GROWING IN GRACE INTERNATIONAL MINISTRY TIMELINE

1946 (April 22):  José Luis de Jesús Miranda was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico.

1979:  Miranda moved from Puerto Rico to Massachusetts.

1986 or 1988:  Miranda established his church, Creciendo en Gracia, in Miami, Florida.

1991:  Miranda identified himself as a divine figure called “The Other.”

1998:  Miranda claimed to be the reincarnation of the Apostle Paul.

2004:  Miranda asserted that he was the Second Coming of Christ, “Jesucristo Hombre” (Jesus Christ, man).

2007:  Miranda proclaimed himself to be the Antichrist.

2012 (April):  Miranda announced that on June 30, 2012 there would be a “transformation” the result of which would be that the existing world structure would end. Miranda and his followers would gain immortality.

2013 (August 8):  Miranda’s ex-wife, Josefina Torres, announced that Miranda had died, apparently of cirrhosis of the liver, in a hospital in Sugar Land, Texas.

2013 (September 11):  Miranda reappeared in public, claiming his health was as good as ever.

2013 (November 15):  Miranda actually in Orlando, Florida. His death was confirmed by both Growing in Grace and his family.

FOUNDER/GROUP HISTORY

José Luis de Jesús Miranda was born in 1946 into a poor family in Ponce, Puerto Rico. During his formative years Miranda’s attended Catholic, Pentecostal, and Southern Baptist churches, and he subsequently became a Pentecostal minister. By his own admission, Miranda was addicted to heroin as a teenager and was briefly incarcerated for petty theft. In 1973, he had a vision of two angels appearing at his bedside and announcing his “integration” with the Lord. As Miranda explained the impact of that experience, “the prophets, they spoke about me. It took me time to learn that, but I am what they were expecting and what they have been expecting for 2,000 years” (McLeod 2007).

In 1979, Miranda moved to Massachusetts and then in 1986 he established Creciendo en Gracia (Growing in Grace) in a Miami, Florida warehouse. The church gained followers quickly, particularly within the Hispanic community. Miranda changed his identity several times between 1991 and 2007. He proclaimed himself to be El Otro, “a sort of transitional deity that prefigured the Second Coming of Christ,” in 1991 (Dwyer 2007). Seven years later Miranda modified his identity, representing himself as the Apostle Paul of the New Testament. He declared he was the Second Coming of Christ in 2004. Miranda revised his identity once again in 2007, this time adopting the title Antichrist. However, his definition of Antichrist departed significantly from mainstream Christian connotations. Miranda taught that Jesus of Nazareth was no longer to be worshiped as the Christ as he had now superseded the Jesus of the gospels. Miranda and many of his followers thereafter displayed tattoos of the number 666 in tribute to Miranda’s identification with the Antichrist.

On August 8, 2013, Miranda’s ex-wife, Josefina Torres, claimed that Miranda had died in Sugar Land, Texas on August 8, 2013, apparently of cirrhosis of the liver. She reiterated this claim in the following weeks, with Miranda’s followers refusing to confirm his death (Martinez 2013). Finally, on September 11, Miranda reappeared in public, claiming his health was as good as ever. However, on November 15, Miranda actually in Orlando, Florida. His death was confirmed by both his movement and his family.

After his death, many and perhaps most members left Growing in Grace, as they had expected Miranda to be immortal. Indeed,one follower stated that “His days will not end. He is here to reign, govern and pretty soon, he will bring change to all nations. We’re all waiting for the word in the scriptures to become a reality because as the church we will be transformed and be made like the glorious one whose days will never end…” (Martinez 2013). Following Miranda’s death, those followers who remained divided into at least five separate branches, the largest being King of Salem, led by Miranda’s third wife and widow Lisbet García, who proclaimed to be herself God and that Miranda had only been a misguided Antichrist (see separate profile of King of Salem).

DOCTRINES/BELIEFS

Growing in Grace appears to mirror the doctrines and practices of other Latino evangelical churches in many respects. However, Miranda has added a number of distinctive and controversial doctrines. Most notably, Miranda has announced that he is the Second Coming of Christ. According to Miranda, “the spirit that is in me is the same spirit that was in Jesus of Nazareth” (McLeod 2007). More pointedly, he has stated, “I am Jesus Christ man, the Second Coming of Christ,” adding: “anyone who doesn’t believe in me will be miserable” (Varela 2007). The implication of this proclamation is that Miranda’s doctrines replace those of the gospels. His official declaration, as displayed on Growing in Grace’s website, asserts that all churches who follow the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth are “apostates” and “false brethrens” who are committing “spiritual adultery.” Indeed, Miranda released the statement in 2006: “Today I accuse publicly that all religions have lied to the World.” Growing in Grace congregants are taught to revere Miranda as a divine figure, generally referring to him as either God or Daddy.

Miranda also teaches that the devil and sin no longer exist as, through the act of Crucifixion, Christ obliterated both Satan and sin. His daughter Joann De Jesus explains that “Jesus of Nazareth, when he died on the cross, he killed the devil” (Varela 2007). Correspondingly, Myrna Cestero, a Puerto Rican bishop in Growing in Grace stated that “when the Lamb of God appeared, he took away the sin of the world [according to the Bible]. They talk about the devil, but ‘through death he might destroy him that had the power of death” (Godov 2007). Miranda extends this logic to all Growing in Grace members, stating that they too are antichrists because they deny the traditional Christian doctrines concerning sin, guilt and Jesus Christ.

Finally, Miranda subscribes to the “theology of prosperity,” which teaches that the more money members give to God, the more blessings they will receive. Members are expected to tithe, and therefore followers tend to donate generously to the church. He can promise their prosperity, he says, because he is God” (Dwyer 2007).

Miranda added a new dimension to Growing in Grace doctrine in April, 2012 when he announced that on June 30, 2012 there would be a world “transformation” (Daily Mail Reporter 2012). According to one his bishops, “That day, the body of Jose de Luis de Jesus, who is a human like you and me, his flesh is going to be immortal…. He’s going to be living forever. And that will happen to him, but also his followers” (Ligaya 2012). His followers would receive superpowers, and world governments and currencies would fail. In the wake of the collapse, according to Miranda, “A government where we will govern everything with a perfect order. This is my last farewell for you. The time is finished… We will see each other soon in Armageddon” (Ligaya 2012).

RITUALS/PRACTICES

The collective observances within Growing in Grace reflect its theological precepts. The group celebrates Christmas each year on April 22, the day on which Miranda was born and therefore the “real” Christmas, to signify his divinity. Members recognize and support Mirandas divine status through lavish gifts that reportedly include businesses, sports cars, jewelry and beachfront houses. Collective solidarity and elective status are expressed through the exchange of the greeting, “You’re blessed with all spiritual blessing” during church services. The group’s spiritual status is further reflected through the church lecturns, which are decorated with a replica of the U.S. Presidential seal inscribed with the phrase, “Government of God on Earth,” to signify that Miranda is “the last manifestation of God on Earth.” Members also demonstrate their commitment by obtaining tattoos with the numerals “666” or the letters “SSS,” “Salvo Siempre Salvo” (Spanish for “Once Saved, Always Saved” or “Safe always safe”). Growing in Grace member Cecilia Salazar stated that, “This is the mark of the beast. This is the mark of my father” (Dwyer 2007). Growing in Grace members have also contested the legitimacy of established Christian churches in Miami and Latin America by engaging in ritual protests during which “they have disrupted services and smashed crosses and statues of Jesus” (McLeod 2007).

ORGANIZATION/LEADERSHIP

Miranda  increased his spiritual authority through Growing in Grace’s history. When the church was first established in 1986, Miranda functioned simply as a pastor. He began referring to himself as a reincarnation of the Apostle Paul in 1998; in 2005 at the church’s world convention in Venezuela, Miranda identified himself to be the Second Coming of Christ. He further reshaped his identity in 2007 by referring to himself as the Antichrist, meaning that he had superceded the Jesus of the Gospels. The combination of his spiritual and organizational authority constituted an imposing power base.

Growing in Grace  expanded rapidly from its initial congregation in Miami that met in a warehouse. In its heydays, the church claimed 300 congregations and 200 pastors located in thirty countries. In addition to the United States, there were congregations in Spain and a number of Latin American nations, including Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Growing in Grace reported twenty congregations and 3,000 adherents in Mexico. Miranda communicated with his followers through a website on which there were weekly transmissions, a satellite channel, and radio station and over the internet. The church’s television station, Telegracia, broadcasted out of Colombia to more than 200 cities by cable television service. Several hundred cable companies carried its programming. The church claimed to have a total of 100,000 adherents and to reach a much larger audience, around 2,000,000, through radio, television and internet (Godoy 2007). Miranda was the head of Growing in Grace, and individual pastors led local congregations. The church did not attempt to erect its own churches but rather met in rented facilities. For example, services in Mexico City were held in a hotel. The local pastor led the services, with Miranda appearing through a video connection.

The organization largely collapsed at Miranda’s death. Most of the congregations that remained active joined King of Salem, although the website (Growing in Grace website n.d.) remained under the control of a smaller branch of Miranda loyalists headquartered in Guatemala and Costa Rica.

ISSUES/CHALLENGES

In 2007 Miranda’s incendiary anti-Catholic remarks prompted three Central American countries to ban him. In the summer of the same year Miranda gained further attention in the press during the complicated proceedings of his highly public divorce trial.

Growing in Grace remained in tension both with the Catholic Church and other mainline Christian churches as a product of Miranda’s divinity claims, his lavish personal lifestyle, his virulent anti-Christian and anti-Catholic rhetoric, and the ministry’s custom of protesting and disrupting services in local churches. Miranda’s lifestyle was a particular focus of disparaging media coverage. Detractors denounced his taste for pricey sports cars, jewel-encrusted Rolex watches, expensively tailored suits, and attractive women, as well as alleging fraudulent use of church funds. These charges gained credence in the wake of his 2007 divorce from his second wife, Josefina de Jesus Torres. The Miami Herald reported that “testimony and depositions in the divorce case show that de Jesus has routinely used donations to his ministry’s 300 churches worldwide – from small sums collected from followers in Latin America to $5.5 million from a Colombian benefactor – to bankroll his personal life” (Arthur and Dolan 2007).

Miranda’s vitriolic rhetoric also provoked an equally strong response from those he targeted. For example, a Reuters article quoted Miranda as referring to other priests as “faggots” and publicly chastising the pope, preaching, “he should wear pants like a man. He should tell the truth and stop teaching shit” (Rosenberg 2007). As a result of those outbursts, In the spring of the same year, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala denied Miranda entry into their countries, “outraged by his inflammatory preaching against the Catholic Church and organized religion” (Rosenberg 2007). Miranda did not relent, however. In a 2007 ABC interview, Miranda confessed to drinking liquor but quipped that “Jesus drank wine because he didn’t have Dewar’s” (Van Biema 2007). When El Salvador’s president banned Miranda from the country, he responded with a pronouncement that as a consequence there would be an earthquake in El Salvador. Members of Growing in Grace ministry  responded to these attacks on Miranda as indicative of persecution by the Catholic Church. Miranda’s Bishop of Bishops Carlos Cestero asserted that “It’s the new Inquisition. These small nations are clearly puppets of the Catholic Church” (Rosenberg 2007). They saw opposition as persecution and as evidence of Miranda’s messianic status. For example, church member and spokesman Axel Poessy asserted that

“These life events are further proof that Jose Luis de Jesus is the reincarnation of the same spirit that dwelled in Jesus of Nazareth” and that “We are privileged to be witnessing the days of the Son of Man, the last manifestation of God on Earth, who is here to reign over all nations.”

Miranda once again created controversy in April, 2012 when he announced a world “transformation” slated for
June 30, 2012. The group publicized the prophecy through videos posted on YouTube, billboards, and a countdown clock posted on the group’s website. The prophecy received worldwide but skeptical media coverage (Daily Mail Reporter 2012; Ligaya 2012).

REFERENCES

Arthur, Lisa and Jack Dolan. 2007. “Judge Flags Preacher’s Use of Donations.” Miami Herald. 27 June 2007. Accessed from http://wwrn.org/articles/25500/?&place=united-states&section=other-nrms on October 5, 2011.

Campo-Flores, Arian. 2007. “Meet the Minister Who Says He Is Jesus Christ.” Newsweek. 5 February 2007.

Daily Mail Reporter. 2012. “ Miami cult who tattoo themselves with 666 say the world will END on June 30.” Daily Mail 2 May 2012. Accessed from
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2138660/All-believers-going-destroyed-Religious-sect-spreading-word-ahead-impending-end-world-June-30.html on May 5, 2012.

Dwyer, Johnny. 2007. “The Hallelujah People.” New York Times. 10 June 2007. Accessed from http://wwrn.org/articles/25343/?&place=united-states&section=other-nrms on October 5, 2011.

Godoy, Emilio. 2010. “Controversial ‘Man Jesus Christ’ Pulls in Followers.” IPS News. 7 April. Accessed from http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50943 on 22 October 2010.

Growing in Grace website. n.d. Accessed from http://creciendoengracia.com/ on 2 July 2018.

Leavenworth, Jesse. 2007. “Son-of-the-Father-Figure: Charismatic Minister is Latest in a Long Line of Would-Be Christs.” The Hartford Courant. 4 March 2007. Accessed from http://articles.courant.com/2007-03-04/features/0703020222_1_jesus-christ-would-be-christs-united-church.

Ligaya, Armina. 2012. “The time is finished’: Religious sect erects billboards in Toronto ahead of the ‘transformation.” National Post 1 May 2012. Accessed from http://life.nationalpost.com/2012/05/01/the-time-is-finished-religious-sect-erects-billboards-in-toronto-ahead-of-the-transformation/ on May 5, 2012.

