I’m very interested in civil religion, as some of you may have picked up. People who share my confession of faith tend to dislike the mixture of politics and worship since it violates our understanding of the sacredness of worship. Besides, civil religion never seems to work out for us as we’re always outnumbered by other religious groups.
So when the story about a Reno clergyman giving the first Hindu prayer in the Senate (and being interrupted by protestors) broke, I was anxious to see how it was covered. Thing is, there hasn’t been that much coverage. Or maybe I’m missing it and you all can help me out. The local fishwrapper, The Washington Post, had a brief piece today by Charles Babington, that began as follows:
A Hindu clergyman made history yesterday by offering the Senate’s morning prayer, but only after police officers removed three protesters from the visitors’ gallery.
Rajan Zed, director of interfaith relations at a Hindu temple in Reno, Nev., gave the prayer that opens each day’s Senate session. As he stood at the lectern in a bright orange and burgundy robe, two women and a man began shouting “this is an abomination” and other complaints from the gallery.
Police officers arrested them and charged them disrupting Congress, a misdemeanor. The male protester said “we are Christians and patriots” before police led them away. Police identified the protesters as Ante Nedlko Pavkovic, Katherine Lynn Pavkovic and Christan Renee Sugar. Their home towns were not available.
For several days, the Mississippi-based American Family Association has urged its members to object to the prayer because Zed would be “seeking the invocation of a non-monotheistic god.”
And that’s basically all there is to the story. I’m not sure if the protesters are affiliated with American Family Association or what that organization is since the reporter didn’t speak with anyone representing the group. But it sure seems like we are supposed to link the efforts of the AFA with the protesters.
It would be nice to know a bit more context, too. Hindus have already prayed in other settings in government. The Hindu group that came to the World’s Fair in Chicago at the turn of the century had a profound influence on American religion. Venkatachalapathi Samuldrala, a priest from Ohio, was the first Hindu to pray before Congress when he opened the House of Representatives with prayer in September of 2000. There was some protest then. But if you really want dramatic news, look at some of the crazy shenanigans going on in State Houses.
I’m wondering why we haven’t seen more comprehensive coverage. Anyway, a few other highlights. A USA TODAY blog posted the full text of the prayer and implied that the protesters, the AFA and Operation Rescue/Operation Save America were involved. Or maybe the story confused AFA and Operation Rescue/Operation Save America. And Reuters had a limited report with a fascinating quote from Mormon Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., saying that the Hindu deity system is equivalent to “our heavenly father.” Also a good story from Indian news outlet Rediff, which interviewed the Hindu chaplain and shared some interesting tidbits about his life (he has a journalism degree!). The story also says Zed believs yoga is helping spread Hinduism throughout America.
I think the best story comes from Diana Marrero of Gannett News Service writing for the Reno Gazette-Journal — and I’m not just saying that since I know her! I didn’t see it earlier, alas. She begins with the actual prayer and shares a bit of Hindu beliefs and interesting tidbits:
Zed said celebrants in a small Punjab town in India set off fireworks and flew flags on their rooftops to commemorate what they considered a major historic event.
The story focused more on the historic nature of the prayer, rather than the protest.
Did any of you see particularly good or bad stories out there? What angles do you wish would have been covered?
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Comments (31) |
July 13, 2007, at 5:38 pm
You might take a look at this bit of juvenalia:
http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/2007/07/13/jesus_dickheads.html
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July 13, 2007, at 7:39 pm
The level of ignorance in the West (US) about Hinduism is, I think, significantly worse than about Islam.
Sen. Reid is correct and he shows his knowledge by saying that. There is an assumption that Hinduism is necessarily polytheistic. But if you study the religion, you get a much more diverse and well rounded view. For example:
http://www.himalayanacademy.com/basics/tenq/tenq_1.html Perhaps an equivalent could be drawn between the created “Gods” and angels. I could go on endlessly, but one more example should suffice:
http://www.koausa.org/Gods/
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July 13, 2007, at 8:17 pm
Yes, indeed, the press was asleep at the switch! The Fourth Estate missed yet another opportunity to warn how Mormons are leading America down the primrose path to hell.
Brother Harry Reid was shamelessly marching in lock-step with Article 11 of Mormonism’s 13 Articles of Faith:
Thankfully the First Estate, our alert clergy, immediately warned of the danger! Glenn Wesley Widner III, website administrator for the First Baptist Church of Waynesboro, Georgia, declared:
http://www.fbcwaynesboro.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1319#1319
Yes, indeed. Everyone knows that both the Declaration of Independence of 1776 and the Constitution of the United States of 1787 were founded upon the Southern Baptist Convention of 1845!
