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Obituaries and Proselytization
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anantanand-rambachan/obituaries-and-proselytization_b_2945426.htmlWe recently lost a beloved family elder. He lived out his life within the structures of meaning and ritual provided by the Hindu tradition. These guided his commitment to work, his devotion to family, and his sense of justice. The beginning and the end of his life were marked by traditional Hindu ceremonies. He was a paragon of fidelity and a repository of rich life experiences that he shared passionately in stories with receptive grandchildren.
In spite of changes and differences in geographical practice, the Hindu tradition is still domestic centered. For most of us, the home is the focus of religious life and worship and the location for the performance of those profound rituals that mark the life-stages: birth, marriage, and death. Since funeral ceremonies are performed at home, it is customary, in Hindu obituaries, to mention the address, identify the funeral ritual as Hindu and specify the place of cremation.
We received many cards, notes and letters of sympathy in the days following the funeral ceremony. There were several, however, from persons whose names and addresses we did not recognize. Each one was structured in a similar way. The writer opened with words of sympathy, making mention of many personal details from the obituary. This was followed by Biblical texts about the way to eternal life and reunion with loved ones. The letters spoke of punishment for unbelievers but also of the promise of salvation from effects of sin "through the ransom sacrifice of ...Jesus Christ." The letters included published Christian literature. We quickly realized that these Christian letter-writers searched newspaper obituaries with the aim of identifying families belonging to other religious traditions with the aim of proselytization. We learned also that this was not unusual and that Hindus experiencing death in their families regularly received such invitations to convert. Hindus that I spoke with shrugged it off, brushing it aside as something that one should expect from Christians. While unhappy, they seemed resigned, treating it as one of those unwelcome features of life in a religiously diverse society that one learns to accept and tolerate. "This is what Christians do," said several of them.
The response of my fellow Hindus troubled me, just as much as the letters that we received. Although it is true that this is what some Christians do, it is important that we see how unusual this is from the perspective of other religions. Most of the practitioners of the world's religions do not read daily obituaries to identify potential converts! As a Hindu, I am familiar with the religious motive of sharing one's tradition and I welcome opportunities to learn about and from other traditions. At the same time, there are appropriate and inappropriate ways, times, and contexts for sharing. Sharing in the Hindu tradition occurred, and still does, in response to a request for religious teaching made by a student to a teacher. It was felt that religious teaching was best shared in a dialogical relationship of mutual listening, questioning and receptivity. Some Christians, like these letter writers, assume a religious need in the other for Christianity and make no effort to understand the religious life of the other. They conclude wrongly that traditions other than Christianity have no good resources and insights for helping their practitioners understand and cope with the loss of a loved one and they appeal to fear of punishment as a basis for religious commitment. They are driven by their need to convert the other and not by the need of the other for conversion. Christians will understand better our discomfort by taking our places and imagining themselves as recipients of invitations, from Hindus, to convert in the midst of grief for a loved one.
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