Martinez, Jessica. 2013. “Ex-Wife of Man Claiming to Be ‘Immortal Jesus Christ’ Confirms His Death.”
The Christian Post, August 19. Accessed from http://www.christianpost.com/news/ex-wife-of-man-claiming-to-be-immortal-jesus-christ-confirms-his-death-102555/ on 20 August 2013.

McLeod, Judi. 2007. “Daddy the Antichrist.” Canada Free Press. February 23. Accessed from http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/cover022307.html  on 4 March 2007.

Rosenberg, Mica. 2007. “3 Central American Nations Ban Self-Styled Antichrist.” Reuters. 14 April 2007. Accessed from http://wwrn.org/articles/24802/?&place=central-america on October 5, 2011.

Van Biema, David. 2007. “A Different Jesus to Believe In.” Time Magazine. 9 May 2007. Accessed from http://wwrn.org/articles/25044/?&place=united-states&section=other-nrms on October 5, 2011.

Varela, Ileana. 2007. “Man Who Says He’s Jesus Says He’s the Antichrist.” CBS Broadcasting Inc. February 14. Accessed from http://www.religionnewsblog.com/17479/jose-luis-de-jesus-miranda-3 on 5 October 2011.

Post Date:
22 October 2011

Profile Updates
David G. Bromley
5 May 2012
30 August 2013
Massimo Introvigne
2 July 2018

GURDJIEFF TIMELINE

c.1866:  Gurdjieff was born

c.1887-1907:  Gurdjieff traveled through the Middle East and Central Asia in pursuit of esoteric knowledge.

1913:  Gurdjieff arrived in Moscow with the groundwork of his teaching formulated and attracted followers.

1922-1932:  Gurdjieff’s Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man assumed its final form at the Chateau du Prieur é d’Avon at Fontainebleau.

1949:  Gurdjieff died.

1950:  Foundation groups were established in Paris and London.

1953:  The New York Foundation Group was established.

1953:  Leon MacLaren incorporated Gurdjieffian teachings into his School of Economic Science, a Gurdjieff ‘fringe’ group.

1970:  Robert Burton founded the Fellowship of Friends in California, a Gurdjieff “fringe” group.

1971:  Bennett formed his International Academy for Continuous Education in Sherborne, Gloucestershire, an “Independent” group.

1972:  Raymond John Schertenleib formed The Emin, a Gurdjieff “fringe” group, in London.

1973:  Paul Henry Beidler formed The Search at Northeon Forest, a Gurdjieff “fringe” group in Pennsylvania.

1974:  J.G. Bennett purchased Claymont Court, a mansion in West Virginia, which he intended to be the focus of a model society, the Claymont Society for Continuous Education.

FOUNDER/GROUP HISTORY

George Ivanovitch Gurdjeff (c.1866-1949) [See image at right] was an Armenian-Greek spiritual teacher, known for his charisma, unpredictability, and idiosyncratic teachings and methods. His teachings in their entirety are often designated “the Work” or alternatively the “Fourth Way.” Gurdjieff himself coined the term “the Work” in 1918, meaning work to be done on oneself, while the “Fourth Way” is meant to contrast with “ways” or spiritual paths centering exclusively on either the intellect, body, or emotions (Moore 1991:3; Ouspensky 1977:48-50). In 1918 in Essentuki in the Caucasus, Gurdjieff established a school that soon became known as the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man. It reached its final form in 1922 at the Chateau du Prieur é d’Avon at Fontainebleau, France. By mid-1924, Gurdjieff was involved in a near-fatal car accident and from then his Institute at the “Prieur é” gradually dissolved. Later in life Gurdjieff taught more informally, holding group meetings where pupils would converge in his apartments in Paris and New York. Throughout his life Gurdjieff was able to attract and maintain a large body of followers that included talented intellectuals and artists. A number of Gurdjieff-based groups were also formed in Europe and America during Gurdjieff’s lifetime, led by pupils such as P. D. Ouspensky and A. R. Orage.

After his death in 1949, the various groups that had been formed splintered and were reordered. (Ouspensky’s death two years earlier had already shaken the organisation of groups; Ouspensky became a particularly successful teacher of Gurdjieff’s ideas ). While many of Gurdjieff’s pupils became members and teachers of a formal network of Gurdjieff groups known as “Foundation” groups, formed by Gurdjieff’s successor Jeanne de Salzmann, other pupils founded, or participated in, groups entirely independent of the Foundation network. More detail is given in the sections below. This section will now give a brief overview of Gurdjieff’s life.

G. I. Gurdjieff was born in Alexandropol (present-day Gyumri) in Russian Armenia, near the border of Turkey. There is controversy over his year of birth as a variety of documents show conflicting dates, though the most convincing date looks to be 1866 (Petsche 2011:102; Petsche 2015:40). According to Gurdjieff’s (admittedly unverifiable) autobiographical writings, in his youth he became known as a “master of all trades,” assisting in his father’s workshop. He later moved with his family to Kars in Turkey, where Gurdjieff was a devoted chorister in the Russian Orthodox Cathedral choir (Gurdjieff 2002a:42, 50, 61). Over a period of twenty years (biographer James Moore gives the dates 1887 to 1907), Gurdjieff claims to have travelled widely, seeking out sacred sites through Central Asia and the Middle East in pursuit of esoteric knowledge (Moore 1991:31, 321-323). According to Gurdjieff, the most fruitful period of his journey was in the Islamic regions of Bokhara, Merv, and Samarkand. The Sarmoung Monastery is also presented by Gurdjieff as a focal point of his travels (Gurdjieff 2002a:90-91, 148-164, 227-229), and is popularly considered to be the source of inspiration behind his music, Movements, and nine-sided enneagram symbol (Moore 1991:32). Gurdjieff describes the monastery vaguely as “somewhere in the heart of Asia” (Gurdjieff 2002a:148), and no factual evidence has been found pertaining to its existence (Moore 2005:446). Gurdjieff may have fancifully created the Sarmoung Monastery as an explanation for the source of his key teachings.

After his travels, Gurdjieff described settling in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital of Russian Turkistan, where for four or five years he worked as a “professor-instructor” in “pseudo scientific domains” due to a prevailing interest there in “occultism, theosophism and spiritualism” (Gurdjieff 1988:20-22). Moore gives approximate dates of 1907 to 1912 (Moore 1991:323-24). In this period, Gurdjieff may also have visited Russia, drawing together his earliest followers and marrying Polish Julia Osipovna Ostrowska, who was twenty-three years his junior (Beekman Taylor 2008:40-47, 225; Moore 1991:324). In 1913, Gurdjieff arrived in Moscow with the groundwork of his teaching formulated as outlined in “Glimpses of the Truth” (1914), and attracted more pupils. He founded groups in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and by 1916 had secured some key pupils such as journalist and polymath Piotr Demianovich Ouspensky and composer Thomas de Hartmann (Moore 1991:324). Gurdjieff admitted that the turbulent political climate of the time contributed to his success, as it had “shaken people out of their usual grooves … the wealthy and secure of yesterday found themselves the totally destitute of today” (Gurdjieff 2002b:277).

Gurdjieff founded an Institute in 1918 in Essentuki in the Caucasus, which later became the “Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man.” The Institute moved to Tiflis then Constantinople, Berlin, and finally, in 1922, to the three-story Chateau du Prieur é d’Avon Fontainebleau near Paris. [See image at right] The “Prieur é” was believed to have been the home of Mme de Maintenon, Louis XIV’s famous mistress, and later a Carmelite Monastery for priors, hence “Prieur é” (Petsche 2015:56). At his Institute, Gurdjieff instructed groups of pupils through methods involving intensive manual and domestic work, dancing, cooking, eating the consumption of alcohol, addressing provocative remarks to pupils, and listening to music and readings. These methods were designed to bring about self-observation among pupils by creating friction and demanding strenuous effort and attention (Zuber 1980:26-27; Ouspensky 1977:348; Gurdjieff 1976b:232). In July 1924, Gurdjieff had a serious car accident and temporarily disbanded his Institute. Work at the Prieur é resumed again gradually, but never regained the intensity of the period from 1922 to 1924. After his car accident, he stopped work on his “Movements” (sacred dances) and began composing piano music with pupil de Hartmann, as well as writing his first book.

Over the next decade Gurdjieff delved into writing his four books. The first three form the trilogy All and Everything. [See image at right] The  trilogy included his magnum opus, Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, which he commenced in 1924 and continued to amend until his death in 1949 , and two semi-autobiographical narratives, Meetings With Remarkable Men, which he began in 1927 or 1928, and Life is Real Only Then, When ‘I Am’, written between 1933 and 1935. Gurdjieff’s final work was a short tract called The Herald of Coming Good, first published in 1933, representing the only work by Gurdjieff to be published in his lifetime (however, he retracted it the following year and destroyed remaining copies). The work is a medley of autobiography and promotional synopsis of his trilogy, and it contains passages from a program Gurdjieff issued for his Institute in Fontainebleau (Petsche 2015:23-26, 58-60). This Institute operated until 1932.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Gurdjieff taught much more informally. In Paris in 1936 and 1937, Gurdjieff taught an all-female and mostly lesbian group called “The Rope.” The name came from Gurdjieff’s explanation that to climb the slopes of consciousness members of the group must be bound together on a corde é or rope. The group had close contact with Gurdjieff, with meetings held in restaurants or at his apartment. From 1940 to his death, Gurdjieff also regularly taught de Salzmann’s Sévres group, which included Pauline de Dampierre, Marthe de Gaigneron, Solange Claustres, Henriette Lannes, and René Daumal. All these members, with the exception of Daumal, who died in 1944, became significant figures in the London and Paris Foundation groups established by de Salzmann after Gurdjieff’s death (Petsche 2015:63).

From 1945 to 1949, many English, French, and American pupils visited Gurdjieff’s Paris and New York apartments, which became daily meeting places that involved readings of Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, listening to Gurdjieff improvising on his portable harmonium, and partaking in sumptuous, ritualistic meals. At these meals, each person seated at the table had a particular function and ritual toasting of the different types of “idiots” at the table was carried out. This was meant to provide a mirror in which pupils could see themselves. In Paris on October 14, 1949, days after choreographing his last Movement, Gurdjieff collapsed at a Movements class. On October 29 he died of pancreatic cancer at the American Hospital of Neuilly, after giving final instructions to de Salzmann (Petsche 2015:63-64).

DOCTRINES/BELIEFS

Gurdjieff’s teaching drew particularly from Western esoteric, Sufi, and Theosophical discourses, while also employing Hindu, Buddhist, Judeo-Christian, and Islamic ideas. His extensive and rather convoluted teachings on cosmology and cosmogony can be found in Beelzebub’s Tales To His Grandson, particularly Chapter thirty-nine, “The Holy Planet Purgatory.” A much simpler and far less flamboyant version can be found in Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous. However, it is Gurdjieff’s soteriological teachings that will be presented here, as these form the nucleus, and explain the ultimate goal, of Gurdjieff’s work. Gurdjieff taught that modern-day human beings are like dysfunctional machines that operate habitually and are composed of three disparate parts or “centres” (intellectual, emotional and physical) that are in constant disarray (Ouspensky 1977:53-54). In this way, life is lived in a fragmented and mechanical state where the core self or “essence” is largely lost. Life is, instead, carried out through the false “personality,” a protective, illusory mask that compensates for this lack of “essence.” This condition characterises the two lowest (of four) “states of consciousness” in which most people carry out their lives; the first is literal sleep at night and the second is the sleep-like condition in which one lives (Ouspensky 1977:142-43).

Gurdjieff’s teaching aimed to harmonise these uncoordinated “centres,” elevating people from the lowest states of consciousness to higher states of consciousness where people become “awake” and “conscious.” The third state of consciousness involves “self-remembering,” meaning remembering to be aware of one’s own habitual reactions and behaviours in the present moment. This is achieved by “dividing attention” so that one is simultaneously aware of the observing self as well as the situation, thought, or emotion experienced (Ouspensky 1977:118-20, 179). Gurdjieff taught that the faculty of “attention” is key to self-remembering, and must be cultivated so that it does not become distracted or “identified” with external things (Ouspensky 1977:110). Gurdjieff aimed to cultivate pupils’ attention and provoke them to self-remember, as well as to observe and re-educate the mechanical behaviours of ones centres (Gurdjieff 1976b:156).

The ultimate goal of Gurdjieff’s work was the setting into motion of an inner alchemical process in the body that could lead to the formation of subtle bodies or soul-like substances (Ouspensky 1977:189, 193, 256), an objective reminiscent of many other esoteric traditions. One of Gurdjieff’s central premises is that individuals are born with no soul or subtle body but that this can be acquired through self-remembering, as self-remembering enables space or the capacity for “impressions” (sense experiences) to enter the body. These “impressions” become refined and transformed into finer energy, which crystallizes in the body to form subtle bodies. Pupil de Hartmann gives a helpful outline of this:

the real purpose of the Work in Essentuki could become clear only if a man gave his attention to the idea of the crystallization of the soul. The products of food, both coarse food and air, are necessary; but without impressions, the great achievement, the crystallization cannot take place. In this effort a man can rarely succeed by himself … Material of a special quality received from impressions has to exist in the pupil if the teacher is to help this transformation to take place. To build up a sufficient quantity of this material, which the pupil had to collect by his own efforts, some kind of isolated ‘reservoirs’ are necessary, where special conditions permit this material to be deposited (de Hartmann and de Hartmann 1992:69).