Get out the tar and feathers!
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July 13, 2007, at 8:22 pm
John Scalzi’s piece is great fun, no matter what Tim of Angle things. He said the obvious things—that being a Christian is not an excuse to be a jerk
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July 13, 2007, at 10:09 pm
I continued to think about this story after my post and found a web site that claimed that Hinduism is really and example of henotheism rather than polytheism. That led me on a search for the meaning of henotheism and finally to this interesting assertion:
http://www.sofiatopia.org/equiaeon/henotheism.htm
In a perfect world these interesting theological ideas would have at least been alluded to in the coverage.
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July 13, 2007, at 10:58 pm
Thanks for the link. Reminds me of those halcyon days, lazing on a beach towel set up near the ol’ quad, trying to prove the soundness and completeness of a first—order calculus.
Those were simpler times, no?
.
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July 13, 2007, at 11:48 pm
An excellent post, Mollie — the coverage I’ve seen (and, to be honest, participated in) centered on the shmucks doing the shouting, at the expense of any interesting insight into the significance and historical context of the moment, a much more interesting story.
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July 14, 2007, at 8:06 am
[…] Update: G-R’s Molly is collecting stories about this event. […]
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July 14, 2007, at 11:07 am
The protesters were members of Operation Save America (or at least OSA is claiming them as their own), and shortly after their arrest the organization’s director the Rev. Flip Benham came to their defense:
Also worth a look is the Indian press, who have done a very thorough job reporting the story. The Times of India had a pretty in-depth feature on the controversy. Getting quotes from figures like David Barton (from the WallBuilders).
In a final note, I would like to point out that Hinduism isn’t a monolith. It is a grouping of faiths, cults, and philosophies, an umbrella term really. Some manifestation could be called monotheistic (especially in America where Hindu groups are especially worried about fitting in), others are henotheistic, and yes, there are plenty of full-blown polytheists in India.
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July 14, 2007, at 11:46 am
Thank you, Jason.
There is no one place to go for the word on Hindu philosophies or doctrines. If our GetReligion friends think Christianity is splintered, and Islam hopelessly divided, Hindu is even more fractured. Regarding the philosophy that the various Hindu deities are differing images/ aspects of one god, a few hours of bouncing around the blogosphere and the library tell me that this monotheistic view has no roots older than about two hundred years. Traditional Hinduism is mostly a thoroughgoing polytheism, near as I could find. If anyone can tell otherwise, please point me to a reference.
If journalists have difficulty with nuance within the worlds of Christianity and Islam, then expect them to completely miss the henotheistic camp of Hindu, which I do not find to be similar to Christian trinitarianism at all.
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July 14, 2007, at 2:35 pm
It’s fascinating, this attempt to make Hinduism sound monotheistic. People really can rationalize just about anything.
News hook: I’d love to read stories about prominent church folk explaining to us how the act of literally bowing and sacrificing to various idol statues isn’t idolatry …
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July 14, 2007, at 6:16 pm
I could not resist that challenge. Hindu scriptures such as the Upanishads and Vedas contain references to God in the monotheistic sense such as:
From the Upanishads, ancient Hindu scriptures:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe15/sbe15100.htm
http://www.hinduwebsite.com/sveta6.asp
There are many more that I found. I’m sure that there are many who practice the subtle art of exegesis who could do a much better job than I and others that could easily demolish my point. But I think it’s clear that the monotheistic interpretation of Hinduism goes back quite a ways. I think Jason’s statement about the variation is accurate.
I don’t want to stir up a firestorm about idolatry, many Muslims consider Christians to be idolators for the use of images and some Christians believe other are idolators because of their use of iconography.
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July 14, 2007, at 6:28 pm
“Henotheism is not monotheistic, but theomonistic. Orthodox Christian Trinitarism comes closer to henotheism than expected.”
Would some learned person explain how this does or does not relate to God, the Father; God, the Son; and God, the Holy Spirit?
And to be mean, I think many folks that insist on “In God We Trust” be on our currency are really worshiping the God, Money.
