Hindus in the Heartland

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from the Omaha World Herald, May 14, 2004, with the headline, “Hindus Applaud Omaha Temple—The watchmen sit upon the 40-foot, 3-story tower that welcomes visitors into the state’s only Hindu temple. Each statue has one finger extended. ‘They are saying you may see many gods inside, but the reality is only one,’ said Vedagiri Selvakumar, a temple member. Then with a laugh, he adds, ‘It’s also for the children, to say, “Behave, you’re in god’s house, don’t make noise.”

“The house of worship, once a restaurant tucked behind a Target store in West Omaha, now looks like an authentic temple. The 2.5-ton Ganesha sets in the main sanctum. The elephant-headed Ganesha is the temple’s main deity. The granite statue was brought to Omaha from India, as were the temple’s other granite, marble and wood deities.

“Hindus believe in one supreme being, or absolute reality, but find many paths to that truth. They recognize a number of deities who are manifestations of the supreme being and have particular responsibilities. Ganesha is the remover of obstacles. Among other things, he holds a rope, signifying humans’ bonds to the gods and a cutting tool instructing mankind to cut the bonds with their attachments.

“Selvakumar said the completion of the temple and the addition of an authentic priest to run it have brought Omaha’s Hindu community together and attracted attention. The temple has become a unifier. Attendance at the temple has increased both among Hindus and non-Hindus. Just in the past two weeks, the temple had eleven groups from high school students to church groups visit for a tour.

“ ‘The Omaha Hindu community wants to open up its doors not to evangelize but to share what Hinduism is about Selvakumar said.’ Besides the open house, the temple offers free yoga classes and educational programs. It opened a vedantic center, one of fourteen in the United States for spiritual study.”

Tom: Dave, as we mentioned in the earlier segment, lots of things continue today that most people would relegate to—we use the term “paganism,” but to see a Hindu temple in Omaha, Nebraska, and the people who are worshiping there—these are not village people, okay, in the sense of you’d find in some of the back villages in India and so on. But these are doctors and lawyers. I visited a Hindu temple on the west side of Chicago, and SUVs, Lexus’s—I mean these are the cars that were in the parking lot. The money that went into raising this temple, building it, putting it together, most all of the objects came from…I mean, you had special stone from Italy, you had imported craftsmen from India to put these statues together. Or, in this case, can you imagine what it would cost to have a 2.5-ton elephant transported from India? What’s my point here? This is going on in this country, with people who are bright, intelligent; they’re worshipping elephants, they’re worshipping, as in the case of, I think it was the monkey god was the main god of the temple in….

Dave: Hanuman.

Tom: Yeah, Hanuman in, you know near Chicago.

Dave: Well Tom, the Bible says that man knew God. Romans 1: “When they knew God, they glorified him not as God. They became vain in their imagination. Their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into images made like to corruptible man, four-footed beasts,” and so forth.

It’s not much different, Tom, from university professors, some of them very bright, who believe in evolution. They think we all came from monkeys or whatever you know. The most absurd theory! We can disprove it easily, mathematically, and so forth. Sometime maybe we ought to take time on this program. But it’s absolutely impossible mathematically. And DNA disproves it, and so forth. And yet they believe it. They insist upon it. Why? Because they have rejected the true God. And so these intelligent people with their luxury cars and so forth frequenting the Hindu temple—they have turned from the true God. They’ve turned from the revelation of creation. You cannot imagine that there are—330,000,000 gods in Hinduism. You cannot imagine that the whole universe is god—pantheism. This is what Hinduism teaches also. That you are God, I am God, and so forth. This is the whole goal to realize your deity. Tom, it’s irrational, but when you turn from the true God, you will embrace almost anything.

Tom: Dave, we’ve pointed out in the last few weeks and way before that that you can’t go to Saudi Arabia for example, and practice Christianity. You couldn’t go and build a church there. What about India? Any problems there?

Dave: Well, you can have—Christianity has some freedom there, except now and then Christians get killed.

Tom: But could I get in saying up front that I’m a missionary and I want to go to evangelize….

Dave: No, oh no you cannot. But….

Tom: Dave, in addition, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad—this is a militant Hindu organization that’s out evangelizing but will not allow evangelization as much as they can prevent it in the country.

Dave: Well, they are evangelizing the entire world for Hinduism. But you cannot come as a Christian missionary into India. You have to pretend you’re a teacher or whatever. They allow some freedom for those who are already Christians, and in fact, there are Christian schools, there are training centers for native evangelists, but foreigners are not allowed to come in. But there could be riots against Christians. Christians are in real danger in India. Hindus who supposedly practice the law of ahimsa (non-violence), they can become very violent in attacking Christians, and they do it. Recently, what did we have? A father and his son burned up in….

Tom: Two sons.

Dave: Two sons. A father and two sons burned up in a car. But they practice this periodically. It’s…it’s a far cry from Christianity, Tom. It’s a far cry from the true God.

Tom: Dave, but I think it’s clear, whether it be Islam—the growth of spread of Islam, the spread of Hindu paganism—it’s really coming together for a one-world religion.