In his early teaching these subtle bodies were called the astral, mental, and causal bodies, and their formation correlated withone’s accessing of two “higher centres” (Ouspensky 1977:41, 180, 197, 282). In talks published in Views From the Real World , Gurdjieff also referred to three subtle bodies, but now the astral body was also termed the soul, and the third body was the “real I” (Gurdjieff 1976b:201-06, 214-15). In Beelzebub’s Tales To His Grandson, he presented only two “higher being-bodies,” the body-Kesdjan or astral body, and the higher being-body or soul. These higher being-bodies are cultivated within, and “coat,” the “planetary” body. Later they separate from it, but only the higher being-body has the possibility of becoming immortal (Gurdjieff 1964:673-74, 763-68).

In Gurdjieff’s system, when one manifests subtle bodies, one has attained the fourth and highest state of consciousness, the ‘objective’ state of consciousness. In the objective state of consciousness, one gains “knowledge of things in themselves” and can “see and feel the unity of everything” (Ouspensky 1977:278-79). In this condition, the ego shatters, which means, in Gurdjieff’s terms, one is stripped of personality and one’s essence or real I is revealed (Gurdjieff 1981:107). Gurdjieff’s teaching methods aimed to elevate individuals from the second to the third state of consciousness, the latter known as self-remembering. Working to self-remember might allow practitioners to observe and correct their fragmented and mechanical conditions. In Gurdjieff’s system, this led practitioners, by way of an inner alchemical process, to attain the fourth state of consciousness and to develop subtle bodies.

RITUALS/PRACTICES

Members of the more formal network of Gurdjieff groups known as Foundation groups (see next section for more detail) usually attend weekly group meetings, which have a question and answer structure, as well as special weekends and retreats, where small teams carry out physical labour and various tasks under the guidance of teachers. Group meetings involve readings, usually based on Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous (1949), and discussions of key themes follow. Ricardo Guillon, member of the Paris Institut G. I. Gurdjieff under Michel Conge, states that readings of Ouspensky’s text prepared for group exchanges, and he interprets its original title, Fragments of an Unknown Teaching , to mean that the book is incomplete; what is missing is the contribution of each person (Guillon 2004:79). Independent Gurdjieff groups are more likely to read Beelzebub’s Tales, which was a focal point for group work during Gurdjieff’s lifetime (Kherdian 1998:107; Ravindra 2004:46; Guillon 2004:79).

Special exercises [See image at right] are given to members of Foundation groups, and these are guarded with secrecy. They essentially involve cultivating attention, observing and sensing parts of the body, distinguishing between sensing and feeling, entering into the position of another person, and trying to do the opposite of what one normally does. Some of these exercises come directly from Gurdjieff and can be found in varying degrees of detail in published transcriptions of Gurdjieff’s talks (see Gurdjieff 1981:113-16; Gurdjieff 1976b:146-47, 161, 244-45; Gurdjieff 2008:141-42). Joseph Azize published a uniquely comprehensive academic study of one of Gurdjieff’s contemplative exercises, known as “The Four Ideals” (Azize 2013a). Seymour Ginsburg, who joined Gurdjieff groups associated with the Foundation from 1978 to 1990, before leading an independent group in south Florida, also outlines a number of exercises and lessons in Gurdjieff Unveiled. Ginsburg states that exercises given in Foundation groups are of three categories: principal exercises that are to be practiced regularly, reminding or “stop” exercises that require individuals to stop at certain moments in the day, such as every time one walks through a doorway, and psychological exercises, where practitioners observe “identifications” in themselves, such as negative emotions. Ginsburg explains that at the end of group meetings, members are given an exercise for the upcoming week (Ginsburg 2005:27, 40, 77-78).

From the 1960s, de Salzmann introduced to Foundation groups the practice of sittings, where pupils sit in silence, cultivating sensations in the body (Needleman and Baker 2005:452). Pupils are guided throughout the sitting, being instructed to bring awareness to the body, the breathing and stillness (Segal 2003:200-01). David Kherdian reports of sittings at the New York Foundation, “The important thing was to drop our thoughts and really be in our bodies. Relaxing occurred through sensing … we were encouraged to be in our centers … The sittings lasted forty-five minutes” (Kherdian 1998:60-61). According to Ginsburg, during sittings one must close the eyes, sit comfortably, and avoid visualising anything. In the ensuing quietness one may experience, in Gurdjieffian terms, “objective consciousness” and the “real world” (Ginsburg 2005:56-57; see also Ravindra 2004:50, 77, 91; Segal 2003:198-201). Gurdjieff himself never gave sittings, though in his last years he did suggest to some pupils and small groups practicing forms of individual sitting, meditation or “centering” (Howarth and Howarth 2009:473).

One of the major practises carried out by both Foundation and Independent Gurdjieff-based groups is that of “Movements.” Gurdjieff’s Movements, which he choreographed and taught from 1917 to 1924 and from 1940 to 1949, are dances and exercises characterised by symbolic body gestures, often placed in unpredictable sequences. They are intended to challenge the body’s mechanical nature and facilitate self-remembering. The Movements continue to be taught today in a process of choreographic transmission. Most groups rarely stage public performances, and the more “orthodox” Foundation groups guard the Movements scrupulously; teaching long-term members only fragments to ensure that knowledge of the Movements is kept inside these groups (Petsche 2013:100, 102).

The only officially released footage of Gurdjieff’s Movements appears between 1.29.28 and 1.38.24 minutes of Peter Brook’scinematic adaptation of Gurdjieff’s Meetings With Remarkable Men (1979) (see Cusack 2011). Brook depicts six Movements performed by members of the Foundation network. However, these performances, overseen by de Salzmann, are brief and deliberately executed with slight alterations (Azize 2012:321). The fact that Movements footage is available on YouTube demonstrates that Foundation groups have not successfully concealed the Movements from exposure to the public. Many of these clips depict Movements performances given at ashrams devoted to Indian mystic “Osho” or Acharya Rajneesh, who admired Gurdjieff (Storr 1997:47). These generally inaccurate performances are considered disrespectful by members of Foundation groups.

LEADERSHIP/ORGANIZATION

After the Second World War, Jeanne de Salzmann was Gurdjieff’s longest-surviving pupil, and was accepted as his successor after his death (Moore 1991: 268). She organised the different Gurdjieff-based groups scattered throughout the world into a network of ‘Foundation’ groups, establishing core groups in Paris, New York, and London. These core groups are regarded as the centres of the network because of the relatively large concentration of first-generation pupils of Gurdjieff in these cities. Many other Foundation groups branched out from these, and can be found in most major cities in the West. While some of these groups classify themselves as Societies and others Institutes, they all belong to de Salzmann’s network, and can all simply be referred to as Foundation groups. In 2005 it was estimated that there were approximately 10,000 members in the network worldwide (Needleman and Baker 2005: 453). While de Salzmann headed the entire organisation until her death in 1990, three other figures had great influence: Henriette Lannes, Henri Tracol, and Maurice Desselle (Azize 2013b).

Not all of Gurdjieff’s followers merged into this network; an array of Gurdjieff-based groups remain outside of it. These can be considered “independent” groups. Where some of these groups are continuations of groups founded during Gurdjieff’s lifetime by Gurdjieff’s pupils (such as P.D. Ouspensky, Maurice Nicoll, and J.G. Bennett), new groups were also established by pupils of Gurdjieff or Ouspensky (such as Frank and Olgivana Lloyd Wright, George and Helen Adie, and Rodney Collin). Many still continue today. There are also an increasing number of “fringe” groups, all committed in some way to Gurdjieff’s teaching, but founded by individuals who never met Gurdjieff. Significant “fringe” group founders include Leon MacLaren, Oscar Ichazo, Claudio Naranjo, Robert Burton, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (“Osho”), Paul Henry Beidler, Raymond John Schertenleib, and E.J. Gold (Petsche 2014:348). Fringe groups tend to have a more flexible approach to Gurdjieff’s teaching, absorbing and integrating Gurdjieffian principles into new religio-spiritual systems. For example, Leon MacLaren’s School of Economic Science, established in London in 1937, combined Transcendental Meditation techniques and Advaita Vedanta philosophy with the ideas of Ouspensky and Gurdjieff. Robert Burton’s Fellowship of Friends, founded in California in 1970, uses playing cards to represent Gurdjieff’s teachings on the “centres” of the human being (Petsche 2014:348; Petsche 2013a:67-72).

ISSUES/CHALLENGES

Today, the network of Foundation groups faces two main challenges. First, there is the challenge of continuing to preserve and protect Gurdjieff’s work (particularly his Movements) from public exposure, misinterpretation and misuse. This objective is prominent in esoteric or initiatory circles, which aim to preserve sacred teachings and materials, guarding them from outsiders with no experience of the system. The idea is that by passing on esoteric teaching and materials through experiential and initiatory channels, they will reach members directly and in the suitable context and correct time. Esoteric teachings are traditionally thought to be powerful, even potentially dangerous if exposed to the wrong people under the wrong circumstances. This was a view taken by Gurdjieff pupil Jessmin Howarth, who stated that to practice Movements that Gurdjieff did not authorise was “stupidly arrogant and ill-advised, if not downright perilous, considering that delicate, mysterious balances we are dealing with … To second guess Mr Gurdjieff’s intention is a dangerous precedent” (Howarth and Howarth 2009:470).

However, in regard to the Movements, as discussed above, a long line of (mostly inaccurate) clips of Gurdjieff’s Movements can now be found on Youtube, indicating that the Foundation groups have not successfully concealed the Movements from “outsiders.” A similar issue for Foundation groups surrounds the Gurdjieff/de Hartmann piano music, composed by Gurdjieff and his pupil Thomas de Hartmann, mostly between 1925 and 1927. Orthodox Foundation members react negatively towards recordings of this music (which have been made mostly by outsiders), arguing that these recordings allow listeners to hear the music outside of the “Work” environment, which devalues the music and neglects Gurdjieff’s intentions for it. This reticence appears to stem from an interpretation of Gurdjieff’s cosmological notion of “inner octaves” as relating to the harmonic series in music. If it is believed that the piano music is informed by the subtle laws of Gurdjieff’s inner octaves, then recordings must be deemed all the more degrading, as subtleties of harmonics and the finer substances they can channel would be lost in the process of recording (Petsche 2015:151-53). Another concern for Work members regarding recordings of the Gurdjieff/de Hartmann piano music is that they lead to “mechanical listening” (Gurdjieff aimed to break people out of their “mechanical” conditions), as the listener knows what is coming in the music. Recordings also promote listening to many pieces consecutively, where in the context of a Foundation group only a small number of pieces are played so that listeners can remain attentive.

The second challenge for Foundation groups is simply that of attracting new members and surviving as a community. With extremely minimal online presence and a tradition of no advertising or promotion, Foundation groups are presumably dwindling in numbers. The future of the Gurdjieffian community may ultimately lie in the more adaptable Independent groups, like those formed by maverick Gurdjieff pupil J. G. Bennett, as well as the many fringe groups that have now emerged, all of which are incorporating new religio-spiritual systems into Gurdjieff’s teaching. It is likely that these groups will continue to sprout more and more branches, so that the Gurdjieffian genealogical tree carries on expanding into new and unorthodox territory.

IMAGES
Image #1: Image is photograph of movement founder George Ivanovitch Gurdjeff.
Image #2: Image is a photograph of the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in its final location at the three-story Chateau du Prieur é d’Avon Fontainebleau near Paris.
Image #3: Image is a photograph of the cover of Gurdjieff’s seminal work, the trilogy All and Everything.
Image #4:Imageis a photograph of exercises developed by Gurdjieff that are a key element of Gurdjieff ritual practice.

REFERENCES

Azize, Joseph. 2013a. “The Four Ideals: A Contemplative Exercise by Gurdjieff.” Aries 13:173-203.

Azize, Joseph. 2013b. Personal Communication. 18 February.

Azize, Joseph. 2012. “Gurdjieff’s Sacred Dances and Movements.” Pp. 297-330 in Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production, edited by Carole M. Cusack and Alex Norman. Leiden and Boston: Brill.

Beekman Taylor, Paul. 2008. G. I. Gurdjieff: A New Life. Utrecht, the Netherlands: Eureka Editions.

Blom, Gert-Jan. 2004. Harmonic Development: The Complete Harmonium Recordings 1948-1949. The Netherlands: Basta Audio Visuals.

Cusack, Carole M. 2011. “An Enlightened Life in Text and Image: G. I. Gurdjieff’s Meetings With Remarkable Men (1963) and Peter Brook’s ‘Meetings With Remarkable Men’ (1979),”Literature & Aesthetics 21:72-97.

de Hartmann, Thomas and Olga de Hartmann. 1992. Our Life with Mr. Gurdjieff. Trans and eds T. C. Daly and T. A. G. Daly. London: Arkana Penguin Books.

Ginsburg, Seymour B. 2005. Gurdjieff Unveiled: An Overview and Introduction to the Teaching. London: Lighthouse Workbooks.

Guillon, Ricardo. 2004. Record of a Search: Working with Michel Conge in France. Toronto: Traditional Studies Press.

Gurdjieff, G. I. 2008. Transcripts of Gurdjieff’s Meetings 1941-1946. London: Book Studio.

Gurdjieff, G. I. 2002a. Meetings With Remarkable Men. New York: Penguin Compass.

Gurdjieff, G. I. 2002b. “The Material Question.” Pp. 247-303 in Meetings With Remarkable Men. New York: Penguin Compass.

Gurdjieff, G. I. 1988. The Herald of Coming Good. Edmonds, Washington: Sure Fire Press.

Gurdjieff, G. I. 1981. Life is Real Only Then, When ‘I Am.’ New York: E. P. Dutton.