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July 14, 2007, at 8:50 pm
re: polytheism
It is also important to note that polytheism doesn’t preclude the existence of a single divine “source” or “creator” that is often apart and aloof from humanity (or at least so beyond our understanding that we couldn’t fathom its motives). Several cultures has (or developed) such a entity. So when put into a monotheist context, most polytheists believe in the concept of “God”, but their understanding of that power can be quite different than a Christian or Muslim’s perception. “Henotheism” (the overriding devotion to a single god), is essentially a condition that exists within a polytheist context, not a monotheist one.
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July 14, 2007, at 9:52 pm
Joseph,
I haven’t yet taken Dogmatics 101, so please take my attempt with a grain of salt.
Henotheism seems to affirm something fundamental to Trinitarian theology; that is, that unity and plurality are not mutually exclusive. There are some wonderful bits in that link about the logical implications/problems of strict monotheism and strict polytheism, and how they are resolved with henotheism.
While this certainly wouldn’t be a good basis of faith in the Trinity—i.e., that it ‘answers’ some philosopher’s objections—we should remember that the Fathers of the Church who defended the Trinity really did ‘baptize’ philosophy in so doing. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging God to be the fulfillment of Greek thought.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that this henotheism is really talking about different ‘manifestations’ of one God. While it’s tempting to rationalize the Trinity in this way, orthodoxy has always rejected the idea. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are ‘consubstantial’ and ‘undivided,’ but still distinct as Persons.
Hope this helps.
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July 14, 2007, at 10:08 pm
Ok, ok…There’s nothing wrong with saying that God fulfills that which is good about Greek thought. Obviously He transcends Greek thought in many ways.
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July 15, 2007, at 1:10 am
The nature of God aside, for the moment…
I found many of the articles about this incident rather perfunctory, though adequate.
Some mentioned that he was giving the invocation as a guest of, and at the request of, Sen. Harry Reid. Some would (and have) pointed out that he’s a Mormon, and a Christian, implying that this invite was kind of odd. (Though as we’ve seen above here, the “connection” between Mormon’s supposed polytheism has been wryly noted, as well.)
CNSNews service’s article http://www.crosswalk.com/news/11545475/ dug deeper, noting a few interesting facts about Mr. Zed and his previous prayer duties before legislatures in an undated article that preceeded his appearance. Apparently, he made history in NV before his U.S. Senate gig:
It’s interesting to note that apparently, he changed his mind about using the “OHM” before or after his prayer, or did it very silently, since I didn’t hear that on the video.
Few of the articles seem to mention that the current Chaplain of the Senate is a Seventh-Day Adventist (the first “non-mainline” minister in nearly a century) and that there have been two Unitarians who have served, back in the early 1900s.
These were OFFICIALS, not just guests. Did anyone yell from the balony about their views on the Trinity when these folks were chosen? I doubt it.
(Opinion: Christianity doesn’t own the U.S. Senate, folks. Sorry. There are millions of non-Christians in this nation. We ned to understand that.) /opinion
Denomination Totals:
Episcopalian = 19
Methodist = 17
Presbyterian = 14
Baptist = 6
Unitarian = 2
Congregationalist = 1
Lutheran = 1
Roman Catholic = 1
Seventh-day Adventist = 1
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Senate_Chaplain.htm#2
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July 15, 2007, at 10:48 am
A witch gave the invocation in the Oregon Sentate in 1999, doubtless to the consternation of the Chesterfield County Supervisors. A little late to complain. (And it was a very nice invocation.)
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July 15, 2007, at 8:56 pm
Although creedal Christians would be part of the “monotheistic Judeo-Christian” tradition, Jews regard Christian trinitarianism as essentially polytheistic — and pagan!
Consider the Jewish Encycopedia entry on trinitarianism:
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=489&letter=C&search=Trinitarianism#1634
However, this might be a case of the pot calling the kettle polytheistic.
In her book “The Great Angel, A Study of Israel’s Second God,” Christian scholar Margaret Barker makes the case that Jewish
more:
(Review by Robert M. Price. Institute for Higher Critical Studies, JHC 4/1 (Spring, 1997), 152-155)
http://www.atheistalliance.org/jhc/reviews/RPbarker.htm
Is there a monotheist in the house?
Tracy Hall Jr
hthalljr’gmail’com
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July 15, 2007, at 9:09 pm
holmegin (comment #11) writes:
Uh, y’mean like kneeling and lighting candles to some statue of some saint?
Don’t you think it’s about time we outgrew ignorant, bigoted and pejorative descriptions of other people’s religious practices?
