Become Less Closed-Minded. Invent Your Own Religion (?)

Last updated on: January 4, 2017 at 10:49 am by Paul Louis Metzger

Become Less Closed-Minded. Invent Your Own Religion (?) 2017-01-04T10:49:35-08:00 Paul Louis Metzger

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Today, in my world religions course, we discussed Hinduism. My friend and guest speaker, Mr. Bharat Naik, shared about closed-source vs. open-source faith traditions. Mr. Naik is a leader at the Hindu Temple in Tigard, Oregon.

Bharat drew attention to the insightful and penetrating Huffington Post article by Josh Schrei titled “The God Project: Hinduism as Open Source Faith.” Building on a software analogy, Schrei maintains that most religions are closed-source faiths whereas Hinduism is an open-source faith. He goes on to compare Christianity and Hinduism:

One of the defining facts of Christian history is that access to God has been viewed — as in most closed source systems — as a trade secret. The ability to reinterpret the bible, or the teachings of Christ, or the Old Testament, or to challenge the basic fundamental authority of the church has been nonexistent for most of the church’s history. Those who dared to do so were quite often killed.

In Indic thought, there is no trade secret. The foundation of yoga is that the key to god, or the macrocosm, or the absolute … lies within the individual and can be accessed through a certain set of practices. It’s a beautifully simple but ultimately profound concept that has been allowed to flourish unchecked for millennia. The process of discovering and re-imagining the divine is in your hands. The God Project.

The doctrine of God comes into view as well. Whereas the God of the Judeo-Christian monotheistic tradition presents God as “I am who I am,” for Schrei, Hinduism frames God as a question: “Who am I?” For the closed-source model, there is no evolution and allowance for development in God by way of human projection; such would be idolatry, and must be confronted and squashed. For the open-source model, the divine evolves in keeping with one’s own experiential development, for the divine spark resides within each of us; ultimately, God and the individual are one.

For my friend Bharat, the open-source model inspires tolerance whereas the closed-source framework inspires intolerance. While it is fine for Christians and adherents of other faiths to journey through their sacred Scriptures and traditions, they must come to perceive that the ultimate reality cannot be contained in their systems of thought. God is beyond categories, naming, and distinctions, since God is everything. Thus, it is quite appropriate and necessary for one to construct one’s own faith. There is no copyright, trademark, or patent on “God”.

Mr. Naik claimed that closed-source faiths lead to religious conflicts, whereas open-source faiths are peaceful. One might beg to differ and challenge this simple contrast, pointing to long-standing tensions between Hindus and Muslims, for example. The history of religious and political tensions in India is long and complex and involves various faith communities, including Hindu, Christian, Muslim, and others (for more on this long and complex history, refer here; for more on Hinduism, war and violence, see here). Even so, my Hindu friend is certainly correct to point to the disturbing historical accounts of violence committed in the name(s) of closed-source, monotheistic faith traditions.

Mr. Naik challenged my class and me to reconsider how we approach faith: we need to invent our own religions rather than close our minds and shut down those who think differently than we do about God. Here I need to pause and reflect upon what he claimed. After all, all too often, we who profess faith in Christ can become overly dogmatic and seek to talk over and talk down anyone who does not agree with us. We need to move from monologue to dialogue.

Even so, and this is part and parcel of a much larger discussion, I maintain that my fellow Christians and I would be closed-minded toward our own faith tradition if we intentionally seek to create our own religion (See for example Exodus 20:1-7). While human perspectives and experiences certainly color and shape our beliefs, it is hoped that those in the orthodox fold of the Judeo-Christian tradition seek to free themselves of constructs that distort the Biblical revelation. In other words, we who are Christians need to become and remain open to God’s revelation that culminates in Christ Jesus as disclosed in the Bible; we must be reformed daily by the Word.

Moreover, it is worth considering if Hinduism is itself a closed-source system, too, albeit from another angle. Hinduism is able to embrace and incorporate all other faith traditions, but not on their own terms. Within the seeming omnipresent and inclusive embrace of Hinduism, I am permitted to claim that Jesus is Lord, but not ultimately as Lord of all. He is a way, a truth, and a life, but not the way, the truth, and the life. While I have heard it said that God is not confined to Hinduism, it is Hinduism that makes this very claim; the assertion that God is beyond all faiths is a tenet of Hinduism, as I understand it.

In the end, I don’t maintain that openness to creating one’s own religion is required. Tolerance and love are. Without them, our differences avalanche into conflicts and wars. Closed-mindedness and closed hearts lead to closed hands, as in clenched fists. Having said that, tolerance does not mean that I must accept all views as correct or equally valid. As I wrote in a Huffington Post article a few years ago titled “Beyond Tolerance to Tenacious Love,”

… tolerance and intolerance do not function as properties of beliefs but of behaviors. If tolerance were to be framed as a matter of acceptance of another person or tradition’s belief system, then anyone who rejects my belief system as true would be intolerant (See my discussion of this point in Connecting Christ: How to Discuss Jesus in a World of Diverse Paths (Thomas Nelson, 2012), pages 312-313).

My friend Bharat and I don’t see eye to eye, but I do hope that I value him and listen attentively to his claims from the depths of my being. I try to understand as well as I possibly can what he believes and cherishes. After all, he is a sincere, thoughtful, caring man. I am even open to the possibility that I might be wrong about what I have written in this post. I hold firmly to what I believe, though hopefully with an open heart and mind. After all, as with any conversation among friends, it is not a monologue, but a dialogue. No matter your faith tradition, will you approach the religious other with an open heart and mind?

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Video: Mr. Bharat Naik, a Hindu leader in the local Portland area, addressed my World Religions Course this morning. Here, he talks about his idea of “open source” vs. “closed source” religion.

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