Gurdjieff, G. I. 1976a [1914]. “Glimpses of the Truth.” Pp. 3-37 in Views From the Real World. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Gurdjieff, G. I. 1976b. Views From the Real World. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Gurdjieff, G. I. 1964 [1950]. All and Everything First Series: Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co.

Howarth, Dushka and Jessmin Howarth. 2009. It’s Up To Ourselves: A Mother, A Daughter, and Gurdjieff. New York: Gurdjieff Heritage Society.

Kherdian, David. 1998. On a Spaceship With Beelzebub: By a Grandson of Gurdjieff. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions.

Moore, James. 2005. “Gurdjieff, George Ivaonivitch.” Pp 445-50 in Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, Vol. 1, edited by Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Antoine Faivre, Roelof van den Broek, and Jean-Pierre Brach. Leiden and Boston: Brill.

Moore, James. 1991. Gurdjieff The Anatomy of a Myth A Biography. Shaftsbury, Dorset: Element.

Needleman, Jacob and George Baker. 2005. “Gurdjieff Tradition.” Pp. 450-54 in Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, Vol. 1, edited by Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Antoine Faivre, Roelof van den Broek, and Jean-Pierre Brach. Leiden and Boston: Brill.

Ouspensky, P. D. 1977 [1949]. In Search of the Miraculous: The Teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff. San Diego, California: Harcourt Inc.

Petsche, Johanna. 2015. Gurdjieff and Music. Leiden: Brill.

Petsche, Johanna. 2014. “The Value of E. J. Gold: Unearthing the Real Mr. G.” Journal for the Academic Study of Religion 27:346-66.

Petsche, Johanna. 2013. “Gurdjieff and de Hartmann’s Music for Movements.” Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review 4:92-121.

Petsche, Johanna. 2011. “Gurdjieff and Blavatsky: Western Esoteric Teachers in Parallel.” Literature & Aesthetics 21:98-115.

Ravindra, Ravi. 2004. Heart Without Measure: Gurdjieff Work With Madame de Salzmann. Sandpoint, ID: Morning Light Press.

Segal, William. 2003. A Voice at the Borders of Silence. Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press.

Storr, Anthony. 1997. Feet of Clay: A Study of Gurus. London: Harper Collins.

Zuber, René. 1980. Who are You Monsieur Gurdjieff? London and New York: Penguin Arkana.

Post Date:
30 November 2015

Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization Timeline (3HO)

Name: Sikh Dharma: Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization (3HO)

Founder: Siri Singh Sahib Harbhajan Khalsa, more widely known as Yogi Bhajan

Date of Birth: 1929

Birth Place: Delhi , India

Year Founded: 1969

Sacred or Revered Texts: Sikh Holy Book (Guru Granth Sahib)

Size of Group: There are about 250,000 Sikhs in North America of which about 10,000 are Sikh Dharma: 3HO members. In 1995 there was a count of 139 ashrams/or teaching centers in the United States, 11 in Canada, and 86 additional centers in 26 other countries. (Melton, 1986: 51)

FOUNDER/GROUP HISTORY

Upon Yogi Bhajan’s move to the U.S. in 1969, he began to teach kundalini yoga in Los Angeles, California through the process of founding an ashram and the Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization (3HO). The 3HO was formed with the purpose of teaching meditation, yoga and natural lifestyle to Sikhs and non-Sikhs alike; the ashram was the center of this practice. Due to the fact that he was a Sikh teacher, he was able to share his Sikh faith with his pupils and thus attained interested believers.

As a result of Bhajan’s religious work in the U.S., the Akal Takhat (the prominent spiritual authority of the Sikh faith) ordained him as the Chief Religious and Administrative Authority for Sikh Dharma in the Western Hemisphere. Sikh Dharma was formed to organize and disseminate these teachings; hundreds of ministers of Sikh Dharma were ordained, and hundreds of teaching centers were established. 3HO remained the education arm of Sikh Dharma.

DOCTRINES/BELIEFS

Guru Nanak (1439-1538) established the Sikh religion as a syncretistic religion, a combination of Hinduism and Islam, with independent beliefs and practices added. Sikhism grew out of his disillusionment with what he believed to be the fanaticism and intolerance of the Muslims and the meaningless rituals and caste prejudices prevalent among the Hindus.

A succession of nine Gurus (regarded as reincarnation of Guru Nanak) led the movement during the period from Guru Nanak’s death until 1708. Each Guru added relevant beliefs and practices to the religion. In 1708, the functions of the Guru passed to the Panth (followers) and to the holy text. Members of both Sikh Dharma: 3HO and the orthodox Sikh religion follow all of Guru Nanak’s beliefs and teachings but differ slightly in the extent to which each group follows through with, or adds, certain beliefs/practices.

Both groups believe in One Supreme God and that this god cannot take human form. Their goal of human life is to break the cycle of births and deaths and to merge with God. There is great emphasis placed on daily devotion to the remembrance of God. This can be accomplished by following the teachings of the Guru, meditation on the Holy Name and performance of acts of service and charity. Members follow the admonition of the ten Sikh Gurus to rise before sunrise, bathe, and meditate upon God’s Name. These individual practices are followed by the singing of hymns from the Holy Book. The Sikh Holy Book (Guru Branth Sahib) is the perpetual Guru; there is no place in either group for a living Guru.

There are five cardinal vices that one aims to overcome in order to achieve salvation:

Kam (lust)

Krodh (anger)

Lobh (greed),

Moh (worldly attachment)

Ahankar (pride).

Rituals such as fasting, pilgrimages, superstitions, and idol worship are considered blind worship and are strongly rejected.

Normal Family Life (Grasth) is encouraged. Celibacy or renunciation of the world in not necessary to achieve salvation. The devotee must live in the world yet keep his mind pure. There is rejection of both sides of all distinction of caste, creed, race or sex.

The Gurus stressed the full equality of women, rejecting female infanticide or sati (wife burning), permitting widow marriage and rejecting purdah (women wearing veils). Honest labor and work are the approved way of living one’s life. It is considered honorable to earn ones daily bread through honest work and not by begging or dishonest means. Ban Chhakna, sharing with others, is also a social responsibility. The individual is expected to help others in need through charity. Seva, the community service is also an integral part of these groups. The free community kitchen (langar) found at every gurdwara and open to people of all religions is one expression of this community service.

The points of divergence between both groups deal with the practice of yoga, baptism, practice of the five “k’s”, and health. Members of the Sikh Dharma: 3HO are given the choice but strongly encouraged to have a Sikh Baptism which enable them to join the Khalsa. Once they are baptized, Sikh Dharma members are required to strictly follow the five “k’s”.

The five practices called Lhalsa saints are:

Kesh (long hair, which is never cut)

Kangah (comb)

Kachha (short pants)

Kara (metal bracelet)

Kirpan (a ceremonial dagger).

In contrast, the orthodox Sikhs are all baptized and their adherence to the five “k’s” in the present time isn’t as dramatic as that of members of Sikh Dharma.

Sikh Dharma members practice three different types of yoga: 1.kundalini, 2.laya, and 3.tantric which are supposed to enable them to meditate more efficiently. Members also put great emphasis on health, more so than is respected in the orthodox Sikh religion. In fact both yoga and vegetarianism are rejected by the Holy Book as form of blind ritual. There has been some controversy.

REFERENCES

Barrier, N. Gerald, and Verne A.Dusenbery. 1989. The Sikh Diaspora: Migration and the Experience Beyond Punjab. Delhi: Chanakya Publications.

Dart, John. 1986. “Blessing the Quest for Success Seen as Boost to 2 Eastern Sects.” Los Angeles Times 19 July, Home ed.: Metro; part 2; page 4.

Dart, John. 1993.”Long Way From Home.” Los Angeles Times 1 August, Valley ed.: B1.

Khalsa, Kirpal Singh. 1986.”New Religious Movements Turn Towards Worldly Success.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 25(2): 233-245.

Melton, J. Gordon. 1986. The Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America. NY: Garland Publishing Inc.

Melton, J. Gordon, ed. 1996. Encyclopedia of American Religions. New York: Gale Research Inc.

Singh, Khushwant. 1985. The Sikhs Today. New Delhi: Orient Longman.

Singh, Khushwant. 1977. A History of the Sikhs. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Tobey, Alan. 1976. “The Summer Solstice of the Healthy-Happy-Holy Organization.” in Charles Y. Glock and Robert N. Bellah, eds., The New Religious Consciousness. Berkeley: University of California Press, pps. 5-30.

Wright, Chapin. 1978. “Natural Soft Drinks Gamble Paying Off.” Washington Post 13 December Final ed.: B1. 

Created by: Monica Villanueva
For Soc257: New Religious Movements
Spring Term 1997
Last modified: 07/24/01

HINDUISM TIMELINE

3600-1700 BCE  The first attested elements that can be argued to be “Hindu” were found in the Indus Valley civilization complex.

1900 BCE  The Sarasvati River dried up due to climate changes. Indus-Sarasvati culture ended; the center of civilization in ancient India relocated from the Sarasvati River to the Ganges River.

1500 BCE  The Rig Veda Samhita (the earliest extant text in Hinduism) was compiled.

1000 BCE  The three original Vedas (Rig, Yajur, and Sama) were completed, and Sanskrit declined as a spoken language over the next 300 years.

800 to 400 BCE  The Orthodox Upanishads were compiled, and with them came the development of the concept of unity of the individual soul (atman) with Infinite Being (brahman).

500 to 200 BCE  Over these 300 years numerous secondary Hindu scriptures ( smriti ) were composed: Shrauta Sutras, Grihya Sutras, Dharma Sutras, Mahabharata, Ramayana, Puranas, and others.

c. 400 BCE   Dharmashastra of Manu developed. Its verses codified cosmogony, four ashramas, government, domestic affairs, caste, and morality.

300 BCE to 100 CE  The Tamil Sangam age began. Sage Agastya wrote Agattiyam, first known Tamil grammar. Tolkappiyar wrote Tolkappiyam, a summary of earlier works on grammar, poetics, and rhetoric, indicating prior high development of Tamil. Gave rules for absorbing Sanskrit words. At this time, Tamil literature referred to worship of Vishnu, Indra, Murugan, and Supreme Shiva. Pancharatra Vaishnavite sect was prominent. All later Vaishnavite sects were based on the Pancharatra beliefs (formalized by Sandilya about 100 CE).

c. 200 BCE to 200 CE  Patanjali wrote the Yoga Sutra.

c. 200 BCE to 100 CE  Jaimini wrote the Mimamsa Sutra.

c. 100  Kapila, founder of the Samkhya philosophy, one of six classical systems of Hindu philosophy was born. Sandilya, the first systematic promulgator of the ancient Pancharatra doctrines, was born. His Bhakti Sutras, devotional aphorisms on Vishnu, inspired a Vaishnavite renaissance. By 900 CE the sect had left a permanent mark on many Hindu schools. The Samhita of Sandilya and his followers embodied the chief doctrines of present-day Vaishnavites.

200  Hindu kingdoms were established in Cambodia and Malaysia.

c. 250  The Pallava dynasty (c. 250–885) was established in Tamil Nadu. They erected the Kamakshi temple complex at the capital of Kanchipuram and the great seventh-century stone monuments at Mahabalipuram.

320  The Imperial Gupta dynasty (320–540) emerged. During this “Classical Age” norms of literature, art, architecture, and philosophy were established. This North Indian empire promoted both Vaishnavism and Saivism and, at its height, ruled or received tribute from nearly all India. Buddhism also thrived under tolerant Gupta rule.

c. 600–900  Twelve Vaishnava Alvar saints of Tamil Nadu flourished, writing 4,000 songs and poems praising Vishnu and narrating the stories of his avatars.

c. 700  Over the next hundred years the small Indonesian island of Bali received Hinduism from neighboring Java. Stone-carving and sculptural works were completed at Mahabalipuram.

788  Shankara (788–820) was born in Malabar. The famous monk-philosopher established ten traditional monastic orders, and developed Advaita Vedanta, which would become the foundation of modern Hinduism.

c. 800  Vasugupta, modern founder of Kashmiri Shaivism, a major monistic, meditative school was born. Andal, girl saint of Tamil Nadu was born. She wrote devotional poetry to Lord Krishna, but she disappeared at age sixteen.

c. 400  Vatsyayana wrote Kama Sutra, the famous text on erotics. Karaikkalammaiyar, a woman and the first of the 63 Shaivite saints of Tamil Nadu, died.

c. 500  Sectarian folk traditions were revised, elaborated, and recorded in the Puranas, Hinduism’s encyclopedic compendium of culture and mythology.

c. 880  Nammalvar (c. 880–930), the greatest of Alvar saints, was born. His poems shaped beliefs of southern Vaishnavites to the present day.

c. 900  Matsyendranatha, exponent of the Nath sect emphasizing kundalini yoga practices and important progenitor of vamacara (left-handed) Tantric lineages, was born.

950  Kashmiri Shaivite guru Abhinavagupta (950–1015), composer of the Tantraloka , which is considered the most important surviving work on Kashmir Shaiva Tantra, was born.

1077  Ramanuja (1077–1157) of Kanchipuram, Tamil philosopher-saint of the Sri Vaishnavite sect, was born.

1106  Basavanna (1106–1167), founder and guru of the Virashaiva sect, was born.

c. 1150  The Khmer ruler completed Angkor Wat temple (in present-day Cambodia), the largest Hindu temple in Asia.

c.1200  Gorakhnath, famous Nath yogi was born. All of North India was by this time under Muslim domination.

c. 1300  Lalleshvari (c. 1300–1372) of Kashmir, Shaivite renunciant and mystic poet was born. She contributed significantly to the Kashmiri language.