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July 15, 2007, at 9:38 pm
This debate makes raises the issue of how public prayer should be interpreted.
For quite a while it’s been the norm in America that public prayers may not be offered to specific deities. This Hindu prayer follows that formula— it’s addressed not to Krishna but to “Supreme Deity” and “Lord.” Any religion other than atheism could apply this title to one of their deities, and it would fit.
I suspect that Zed’s prayer sounds nothing like prayers offered in Hindu liturgical tradition.
Likewise, Christian clergy offering public prayers are prohibited from praying to Christ Jesus or the Holy Trinity; instead they are required to pray to a deity so generic as to include everyone except atheists.
Does an ostensibly generic prayer imply belief in the deity worshiped by the one praying? And does respectful silence during such a prayer imply participation in the prayer?
If the answer (as these protesters believe) is yes, then any public prayer— no matter how bland and nonsectarian it sounds— will be deeply offensive to many attendees.
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July 15, 2007, at 9:48 pm
Whoops. I didn’t read closely enough. Zed was quoting the Rig Veda and Bhagavad Gita— so his prayer was in fact a typical liturgical Hindu prayer?
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July 15, 2007, at 11:46 pm
In fact, yes. Translated into English. Zed didn’t just make it up for the occasion, as some might infer from the somewhat bland translation.
Interestingly, the formulation “a god” (i.e. one out of a possible many) does not appear in any Indian language, including the Sanskrit of the early Vedas. All gods, in both casual speech as well as religious discourse and scripture, are referred to as “God”- i.e. in the singular. This is often translated into English as “Lord”, which roughly gets the sense of the Sanskrit “swami”.
So, for example, no Hindu speaking in an Indian language would say “A god appeared to me in my dream, it was Rama”. Instead, they would say “God appeared to me in my dream, it was Rama”.
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July 16, 2007, at 12:04 am
After many years of studying history, I have come to the conclusion that, while many religions preach love and acceptance, that they all, without exception, practice hate and intollerance. In all my studies, I have yet to encounter any universalist religious movement that didn’t cause much more harm than it did good.
It is hard to study history, particulary the history of Christianity in Europe and the New World, without feeling that perhaps religion itself is a crime against humanity. The ultimate in “us and them-ism.” Some of the most heinous crimes against humanity have been committed in the name of god.
One need look no further than American politics over the past quarter century to find hatred in the name of god. In the 1980’s, religious leaders warned the government not to invest in finding a cure for HIV/AIDS as it might thwart the will of god. Today, gays and lesbians are villified at the onset of every election. In days gone by, Native Americans and other minorities have felt the “love of Jesus,” much the same way Iraqis are feeling it today.
Perhaps it’s time we completely removed religion from our public spaces. I look forward to the day when prayers are illegal in Congress and saying “god bless America” makes a politician unelectable. Believing in god is a private matter between you, your god, and your congregation, if you belong to one. One should leave their religious beliefs at home before casting their ballots. For who will be hurt most if America becomes a Christian theocracy? If history is any indication, Christians will oppress other Christians with differing beliefs even more than they will oppress Jews, Muslims and Hindus.
For those seeking a Christian country, beware what you ask for, you may get it.
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July 16, 2007, at 1:01 am
So, Stephen C., what did you think of the COVERAGE of this event?
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July 16, 2007, at 1:27 am
Stephen A.,
I thought the coverage focused on what would sells news most: sensationalism, as is usually the case; while avoiding in depth coverage into the really important issues, like: (i) an insight into Indian culture; (ii) the corosive effect religion is having on American politics; (iii) the corosive effect religion is having on Indian politics; and (iv) the way the intollerant often cloak themelves with “god and flag” in order to oppress others.
While my prior submission might seem off topic, I feel it goes right to the heart of the kind of intollerance that motivated those three individuals to behave the way they did in Congress.
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July 16, 2007, at 1:44 am
Stephen C, exactly.
I’ve also found it writen somewhere (didn’t keep the link, maybe someone above noted this, too) that India is struggling to keep religion utterly separate from state at all costs, since India’s a secular state by design as well as by custom - due to the volitile and oft-violent nature of fueding religions there - and that this sort of opening prayer is not used at all. An interesting cultural juxtaposition.
I also thought it was intolerant of those who shouted, and it was misguided. That certainly came through in the reporting loud and clear, but the story was much deeper than that and deserved more than the “radical Christians disrupt Hindu prayer” line. It was another opportunity lost to explore religion in its proper context, rather than cartoonish way we usually get our religion news.
