu temple had a right to be built. In fact, these Christians went beyond mere tolerance to express positive appreciation of Hinduism.

Back in May of 1985, on the day of the Aurora City Council hearing, the local newspaper published its stance on the controversy surrounding the proposed Hindu temple. The editorial stressed the legal and economic issues of the case, arguing that the temple made “good sense” on both counts. The editorial urged those who attended the hearing to understand that this was “not a religious issue.” But, of course, it was a religious (or theological) issue to many, in addition to being about other issues.

We will revisit the case of the Christians of Aurora, Illinois in Chapter 11 of this book, bringing their story down to the present time. For a preview, see the accompanying sidebar.



Aurora, then and now:

In November of 1985, the Aurora newspaper reported on a public forum organized by the local chapter of the American Association of University Women. The article read as follows, in part: “An Indian woman and the mayor of Aurora told an audience Wednesday what they could expect when the proposed Hindu temple becomes reality. Taken together, their message was that the temple, being built for a religion very unlike Christianity, would some day be as commonplace as the nearly 100 other churches in the city.”

The Aurora Hindu temple was consecrated in June of 1986 with the installation of the images of several Hindu deities. In March of 2003, a major addition to the temple was opened, and in June of that same year, the entire facility was re-consecrated with five days of religious ceremonies, drawing an estimated 5,000 Hindus from across the country on the final day. The local newspaper’s coverage of these activities in 2003 stimulated no public response.



For More Information

Terry Muck, “The mosque next door: How do we speak the truth in love to Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists?” Christianity Today, February 19, 1988, pp. 15-20. Written by then-editor of Christianity Today, who holds a Ph.D. in comparative religion and participates in ongoing Buddhist-Christian dialogue among scholars, this article presents an evangelical Christian perspective on the growing religious diversity in America. Muck elaborates his views in a later book, Those Other Religions in Your Neighborhood: Loving Your Neighbor When You Don’t Know How (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992).

“A friendly open letter: Inaccurate reporting on Hinduism in America prompts response to Christianity Today article,” Hinduism Today, June 4, 1988, accessible at www.hinduismtoday.com/1988/06/1988-06-04.html. A rebuttal to Terry Muck’s Christianity Today piece by a Hindu periodical.

Christian denominations take a variety of positions regarding Hinduism and other non-Christian religions. The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, emphasizes evangelism and critique of non-Christian religious truth claims. Access the SBC’s Website at www.sbc.net and type the word Hinduism into the search function to retrieve statements about that religion. The United Methodist Church emphasizes interfaith dialogue and networking rather than critique of truth claims. Access the UMC’s “Creating Interfaith Community” page at http://gbgm-umc.org/missionstudies/inter...index.html for general information; Hinduism is included under the “Faith Traditions” section. In a statement entitled “Christ and the Other Religions,” the Roman Catholic Church’s Commission for Interreligious Dialogue outlines various Hindu responses to Christian presentations of Christ; this statement is available at www.vatican.va/jubilee_2000/magazine/documents/ju_mag_01031997_p-29_en.html.

The full name of the Aurora Hindu temple is Sri Venkateswara Swami Temple of Greater Chicago; its Web site is www.balaji.org. Information about other Hindu temples in the United States can be found at www.sabarimalathanthri.com/html/hindtempleus.htm.



For Discussion

1. Discuss the theological and civic issues involved in the public debate over the presence of a Hindu temple in Aurora, Illinois. In your opinion, which of the three Christian positions described in this chapter satisfies both theological and civic claims? Which of the three positions do you think represents the majority of Christians in your community? The three positions were: a) prevent the erection of the Hindu temple; b) recognize both the temple’s legal right to exist and its members as a missionary field; and c) welcome the temple without evangelizing its members.
2. Which of the quotations from Aurora Christians in this chapter resonates most positively with you? Which resonates most negatively? What would you have written in a letter to the editor of the Aurora newspaper at the height of the controversy in 1985?
3. What do you make of the public silence over the Aurora Hindu temple in 2003? Why was there no heated debate among Christians comparable to 1985? Do you think the same positions exist today in Aurora’s churches?
4. One letter to the editor in 1985 reminded Aurora Christians of the other temple in town, Temple B’nai Israel, a Conservative synagogue established in 1904. Do the Christian positions described in this chapter apply equally to Hindu temples and Jewish synagogues? Or does Christianity’s special historical and theological relationship with Judaism make a difference?