1336  The Vijayanagara empire (1336–1646) of South India was founded.

c. 1400  Kabir, Vaishnavite, a reformer who had both Muslim and Hindu followers, was born. His Hindi songs have remained immensely popular.

1449  Shankaradeva, an important Assamese reformer and composer who emphasized music as worship, forbade temple ritual, and converted the bulk of the population of Northeast India to devotional Vaishnavism, was born.

1450  Mirabai (1450–1547), a Vaishnavite Rajput princess-saint devoted to Lord Krishna, was born.

1473  Vallabhacharya (1473–1531), a saint who taught pushtimarga, “path of grace,” was born.

1486  Chaitanya (1486–1533), the Bengali founder of popular Vaishnavite sect that proclaimed Krishna as Supreme God and emphasized group chanting and dancing, was born.

1526  The Muslim conqueror, Babur (1483–1530), occupied Delhi and founded the Indian Mughal Empire (1526–1761).

1532  Monk-poet, Tulsidas (1532–1623), author of Ramcharitmanasa (1574–77) (based on Ramayana), which significantly advanced worship of Rama, was born.

1556  Akbar (1542–1605), grandson of Babur, became the third Mughal emperor, promoting religious tolerance.

1600  A royal charter formed the East India Company, setting in motion a process that ultimately resulted in the subjugation of India under British rule.

1608  Tukaram (1608–1649), saint famed for his poems to Krishna was born. He is considered greatest Marathi spiritual composer.

1658  Zealous Muslim Aurangzeb (1618–1707) became Mughal emperor.

1718  Ramprasad Sen (1718–1780), one of the most famous Bengali poet-saints and worshipper of goddess Kali, was born.

1751-1800  Major victories over regional rulers in North and South India gave the British increasing control over the subcontinent.

1786  Sir William Jones used the Rig Veda term Aryan (noble) to name the parent language of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and Germanic tongues.

1803  The Second Anglo-Maratha War resulted in the British capture of Delhi and control of large parts of India. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), an American poet who helped popularize Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads in the United States was born.

1824  Swami Dayananda Sarasvati (1824– 1883), founder of Arya Samaj (1875), a Hindu reformist movement stressing a return to the values and practices of the Vedas, was born.

1828  Rammohan Roy (1772–1833) founded Brahmo Samaj in Calcutta (Kolkata). Influenced by Islam and Christianity, he denounced polytheism and idol worship.

1836  Sri Paramahansa Ramakrishna (1836– 1886), God-intoxicated Bengali saint, devotee of goddess Kali, and guru of Swami Vivekananda, was born.

1820s-1920s  Hindus from India began to enter the United States as immigrants, and were sent to British colonies in the Caribbean region, Fiji, Africa, and South America as indentured laborers.

1853  Sri Sarada Devi (1853–1920), wife of Sri Ramakrishna, lineage holder in the Ramakrishna tradition and inspiration for the Sarada Math convent for women, was born.

1853  Max Mü ller (1823–1900), German Sanskrit scholar in England, at this time advocated the term Aryan to describe speakers of Indo-European languages.

1857  The first major Indian revolt against British rule, the “Sepoy Mutiny,” occurred.

1861  Bengali poet, Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1913.

1863  Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902), important dynamic missionary to the West and catalyst of major Hindu revival in India, was born..

1869  Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869–1948), Indian nationalist and Hindu political activist, who developed the strategy of nonviolent disobedience that led to the independence of India (1947) from Great Britain, was born.

1872  Sri Aurobindo Ghose (1872–1950), Bengali Indian nationalist and yoga philosopher, was born.

1879  Sri Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950), Hindu advaita renunciant saint of Tiruvannamalai, South India and a major international spiritual leader, was born.

1887  Swami Shivananda (1887–1963) was born. He was a renowned universalist teacher, author of 200 books, founder of Divine Life Society in Rishikesh, and guru to many teachers who brought Hinduism to the West.

1893  The World Parliament of Religions in Chicago recognized Eastern religious traditions through presentations by representatives of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. Swami Vivekananda received acclaim as spokesperson for Hinduism.

1896  Anandamayi Ma (1896–1982), God-intoxicated yogini and mystic saint of Bengal, was born. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) was born. In 1966, he founded International Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in the United States.

1908  Swami Muktananda (1908–1982) was born. He became a guru of the Kashmiri Shaivite school that founded Siddha Yoga Dham to promulgate Indian mysticism, kundalini yoga, and philosophy throughout the world.

1912  Anti-Indian racial riots occurred on the U.S. West Coast that led to the expulsion of Hindu immigrants.

1918  Sai Baba of Shirdi (1856–1918), saint to Hindus and Muslims, died at approximately age 62.

1920  Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) used “truth power” (satya-grah), which was first articulated in South Africa as a strategy of noncooperation and nonviolence against India’s British rulers.

1920  Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952), famous author of Autobiography of a Yogi, teacher of kriya yoga and Hindu guru with many Western disciples, entered the United States, where he founded the Self-Realization Fellowship (1935).

1925  K. V. Hedgewar (1890–1949) founded Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS), a militant Hindu nationalist movement.

1927  Maharashtra barred the tradition of dedicating girls to temples as Devadasis, ritual dancers. Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Orissa soon followed suit. Twenty years later, Tamil Nadu banned devotional dancing and singing by women in its temples and in all Hindu ceremonies.

1947 (August 15)  India gained independence from Britain.

1949  India’s new constitution, authored chiefly by B. R. Ambedkar, declared there shall be no “discrimination” against any citizen on the grounds of caste (jat i) and abolished the practice of “untouchability.”

1964  India’s Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), a Hindu religious nationalist movement, was founded to counter secularism.

1964 The rock group, the Beatles, practiced Transcendental Meditation (T.M.), making Maharshi Mahesh Yogi famous.

1980  The Hindu nationalist party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was founded.

1992  Hindu radicals demolished Babri Masjid, which was built in 1548 on Rama’s birthplace in Ayodhya by Muslim conqueror Babur after he destroyed a Hindu temple marking the site.

1994  A Harvard University study identified more than 800 Hindu temples open for worship in the United States.

1998-2004  The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) served as India’s ruling party.

2001  History’s largest human gathering, seventy million people, worshipped at Kumbha Mela in Allahabad, at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers.

Present  Hinduism has continued to grow in most countries of the old diaspora: Fiji, Guyana, Trinidad, Mauritius, Malaysia, and Suriname. Europe and the United States have continued to be destinations for the current participants in the diaspora. Descendants have maintained their faith and identity, while non-Indian converts to the religion continue to increase in number.

FOUNDER/GROUP HISTORY

Until the nineteenth century, Hinduism was considered the indigenous religion of the sub-continent of India and was practiced largely in India itself and in the places where Indians migrated in large numbers. In the twenty-first century, while still centered upon India, Hinduism is practiced in most of the world’s countries and can thus rightly be considered a world religion. Its creation, unlike some world religions founded by known historical leaders, reaches into pre-history; we do not know the individuals who first practiced the religion (or set of religions that have merged to constitute present-day Hinduism), nor do we know exactly when its earliest forms emerged.

“Hindu” is a term that comes from the ancient Persians. The Sindhu River in what is now Pakistan was
called the “Hindu” by the Persians (the first textual mention occurring perhaps in the last centuries before the Common Era). So the people who lived in proximity to the Sindhu therefore came to be called Hindus (Lipner 1994:7).

The first attested elements that can be argued to be “Hindu” are found in the Indus Valley civilization complex, which lay geographically in present day Pakistan. This civilization complex, which is contemporaneous with Sumeria, and matches it in complexity and sophistication, is dated 3600-1900 BCE. Considerable debate exists in regard to the relationship of the Indus Valley civilization and the later Vedic tradition that focused on fire worship. The scholarly consensus for many years held that the Aryans, people who came from the West through Iran, arrived in India no earlier than 1200 BCE., much too recent to have participated in the Indus Valley world, which by then had largely collapsed due to complex environmental, political, and economic factors (Kenoyer 1998:174). These people were, the view holds, associated with the transmission of the Vedas , India’s most sacred and revered texts. This consensus has been challenged, primarily from the Indian side, and continues to undergo scrutiny. The alternative view rejects the notion that the people who gave India the Vedas were originally foreign to India and sees a continuity between India’s earliest civilization and the people of the Vedas (Bryant 2001:45).

The Rig Veda (c. 1500 BCE), which everyone agrees is the most ancient extant Indian text, is the
foundational text of Hinduism. It consists of about a thousand hymns. The great majority of the hymns are from five to twenty verses in length. Very few hymns exceed fifty verses in length. The Rig Veda contains hymns of praise to a pantheon of divinities and a few cosmogonic hymns that tell of the creation of the universe. These stories are extremely important for the development of later Hinduism (Fowler 1997:108).

Two other Vedas, the Yajur and Sama Vedas, were based on the Rig Veda . That is, most of their text comes from the Rig Veda , but the words of prior text are reorganized for the purposes of the rituals. Later, a fourth Veda, the Atharva Veda , became part of the greater tradition. This text is considered the origin of Indian medicine, the system of Ayurveda. Yet, a number of hymns in the Atharva Veda are cosmogonic hymns that show the development of the notion of divine unity in the tradition.

Two important things must be understood about the Vedic tradition. Firstly, none of the Vedas is considered composed by humans. All are considered to be “received” or “heard” by the rishis, divinely inspired sages, whose names are noted at the end of each hymn. Secondly, none of the text of the Vedas was written down until the fifteenth century of the Common Era. The Vedic tradition was passed down from mouth to ear for millennia, and is, thus, the oral tradition par excellence (Flood 1996:39). The power of the word in the Vedic tradition is considered an oral and aural power, not a written one. The chant is seen as a power to provide material benefit and spiritual apotheosis (Heehs 2002:41). The great emphasis, therefore, was on correct pronunciation and on memorization. Any priest of the tradition was expected to have an entire Veda memorized, including its non-mantric portions (explained below).

Any of the four Vedas is properly divided into two parts, the mantra, or verse portion, and the Brahmana , or explicatory portion. Both of these parts of the text are considered revelation or shruti . The Brahmanas reflect on both the mantra text and the ritual associated with it, giving very detailed, varied and arcane explication of them.

The name Brahmana derives from a central word in the tradition, brahman . Brahman is generically the name for “prayer” itself, but technically refers to the power or magic of the Vedic mantras. (It also was used to designate the “pray-er,” hence the term “brahmin.”) Brahman comes from the root brih – “to expand or grow” and refers to the expansion of the power of the prayer itself as the ritual proceeds and is understood as something to be “stirred up” by the prayer. In later philosophy, the term Brahman refers to the transcendent, all encompassing reality (Heehs 2002:58).

Lastly, within the Brahmanas (commonly within the Aranyaka portion), there was the last of the Vedic subdivisions (no one really knows when these subdivisions were designated) called the Upanishads . Many of these texts shared in the quality of the Brahmanas , as they contained significant material that reflected on the nature of the Vedic sacrifice. So the division, in many cases, between Brahmana proper, Aranyaka and Upanishad is not always clear. The most important feature of the Upanishad was the emergence of a clear understanding of the unity of the individual self or Atman and the all-encompassing Brahman, understood as the totality of universal reality, both manifest and unmanifest (Heehs 2002:58-60).

The genesis of the Upanishadic understanding of the unity of self and cosmic reality is clear. Firstly, the Shatapatha Brahmana stated that the most perfect ritual was, in fact, to be equated to the universe itself. More accurately it was the universe, visible and invisible. Secondly, the Aranyakas made clear that each individual as an initiated practitioner was the ritual itself. So, if the ritual equals all reality and the individual adept equals the ritual, then the notion that the individual equals all reality is easily arrived at (Hopkins 1971:32-33). The Upanishads were arrived at, then, not by philosophical speculation, but by ritual practice. Later Upanishads of the orthodox variety (that is, early texts associated with a Vedic collection) omitted most reference to the ritual aspect and merely stated the concepts as they had been derived. Most importantly, the concepts of rebirth and the notion that actions in this life would have consequence in a new birth were first elaborated in the Upanishads.

This evidence shows that the concept of karma, or ethically conditioned rebirth, had its roots in earlier Vedic thought. But the full expression of the concept of karma was not found until the later texts, the Upanishads, called the Vedanta, the end or culmination of the Vedas (Heehs 2002:59). Therefore, the notion of reaching unity with the ultimate reality was seen as not merely a spiritual apotheosis, but also a way out of the trap of rebirth (or re-death).

After the sixth century BCE, Buddhism and Jainism gained popularity throughout India. However, by the third century, both faced a decline, though some doctrines and practices, such as asceticism and vegetarianism, deeply influenced the broader society (Basham 1989:57-67). The culture and tradition represented by the great epics Ramayana and Mahabharata showed the emergence of the forms of religion called, in current academic terms, “Hinduism.” These specifically show a contrast to the forms found in earlier Vedic “Brahmanism” (Basham 1989:100).

In the Sanskrit epics, still widely known in myriad versions in India today, the gods Shiva and Vishnu began to emerge as the focalpoints for cultic worship. Shiva appears to be a god of the Himalayas who was identified by the Brahmins with the god Rudra of the Vedas. In all likelihood, the cultic Shiva was fashioned from an amalgam of traditional sources over many centuries (Kramrisch 1981). This pattern of taking local traditions and creating direct connection of them with the Vedas was an ongoing feature in the evolution of the Brahmanical tradition.