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July 16, 2007, at 2:40 am
The coverage on this issue has been appalling. The Times of India story has been the best so far, but has lacked any discussion of historical Hinduism in the United States. Most of the news services that have picked up the story were ones associated with Christian media.
As for the context, we can see the paucity of understanding right here in this discussion. Right away most commentators assume the central concerns of Hinduism center on beliefs of monotheism, polytheism, henotheism, and other descriptions. But Hinduism, like Judaism, is a “orthopraxic” religion that is concerned with proper practices and the attitudes those practices engender—not a specific “orthodoxy” or theological belief. Instead of referring to scholarly literature (like “The Camphor Flame”) or careful analyses (which should be part of continuing education for religion journalists) we find ourselves consulting competing websites and holy texts—as if Hinduism is a text-based religion—which it is not. Or as if it could be characterized in 30 seconds, which it cannot. The notion of examining and contextualizing this story in terms of American Hindu cultural practices, puja and the post-1965 population/immigrant history seems to have passed everyone by—as people argue over theology.
Chaplain Zed, who has extensive experience in the interfaith and temple organizations in Nevada, wisely chose to emphasize language that would appeal to several theologies of Hinduism (Advaita Vedanda’s impersonal absolute, Ramanuja’s personal theism) and also be intelligible, if not entirely transparent, to Western monotheists.
It is perhaps even more telling that Senator Reid, who had invited Chaplain Zed, chose not to criticize the protestors or praise radical pluralism as part of American religious freedom, but instead offered a milquetoast affirmation of a vaguely monotheistic Supreme Being. One wonders what would have happened if someone like Vine Deloria had been invited to given Amerindian invocations to sacred Ancestors, Gods, and Nature Spirits of sacred American land to guide the discourse of the Senate that day. And while journalists did not notice this, the fact that Reid passed up an opportunity to vigorously defend pluralist religion was not lost on practitioners of minority faiths in the U.S.—who know now that like the Biblical Isaac, they will be willingly sacrificed by the Democratic Party if necessary in order to comply with the sensibilities of the God of the Body Politic.
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July 16, 2007, at 3:27 am
I found the coverage of this minor incident to actually be rather unbiased and matter-of-fact. There wasn’t much coverage in the news because there wasn’t much to report. Religious intolerance in a country that allows people to be religiously intolerant is not news, it is a fact of life. Should we allow more coverage of OSA/RA and its members, who claim to be patriots but proclaim the death of a US Soldier is punishment for America’s tolerance of abortion and gay rights? Yes, most religions preach love and peace, but almost every religion also preaches that their religion is the one true faith. It is most certainly not the responsibility of the media to eduacte people on the Hindu and Christian faiths or any faiths. The media is where bias gets its foothold and that is when we are soon force fed religious philosphy from whomever has a controlling interest in the media. I don’t want to hear newspapers and TV chiming in with editoials and op-ed, I just want a brief report on a brief incident that happen on Capitol Hill.
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July 16, 2007, at 11:35 am
Mani,
Does Sanskrit, or do modern Indian languages, have indefinite articles? In a language like Russian, where you have no word equivalent to the English “a,” you would say the same thing as in an Indian language. Our English “God” and “a god” would both be pronounced identically, as /bog/. It’s actually fairly unusual for a language to have (as English does) such a hairsplitting indefinite article. But a language’s grammar says nothing about the religion of its speakers.
(Both “God” and “a god” in English are singular. Non-singular would be “gods,” “the gods” or “some gods”. Do Indian languages ever treat deity in the plural?)
Is there perhaps news in the translation of the prayers? It sounds like you’re suggesting that the translation was intentionally bland— could a different translation have sounded much more sectarian? I’m thinking, perhaps, if Zed had translated “swami” as “swami” (which is, these days, an English word). Do Indian Christians use “swami” as a title for God?
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July 17, 2007, at 2:40 am
Robert,
Indian languages generally use their word for “one” (i.e. in the sense one in number) as the indefinite article.
But more to the point, I’m not aware of any Indian language, including Sanskrit, referring to “gods” in the plural; similarly none of these languages (that I know of) use the indefinite article with the word(s)for god.
Good question about Indian Christians. Some do use deva, devan, deo (all derivative of the Sanskrit dev-, i.e. god) to refer to God but not to Jesus Christ. But I’m no expert in the matter.
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