Similarly, Vishnu and his numerous avataras emerged from a mélange of cultural sources. Vishnu in the Vedas was not at all a significant divinity. But the cult of Vishnu was organized around a sense of continuity with this Vedic divinity and the larger monistic philosophy that developed in the Vedic tradition (Sadasivan 2000:18). The epic Ramayana is understood to be a story of the descent of Vishnu to earth in order to defeat the demons. Likewise, Krishna, as warrior, another important avatar of Vishnu, was central to the Mahabharata epic. In both epics, stories of Shiva also are found scattered throughout.

A similar phenomenon occurs in the creation of the Great Goddess, Shakti, in Hindu tradition. Shakti forms the third large cultic center in Hinduism, that of the goddess, whose worshippers, called Shaktas, believe in the supremacy of the goddess. The development of Shakti worship began to take shape at the beginning of the Common Era, some centuries later than the developments in the other cultic contexts (Pintchman 1994).

The Bhagavadgita, (c. 100 BCE), which is found in the Mahabharata (Mbh) identifies the god Krishna with the brahman of the
Upanishads. The likelihood is that Krishna was a divinity of certain western Indian groups, who had reached such popularity that he could not be ignored. It may have been that Krishna was originally a tribal chieftain. In the Mahabharata itself he is only spoken of consistently as God in the Bhagavadgita, a clearly later addition to the MBh (Glucklich 2008:107). This identification of a local god with the highest divinity (and further with Vishnu), shows a pattern that led to the incredible diversity of Hinduism. All across India in the next thousand years numerous local gods and goddesses were taken up into the larger Hindu tradition in a process called “Sanskritization” or “Brahmanization” (Padma 2001:117).

Examples from as far away as south India, the last area of India to be influenced by elements of the Aryans, demonstrate the process of absorption of local divinities into the larger Hindu pantheon. Lord Venkateshvara of Tirupati, in Andhra Pradesh, a hill divinity who may have been worshipped in the same spot for several thousand years, was first identified with Shiva and then later identified as the god Vishnu himself. Tirupati thereupon became part of the Vaishnava tradition and a pilgrimage site of great importance. Similarly, the Goddess Minakshi in the Temple city of Madurai, most probably a goddess of her home region in Tamil Nadu for many, many centuries, was associated with Shiva by being identified as his wife. In fact, she appears late enough not to be identified with Parvati, Shiva’s usual spouse, but as a separate wife. Likewise, the Tamil god Murugan came to be identified as the youngest son of Shiva and Parvati.

Over the era from perhaps 600 BCE until as late as the fourteenth century, various local divinities were slowly but systematically absorbed into the Vedic or Brahmanical tradition. The Sanskrit texts, the Puranas, composed from the fourth to the twelfth centuries CE, tell the tales of the complicated and varied lives of Vishnu, Shiva and the Goddess, but many local tales in local languages and Sanskrit tell the more hidden tales of how these local godly kings and queens became part of the larger tradition. The earliest additions to the pantheon of Hinduism were clearly those gods and goddesses who formed the basis of the Vishnu and Shiva cults (Hopkins 1971:87-89). Parvati was likely a mountain goddess who may have ruled the mountains on her own at one time, but became absorbed in the Shaiva tradition. Likewise, Lakshmi, the wife of Vishnu, has characteristics of a local nature divinity who became identified with Shri of the Vedas .

Vedic ritual tradition saw a revival in the kingdoms of the Guptas during the fourth through sixth centuries CE. This period is often described as a Golden Age of Indian tradition when Sanskrit literature flourished with poets like Kalidasa and the kings patronized Brahmins and reestablished Vedic rites that had long languished. Except for this passing phase however, Vedic ritual tradition lost its supremacy very early. By the turn of the Common Era, worship of the major cults had expanded greatly and by the sixth century of the Common Era temples to these divinities began to be created in stone (Dehejia 1997:143-52).

Temple Hinduism represented a real shift in worship from that of the Vedas. Vedic worship had no permanent places of worship, no icons or images, and was not locally bound. Following the traditions of the non-Aryan substratum in India, temple Hinduism focused its worship around icons placed in permanent temples. Most of these temples were positioned in places that had been sites of worship for hundreds and hundreds of years. Part of the shift, however, very much connected the new temple sites with the Aryan tradition: the priests in the temples now were all Brahmins and they all used Sanskrit in the rituals to the gods, whereas before other languages had been used exclusively (Thapar 2004:128-29; Hopkins 1971:110).

By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the British arrived in India and became powerful in Bengal. They succeeded in developing political power through the use of intermediaries carefully chosen from corrupt Muslim potentates and Hindu kings in the chaotic aftermath of Moghul rule (Dirks 2009:1-61).

It is no accident that Hindu modernism began in Bengal, as it represented the longest contact point between the Western ruler, Britain, and its new subjects. English education became the norm for well-educated Bengalis by the early eighteenth century (Acharya 1992:318). When other parts of the country were just getting used to the heavy hand of the British, the Bengalis had already become more than familiar with their views and ways. What emerged was both a reform movement in Hinduism and the roots of the Indian nationalist movement.

Groups emerged in the late eighteenth century, which, influenced in part by Christian ideas, sought to reform Hinduism (Rajkumar 2010:31-37). Groups such as the Brahmo Samaj of Ram Mohan Roy sought to end child marriage, to work for widow remarriage, to eliminate the custom of widows burning themselves on the funeral pyres of their husbands, to eliminate caste, and to cease worship of icons. Many of these people worked from a notion that India had been dominated by the British because the Indian culture had become spiritually corrupt. They felt that if they had had a stronger social sense and greater solidarity, the British could not have so easily come to pre-eminence. Whether this was the case or not, this view was held by nearly every major fighter for Indian Independence including Mahatma Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo (Bhatt 2001:64-67).

The caste system was never a fixed reality in India, and received significant criticism for more than two millennia by various groups who argued from the point of view of a new spiritual vision (Bayly 1999:25-28). The Buddha and Mahavira are the first we know of, starting in 600 BCE, but the Virashaivas of Karnataka, a south Indian state, eliminated caste from their reform tradition in the eleventh century CE, and many groups of mendicant wanderers, like the Siddhas, routinely criticized caste and Brahminical cultural dominance, dating from the Buddha’s time forward. The medieval poet-saints of north India following the views of Kabir, were only repeating a long counter-tradition. So when the “reformists” of Bengal began to attack the social evils of Hinduism it must not be seen as merely a mimicking of Christians and the British. It should be noted, as well, that the anti-iconic movement of the Brahmo Samaj of Calcutta was also not new. The Virashaivas were essentially anti-iconic (except for the Shiva Linga which they kept personally), and the traditional Vedanta of the Upanishads looked to Brahman alone without characteristics (or icons) as the ultimate divinity (Heehs 2002:39-41, 317-18). The Brahmo Samaj takes its name, in fact, from this Brahman spelled as Brahmo in Bengali.

In the rich matrix of Hindu reform in Bengal in the nineteenth century emerged the great saint Ramakrishna and his student Swami Vivekananda. They continued the reformist notions that caste must be uprooted, but Ramakrishna himself was not against worship of icons. What Ramakrishna does though is round out the syncretic movements of the Sants who melded Islamic and Hindu notions while decrying orthodoxy. Ramakrishna directly experienced Islam and Christianity and saw them as alternate paths to the one goal of the Divine. Ramakrishna then brings Hinduism full circle from its Vedic roots where god could be seen as having any face and still be god. But now the social evils that had accrued in Hinduism over the centuries were seen to be superfluous (Rinehart 2004:220-21).

The Indian constitution, ratified in 1949, was written by an untouchable (now referred to as a Dalit), B. R. Ambedkar. Dr.Ambedkar’s selection as the person to head the Constitutional Commission was a sign that the reform values that the Indian independence fighters held were going to be instituted in law in independent India. In the Indian Constitution, “scheduled castes and tribes,” those “out-casted” by traditional Hindu society, were given a specified percentage of guaranteed seats in the Indian Parliament until such time as the Constitution would be amended (Jaffrelot 2000:104). This guarantee was also instituted in nearly every state of the new Indian Union. Additionally, separate electorates were established for Muslims to ensure that Muslims would have adequate representation in the new Indian state. Along with these reforms, inheritance and marriage laws established legal practices to aid women and to counter long-held traditions detrimental to women. Dowry, for instance, a burden for every woman’s family, was outlawed. (Punishment for observing dowry has, regrettably, never been rigorously enforced.) Most importantly, the new state of India was declared a secular state with its own unique definition: it was a state that respected all religions and made accommodations for them, but a state that privileged no single religion (Larson 2010:10). This respect for religion went to the extent of institution, by request of Muslim leaders, of certain laws regarding marriage and property that applied only in the Muslim community. (Muslims, for instance, were allowed to continue the practice of polygyny, of sanctioning as many as four wives to each man.)

Independent India began in the chaos of partition. Many Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs were killed in the days after Independence, when the state of Pakistan was created. Millions crossed the borders on India’s east and west to enter the state that they felt would most protect their interests. Blame has been assigned in many places for the tragic fact of partition. Muslim leaders, Hindu leaders and the British certainly all bore some share of the blame. Conflict ensued over the state of Kashmir, where a Hindu king ceded his majority Muslim state to India at the last minute. This began a long history of wars and disagreements between Pakistan and India that continue in the present day. (Pakistan itself was split in two in 1972, when the state of Bangladesh was created from East Pakistan). For a long time these disagreements did not greatly affect the relationship between Indian Muslims and the Hindu majority.

In the 1980’s emerged a new political movement in India (Ludden 1996:4). This movement based itself on the assertion of Hindu majority privilege. It is often referred to as “Hindu fundamentalism,” but this phraseology glosses over the complexities and competing values it represents. Nation states need to justify their existence ideologically. Pakistan shaped its identity from the beginning around Islam, and Hindus and other religions found themselves marginalized there from the beginning. India, however, had preserved the values of a secular state. Muslims regularly held the office of President of India and cabinet posts and were kept visibly in government offices and in positions in the army.

It can be argued that the movement for privileging Hinduism in India and for a call to “Hinduize” India was directly related to the need for a national ideology. (Sarkar 1996: 276). Formation of national identity for new nations is extremely complex, and flows of power are difficult to track, but the emergence of Hindu fundamentalism seems clearly related to this need for the creation of national identity. Hindu self-assertion was not new in India. Certain groups, such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (The National Self-Help Organization), who admired the fascists in Italy and Germany and taught regimented military tactics for their followers (along with hatred of Muslims), had their roots in Hindu nationalist groups of the nineteenth century (Ludden 1996:13-14). Suffice it to say that hatred of Muslims, conversion of non-Hindu minorities (including Christians) and reassertion of caste privilege were all part of this larger movement. In the 1990’s the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) successfully came to power on thisplatform and presided over a bloody anti-Muslim massacre in the Indian state of Gujarat (Ludden 1996:18-19). In 2004, they were ousted from power in favor of the Congress Party, the same party that had led India to Independence and had created the secular state of India. During the time of the rise of the Hindu nationalists, great damage was done to relationships between Hindus and Muslims in India. Many Muslims began to retreat into their own fundamentalisms, now global in scope. Others simply left India, if they could. This relationship has remained in deep crisis and will need skillful diplomacy and cultivation to be repaired, if ever it is.

Through European scholarship and interest, Hindu texts and practices became known in Western Europe and North America as early as the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century, German philosophy, French scholarship and the American Transcendentalist movement served to disseminate Hindu ideas among Western readers, without contributions from Indian emigrants (Klostermaier 2007:420-25). A diaspora, which came to involve the resettlement of significant numbers of emigrants from India, began as early as the seventeenth century and reached significant size between the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. The pattern of the diaspora was first characterized by indentured laborers arriving in Indonesia, Africa, and the Caribbean region to work the fields of large landowners. In the twentieth century, Hindus from India have migrated to the West for education. From the first days of the diaspora, groups of Hindus have cohered to transfer their faith and practices from native India to their new homes, temples, and communities. Thus, the dissemination of Hinduism around the world has followed two main routes: the route of scholarship and study, as the religion has been studied by non-Indians and introduced to non-Indian populations; and the route of immigration, as devoted Hindus have created Hindu homes and institutions in their places of resettlement.

The acceptance of Hindu ideals and practices in the West has depended upon a succession of Hindu practitioners who visited the West. Beginning with P.C. Moozumdar and Swami Vivekananda at the World Parliament of Religion in Chicago in 1893 and continuing through the residence of Paramahansa Yogananda in the United States beginning in the 1920s, the West has received ever-larger numbers of Hindu teachers, as immigration laws have allowed immigration and free movement in the West (Klostermaier 2007:420-25).

Philosophical and theological ideas from Hinduism have been incorporated into Western thought on a large scale, primarily through the publications and activities of the Theosophical Society and the teachings of many Hindu adepts in the West. Today, every major form of Hindu practice and belief has its Western form, which, although modified from traditional Hinduism, nevertheless, contains the character of Hinduism.

BELIEFS/DOCTRINES

For at least two reasons the Hindu tradition contains the greatest diversity of any world tradition. Firstly, Hinduism spans the longest stretch of time of any major world religion, with even the more conservative views setting it as some 3,000 years old. Throughout this enormous expanse of time, the Hindu tradition has been extremely conservative about abandoning elements that have been historically superseded. Instead, these elements have often been preserved and given new importance, resulting in historical layers of considerable diversity within the tradition. Secondly, Hinduism has organically absorbed as many as 80,000 separate cultural traditions, expressed in as many as 300 languages. As a result, Hindu tradition looks like the Grand Canyon gorge, where every layer throughout history is visible as the great river of time has sliced through the landscape.

The religion of the Rig Veda has for a long time been referred to as henotheistic, meaning that the religion was polytheistic, but it recognized each divinity in turn as, in certain ways, supreme (Hawley and Narayanan 2006:211-12). Certainly, later Hinduism continued and enriched this henotheistic concept, and, through time Hinduism has been able to accept even Christ and Allah as being supreme “in turn.” The Rig Veda , though, was the central text in a very powerful ritual tradition. Rituals public and private, with sacred fire always a central feature, were performed to speak to and beseech the divinities (Thapar 2004:126-30). Sacrifices of animals were a regular feature of the larger public rites of the Vedic tradition (Urban 2010:57).

Modern Hinduism encompasses a wide range of beliefs, which include panentheism, monism, and even forms of monotheism. Most Hindus espouse belief in the authority of the Vedas, Upanishads, and other sacred texts, such as the Mahabharata, Ramayana, and various Puranas that explore the mythological origins of important deities and define social, moral, and religious standards. Hindus typically believe in reincarnation, and hold the goal of faith and religious practice (sadhana) to be mukti or moksha. This means liberation from the cycle of rebirth through a permanent, non-intellectual realization of the inherent unity of one’s individual soul (atman) with Infinite Being (brahman) (Hawley and Narayanan 2006:12).

The henotheistic approach of Hinduism means that, while there are orthodox movements within it, it is also rich with heterodoxy, leaving room for a variety of conflicting traditions and beliefs within the same religious family. Historically, the major schools of Hinduism have embraced both dualistic and non-dualistic theological approaches, and modern Vedanta’s non-dualism nevertheless contains many elements of Samkhya’s dualistic theology (White 1996:34). Vaishnava reform movements of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries often sought to reduce or remove ritual tradition altogether in favor of simpler, more egalitarian practices such as chanting of divine names, meditation, and individual prayer. Tantra, the complex mystical tradition, often embraces beliefs and practices that are contrary to orthodox Hinduism (and has sometimes rejected the authority of the Vedas outright) while venerating the same deities and upholding the same goal of personal liberation and belief in the divine unity of all existence (Flood 2006:32-33).

Hinduism also now largely embraces vegetarianism as an expression of the doctrine of non-harm (ahimsa). Vegetarianism is a central practice for many orthodox Hindus, and its association with Brahmanical caste custom has made it a means of claiming higher caste status for lower caste groups (Fuller 1992:93). However, animal sacrifice and consumption of meat continues to be a major and necessary component of worship for all castes at certain temples throughout India, especially at several important goddess temples in West Bengal, Assam, and Orissa (McDermott 2011:207-10).

RITUALS/PRACTICES

Because Hinduism is a vast and diverse tradition, covering several thousand years of development, and influenced as much by larger religious trends as by individual local traditions, it is impossible to discuss all of the rituals, festivals, and rites of passage included under the umbrella of “Hinduism.” However, it is possible to explore major categories of rituals, their purpose and origins, as well as rites of passage and major festivals celebrated throughout India.

Veda is derived from the word, vid, “to know.” A Veda, then, would literally be a compendium of knowledge. In Indian tradition the four Vedas (sometimes collectively referred to as “the Veda”) are the ancient scriptural texts that are considered the foundation for all of Hinduism. The four are the Rig, Sama, Yajur, and Atharva Vedas (Basham 1989:20-29).

A very powerful ritual tradition was central to the Rig Veda, with fire always a central feature. At public and private rituals (yajnas),worshippers spoke to and beseeched the divinities. Animal sacrifices were a regular feature of the larger public rites in the Vedic tradition (Basham 1989:32-35). Yajna is from the Sanskrit root yaj, “to honor a god with oblations.” A yajna is a ritual involving oblations in the Vedic tradition. It may be simply an offering of clarified butter into a fire, or it may involve seventeen priests in an elaborate twelve-day ritual, including the building of a large fire altar as in the Agnichayana. The ritual of the yajna always includes a fire, Sanskrit mantras, and some sort of offering. In the larger public rituals a sacrifice of some animal or animals has been common. The word yajna is frequently translated roughly as “sacrifice” (Hopkins 1971:14-16).

Two of the other Vedas, the Yajur and Sama, were based on the Rig Veda. That is, it supplied most of their text, but the words were reorganized for the purposes of the rituals. The Yajur Veda, the Veda of sacrificial formulas, contains the chants that accompanied most of the important ancient rites and has two branches, the Black and the White Yajur Vedas. The Sama Veda, the Veda of sung chants, focuses largely on praise of the god Soma, the personification of a sacred drink imbibed during most rituals that probably had psychedelic properties. Priests of the three Vedas needed to be present for any larger, public ritual (Hopkins 1971:29-30).

The Atharva Veda became part of the greater tradition somewhat later. It consists primarily of spells and charms used to ward off diseases or influence events. This text is considered the source document for Indian medicine (Ayurveda). It also contains a number of cosmogonic hymns that show the development of the notion of divine unity in the tradition. A priest of the Atharva Veda was later included in all public rituals. From that time tradition spoke of four Vedas rather than three (Hopkins 1971:28-29).

Each of the four Vedas is properly divided into two parts, the mantra , or verse portion, and the Brahmana , or explicatory portion. The Brahmanas contained two important subdivisions that were important in the development of later tradition. The first is called the Aranyaka ; this portion of the text apparently pertained to activity in the forest (aranya). The Aranyakas contain evidence of an esoteric version of Vedic ritual practice ( yajna ) that was done by adepts internally. They would essentially perform the ritual mentally, as though it were being done in their own body and being. This practice was not unprecedented, since the priests of the Atharva Veda, though present at all public rituals, perform their role mentally and do not chant. However, the esoteric Aranyaka rituals were performed only internally. From this we can see the development of the notion that the adept himself was yajna (Kaelber 1989:8).

The Upanishads, a second subdivision within the Brahmanas, were the last of the Vedic subdivisions, commonly found within the Aranyakas. Many of these texts, as did the Brahmanas in general, contained significant material reflecting on the nature of the Vedic sacrifice. In fact, the divisions among Brahmana proper, Aranyaka, and Upanishad are not always clear. The most important feature of the Upanishads was the emergence of a clear understanding of the identity between the individual self (jivan), the greater SELF (atman), and the all-encompassing Brahman , now understood as the totality of universal reality, both manifest and unmanifest (Heehs 2002:57-59).

The genesis of this Upanishadic view that the self was in unity with cosmic reality can be clearly traced. Firstly, Shatapatha Brahmana explained that the most perfect ritual was to be equated to the universe itself. More accurately it was the universe, visible and invisible (White 1996:32). Second, the Aranyakas began to make clear that the initiated practitioner was to be equated to the ritual itself. So, if the ritual equals all reality, and the individual adept equals the ritual, one easily arrives at the idea that the individual equals all reality. The Upanishads, then, were the outgrowth not of philosophical speculation, but of self-conscious ritual practice. The later orthodox Upanishads (those physically associated with a Vedic collection) barely mention the rituals; they merely state the derived abstract concepts.

Worship (puja) is perhaps the central ceremonial practice of Hinduism. A puja minimally entails an offering and some mantras. It can take place at any site where worship can occur, either of a divinity, a guru, or swami, a being, a person (such as a wife, husband, brother, or sister), or spirit. It can take place in a home or a temple, or at a tree, river, or any other place understood to be sacred (Hawley and Narayanan 2006:13).

Incense, fruit, flowers, leaves, water, and sweets are the most common offerings in the puja. Also common is the waving of a lighted lamp ( arati ). The most elaborate puja, the temple puja before the icon, includes the following elements accompanied by the appropriate mantras (usually in Sanskrit): invitation to the deity, offering of a seat to the divinity; greeting of the divinity; washing of the feet of the divinity; rinsing of its mouth and hands; offering of water or a honey mixture; pouring of water upon it; putting of clothing upon it (if it has not been already clothed for the day); giving of perfume, flowers, incense, lamps, or food; prostration; and taking of leave.

In temples the iconic image of the divinity is always treated as a person of royalty would be treated. Therefore, a puja will be done in early morning accompanied by songs to awaken the deity. The deity is then bathed, dressed, and fed, and then more fully worshipped. Pujas go on throughout the day to the deity, as local traditions require (Fuller 1992:66-69).

Another common form of worship is the homa, havan, or yajna, a modern form of the Vedic yajna that mirrors much of the Vedic ritual, but adapts it to modern worship. Oblations of ghee, flowers, sacred grass, herbs, fruits, and other special items as required are offered to the fire, venerating a particular deity. Offerings are made accompanied by Sanskrit mantras. During the ritual, a priest may offer oblations at the end of each repetition of a particular mantra associated with a specific deity, or at the end of each line of a particular hymn chosen for the ritual. This form of worship may be performed as a stand-alone ritual, or may accompany a puja (Klostermaier 2007:266).

Samskaras (from the Sanskrit samskri, refined, the source of the word Sanskrit) are ritual ceremonies that mark and purify life cycle events. Every samskara requires a Brahmin priest to preside and includes prayers, oblations, offerings, and a fire ritual (Klostermaier 2007:147-49).

Rituals are performed to encourage impregnation and to obtain a male child. A special rite is performed at birth. The annaprashana is usually performed at the sixth month after birth to mark the feeding of the first solid food. The investiture of the sacred thread, the upanayana ceremony, is performed for twice-born (high-caste) Hindu males when they are between ages eight and twelve. There is evidence, however, that in Vedic times this ceremony was performed for both boys and girls (Olivelle 1977:22, n.5).

Perhaps the two most important samskaras for Hindus are the wedding ceremony and the death ceremony (sraddh). The sraddhacan be performed only by a male child, though it is now occasionally (and somewhat controversially) performed by daughters. It ensures that a soul does not remain as a ghost but goes on either to liberation or to its next birth. A yearly ritual is performed to feed the deceased, in particular Brahmins, lest they fall from heaven. This ancient ritual of feeding the ancestor seems to conflict with the belief that nearly everyone is reincarnated, and that few proceed directly to heaven (Klostermaier 2007:150-55).

Vows (vratas) are a central feature of Hinduism. They are undertaken for myriad reasons, but always with the desire of pleasing the divinity. Vows are often taken to do a particular thing in exchange for help from God. For instance, a mother might promise to donate a sum of money to a certain divinity’s temple, if her gravely ill child should recover. A person might carry out a vow to shave his or her head and make a pilgrimage to a god’s temple in exchange for success on exams or to get a male child (Pearson 1996:5-7).

In times past, very severe vows were sometimes taken. People were known to starve themselves to death in exchange for a divinity’s promise to remove a curse on their family; others vowed that if a son were born they would offer him up to a renunciatory order upon his coming of age. Indian mythology records innumerable severe vows. Ravana the demon king, for instance, took a vow to stand on one toe for 10,000 years in order to win overlordship of the universe (Sutherland 1991:64).

Most vows in modern times involve fasting, celibacy, pilgrimage, study of sacred books, feeding of Brahmins or mendicants, or limited vows of abstention. Vratas can be classified in different ways. One classification divides them into those that are bodily, those that pertain to speech, and those that pertain to the mind. Another type of classification is related to duration and timing of the vow, whether for a day, several years, until the fortnight is over, or until a certain star appears. A third classification is according to the divinity for whom the vow is performed. Last are vows that are specific to certain castes or communities.

To be valid, vows must almost always begin in a condition of ceremonial purity. Most vows begin early in the morning. Festivals, in general, often entail vows taken by various family members; typically they involve fasting, but they may also involve celibacy, service to the divinity, and pilgrimage (Rinehart 2004:86).

There is a long list of special days appropriate to specific vows, usually entailing particular obligations of worship and observances. A devotee might vow to worship the Sun and fast on the day of Acalasaptami; to worship Lakshmi at the base of a tree during Navaratri; to abstain from plowing on Ambuvachi; to abstain from fish on Bakapan- caka; or to bathe three times and make special offerings to the ancestors on Bhismapanchaka. Certain days of the month are auspicious for particular vows. The eleventh of the month is observed as a fast day by many Hindus. The Caturvargacintamani of Hemadri (c. thirteenth century) lists nearly 700 such vows.

Major annual festivals are common throughout India and are typically scheduled according to the lunar calendar, with festivals often occurring on full moon or new moon days. Although some festivals are common throughout India, the specific traditions and worship associated with these festivals vary greatly by region, and even the meaning of the same festival may vary slightly or greatly depending on local customs. There are also many festivals that are specific only to certain regions, and thus important to those local or regional traditions, but not celebrated widely across India.

Festivals may be focused on a particular time of year, such as phases of the harvest or onset of monsoon, or based around particular ritual activities. Such festivals include the annual January harvest festival, called by different names throughout India; examples include Makarsankranti in North India, Pongal in South India, and Bohag Bihu in Assam. The Kumbha Mela is both a pilgrimage and a massive religious festival, considered the largest gathering of people in the world. Tens of millions of devotees gather in Allahabad every twelve years to bathe at the convergence of the sacred Ganga, Yamuna, and (now-dry) Sarasvati rivers. They also gather to meet other pilgrims and learn from the religious teachings of gurus and sadhus who make encampments there. The Purna Kumbha Mela occurs every twelve years, with the Ardha Kumbha Mela happening every six years, and Maha Kumbha Mela every 144 years.

Festivals are often focused on a particular deity or set of deities. Saraswati Puja (January) venerates the goddess of learning and the arts, in which students pray for success in studies, and devotees offer their books and musical instruments to the goddess for blessings. During Shivaratri (February), the night of Shiva, devotees throughout India celebrate with fasting, all-night puja and singing, and consumption of bhang, a drink of spiced milk mixed with cannabis, and sweets laced with cannabis. Holi (March) is a two-day festival that honors Krishna, the divine avatar of the deity Vishnu who was quite mischievous as a child. During those two days, caste rules are relaxed, and people of all ages play in the streets and in their homes, dousing each other with brightly colored powders and water. Durga Puja (September/October and March/April) celebrates the goddess Durga and her victory over evil as related in the fifth century Devi Mahatmyam, which is recited daily by many devotees during the festival. The autumn Durga Puja coincides with Ramlila celebrations in North India, which reenact stories from the Ramayana, specifically the legendary victory of Lord Rama, another beloved avatar of Vishnu, over the demon Ravana. Divali (October/November) is celebrated in some parts of India primarily as a festival of Lakshmi, the goddess of harvest, home, and wealth. In other areas, particularly Assam and West Bengal, it is called Kali Puja and is devoted to Kali, the fierce mother goddess of liberation.

Aside from these and more pan-Indian festivals, specific temples, pilgrimage centers, cities, and villages each have their own locally important festival days that draw hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of visitors. In Assam, the festival of Ambuvachi (June) commemorates the annual menstruation of the earth at the Kamakhya temple in Guwahati. At the Nataraja Shiva temple in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, the Arudra Darshan (January) festival celebrates Shiva’s cosmic dance. At the Jagannath Temple in Puri, Orissa, the Rath Yatra (July) features immense chariots or cars, constructed and brilliantly painted by hand. Millions attend the festival with the hope of seeing the deities and their cars, which must be pulled by hand by hundreds of men. The cars carry the deities of the temple, Jagannath (Krishna), his brother Balaram and sister Subhadra, down the main boulevard in front of the temple for a seven-day outing. Because low-caste Hindus and foreigners are barred from entering the temple, this festival represents a rare opportunity to see the deities, though the murtis that ride in the cars are actually copies of the murtis residing inside the temple.

ORGANIZATION/LEADERSHIP

Hinduism represents an exceptionally diverse collection of various regional religious traditions, and as such
it has no central organization or authority figure. Although some conservative political movements have promoted a kind of orthodox, unified Hinduism, historically it is incredibly diverse in belief and practice. (Nicholson 2010:3-4) It has survived millennia through evolution and diversification, acceptance and incorporation of various regional beliefs, deities, and practices through gradual processes of overt and subtle cultural and religious negotiation, and eventual incorporation. (Flood 1996:16) From region to region, these beliefs and practices may even find themselves in direct conflict with each other on fundamental levels, yet all is considered Hindu, and divergent groups may share some core philosophical ideals or religious texts, even if they interpret them very differently. There is no central authority dictating what is or is not “Hindu.” While individual groups may have specific beliefs that are considered “orthodox,” either according to the religious rules of their particular group or to “Hinduism” as a whole, the definition of what is considered orthodox has never been fully standardized, has shifted over time, and will continue to change as Hinduism finds its way to different places around the world and meets new technology and ideas. These standards and practices may shift from region to region, temple to temple, and person to person. For example, there are some temples that condone and even require animal sacrifice and the consumption of meat by all castes, including Brahmins, as in northeast and eastern India. Others find this practice abhorrent and totally inconsistent with a Hindu philosophy. Both are correct and fully “Hindu” (Fuller 1992:83-84).

Thus, although the Vedas, Upanishads, the Mahabharata and Ramayana, and the Puranas are considered by the majority of Hindus to be essential texts for religious doctrine, there is also a rich tradition of dissent and debate regarding spiritual belief, religious practice, and social organization within the religion. This is represented in traditions such as Tantrism, Lingayatism, ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), and many others that maintain some core beliefs that are in alignment with what may broadly be considered “Hindu,” though in practice and philosophy many of their ideas may rebel against the social or spiritual rules laid out in some of the most common scriptures, favoring other scriptures or producing new ones based on fresh revelation.

Although Hinduism lacks a central authority figure and organization, there are basic organizing principles that remain similar from group to group. Most Hindus perform worship in their homes, and also participate in temple worship. Temples can serve as a social and spiritual hub for local communities, and some larger temples attract thousands or even millions of devotees from around the world during major festivals. Another important organizing principle is the relationship of guru and disciple, which is at the center of lineage traditions. The concept of the guru, whether the guru is formal or informal, is also at the heart of Hinduism in all its many forms, and is essential for transmission of belief and practice from generation to generation.

The Sanskrit word guru (“weighty” or “heavy” or “master”) is said to derive from gu (the darkness of ignorance) and ru (driving away)—thus, “the one who drives away the darkness of ignorance.” (Gupta 1994) The notion of the guru began in Vedic times; a student would live with a master for 12 years to acquire the Vedic learning. He treated the guru as his father and served his household as well. Today, a guru is a person’s spiritual father or mother, who is entitled to special deference, as are the guru’s spouse and children. A guru is typically male, especially in more orthodox traditions, but there have also been prominent female gurus throughout the history of Hinduism (Pechilis 2004:3-8).

The guru is a spiritual guide, and typically teaches a particular set of practices as well as confers diksha (initiation) to disciples, inducting them into a particular parampara (unbroken lineage tradition). The parampara is a succession of gurus and disciples that is passed down generation to generation, and may be quite linear, in which there is a central guru who chooses his or her successor before their death, or may form branches, in which case the guru empowers several disciples to pass on the teachings and lineage by initiating others. Some traditions feature a mixture of these elements, in which only certain families are empowered to pass on the lineage, and in which senior disciples may teach practices and philosophy to fellow initiates, but may not initiate others themselves (Saraswati 2001:4).

Almost all traditions understand that spiritual progress and liberation from birth and rebirth cannot occur without the aid of a guru. In many contemporary Indian traditions the guru is seen to be God himself (or Goddess herself) and is treated as such; thus, a guru’s disciples may often refer to their devotion to the “feet of the guru” or their fealty to the “sandals [ paduka ]” of the guru. (Touching of the feet in India is a sign of deep respect.) So important is the guru that every year a holiday, Gurupurnima, is celebrated. It takes place on the full Moon in the lunar month of Ashadha (June–July). It was dedicated originally to the sage Vyasa, who compiled the Vedas and the Mahabharata, but it is observed by worship or honoring of one’s teachers and gurus (Gupta 1994).

The temple is the center of Hindu worship. It can vary in size from a small shrine with a simple thatched roof to vast complexes of stone and masonry. During most times of the year the temple is devoted to individual or family worship or to greeting of the divinity. Since many houses in India have their own shrines set up for worship, the temple is reserved for special worship or for requests to the divinity, often by people who have made pilgrimages. At festival times temples are given over to group worship, as devotees sing bhajans or kirtans (types of religious songs) or to various rituals that commemorate special events in the life of the divinity, for example, the marriage of Minakshi at the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai.

The early worship of the Vedas took the form of a ceremony around a fire or fires, without any permanent structures or icons. Location was unimportant. As Hinduism developed, it borrowed from other modes of worship, and both location and iconography became central features (Mitchell 1988:16). Often geography determined temple location: high places that jut out from the countryside would usually have at least small temples at their summits, as would river junctions. In addition, places traditionally associated with events in the lives of a deity would often be marked with temples. The temple at Rameshvaram, for example, marks the place where Rama had his monkey armies build a bridge to cross over and fight the demon king Ravana, according to the Ramayana (Lutgendorf 2007:206).

Today, icon worship is central to Indian temple worship (Eck 1998:10). The stone or metal image itself is not worshipped. The icon is merely the place the divinity inhabits. A complex ritual must first be performed to install the divinity in the image. Thereafter, the image is treated as the divinity itself would be: it is bathed, dressed, sung to, fed, and feted each day. For Shaivites, most often the icon is the Shiva Lingam, the erect phallus symbol of Shiva surrounded by the round yoni representing the goddess’s sexual organ. For Vaishnavites the icon is a full representation of Vishnu in one of his forms; for Shaktas it is an image of the great Goddess.

Often the inner sanctum of the temple, its most holy spot, holds a small, typically modest icon. The more elaborate statues and images are usually located in the larger temple precincts. Large temples often boast a huge array of images of gods and goddesses, usually depicting a particular event in their story. One might see, for instance, Narasimha, the man-lion avatar of Vishnu, ripping apart his demon foe Hiranyakashipu, or see Shiva in his pose as the divine dancer, Nataraja.

Puja, the regular worship service including offerings and rites, is usually performed before the central icon at fixed times during the day. For a donation, devotees can dedicate certain features of a regular puja, such as the recitation of a particular mantra. They may also pay for pujas to be conducted by Brahmin priests at other times, simple or elaborate at their discretion, in support of certain prayers or pleas to the divinity. A woman might want to have a son, a man might want to gain success in business, or a student might seek success in exams. All worldly and salvational requests are taken to the divinity of the temple; popular temples are thronged with people year round. (Fuller 1992: 62-63).

The puja consists, at the minimum, of fruit, water, and flower offerings to the divinity, accompanied by the appropriate mantras.This is followed by arati , or waving of a lighted lamp before the divinity while ringing a bell, which may also be accompanied by other formal offerings such as flowers, clothing, fan, food, and drink. At the end of the ritual people may step forward and waft the light and smoke from the lamp over their head or face to receive the blessing of the divinity. In many temples one may receive a little of the food that had been offered to the divinity, called prasada, which will confer blessing when eaten (Fuller 1992:57).

Most temples in India, including all of the well-known temples, allow only Brahmins to perform the rituals. There are smaller and larger shrines all over the country, however, which have non-Brahmin and even Shudra (low-caste) priests (Shah 2004:38). These are usually temples serving a smaller local community. By law, any member of any caste may enter any temple in India. Nevertheless, in practice Dalits (untouchables) are often barred. Certain temples admit only Hindus; Muslims and Christians will be excluded if they are identified. In some areas non-Indians are excluded as a rule, unless they can produce paperwork to prove their conversion (some temples will bar entrance to them anyway). A famous case of temple exclusion took place when Indira Gandhi, prime minister of India, visited the Jagannath temple at Puri. She was excluded because she was married to a non-Hindu.

Many great Hindu temples deserve mention: the Vishvanatha Temple to Shiva in the holy city Benares (Varanasi); the famous Kali temple at Kali Ghat in Calcutta (Kolkata); the Jagannath Temple to Krishna in Puri; the temple for the goddess Kamakshi at Kanchipuram; the Brihadishvara Temple to Shiva in Tanjore; the Meenakshi Temple to the goddess Minakshi and the Shrirangam temple to Vishnu, both in Tamil Nadu.

ISSUES/CHALLENGES

Throughout its long history, Hinduism has faced various challenges from without and within. Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, and Christianity have competed with Hinduism for centuries, and their rejection of caste has made them more popular amongst groups disadvantaged in the traditional Hindu hierarchy. Hindu nationalism as a modern movement has sought to redefine Hinduism as a strictly orthodox, monolithic identity that falls closely in line with Brahminical ideals. Meanwhile, issues of gender and caste present theological challenges to orthodoxy that often enliven heterodox traditions and promote pluralism.

In the transition from Vedic religion to Hinduism proper, one important feature is the development of the stratified social system that in India became known as the caste system (Mitra 2011:47-48). Texts dating from the late centuries before the Common Era, such as the Laws of Manu, began to make clear that the four classes found in the Vedas were now seen as stratified social entities. Rules and social laws began to be passed down, not universally, but in terms of each class or “birth” (jati) division. Jatis became traditionally classified under four categories or varnas, ranked in terms of ritual purity. The highest varna or caste grouping, Brahmins, were placed at the apex of the pyramid, because of their priestly positions. (However, they were also not allowed to accumulate large amounts of wealth and could not hold positions of direct political power). Next were the warriors, or Kshatriyas, who held kingly and administrative power. The large body of the people, the Vish, or Vaishya, were farmers or merchants. The lowest caste category included the Shudras, born, it was thought, to be servants.

The concept of untouchability has long played a role in the Hindu caste system of socioeconomic organization. Members of certain low-status castes were considered polluting and not allowed to touch any person of the upper castes, particularly Brahmins and members of the warrior and merchant castes. This practice was exaggerated even further in parts of South India, where certain people were considered unseeable and had to stay out of sight of the upper castes (Shah et al. 2006:21).

The history of untouchability no doubt tracks the rise of Aryan cultural domination of India. There is evidence to suggest that certain tribal groups and peoples last integrated into the Aryan fold became classified as “out-castes” or the “fifth caste” (where the Aryans had a fourfold class system from great antiquity). The custom is supported by a very complex social conception of “pollution” related to occupation. Purity is seen to reside in certain types of activity such as teaching and recitation of the Vedas, and in habits such as vegetarianism, while such essential social tasks as sweeping, the collecting of refuse, the removal of carrion animals, and the production of leather are considered severely polluting (Shah et al. 2006:106-12).

Caste, more properly jati, or birth, is in fact directly related in most cases to occupation, so untouchability is generally conferred by birth. (However, certain polluting situations within the family context, such as having someone recently die in the household, make any person, whatever the caste, polluting or “untouchable” for a limited time (Shah et al. 2006:107).

Importantly, almost all of the major freedom fighters in India who sought independence from Britain denounced the notion of caste and called for the abolition of untouchability. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was most notable in this regard. He coined the term harijan (those born of God) to relieve the stigma from untouchables. The constitution of India was written by an untouchable (who also became a Buddhist), Dr. Babasaheb R. Ambedkar (1891–1956). In the setting up of India’s central and state governments, untouchables were given designated quotas of positions, including parliamentary seats, to guarantee their advancement.

Today, India’s untouchables have taken an increasingly militant political stance. They prefer to call themselves Dalit (the oppressed). Many of them have converted to Buddhism, following Dr. Ambedkar’s conversion in late life. Buddhism was always opposed to caste notions and preached spiritual equality (Michael 1999:66-7).

Hinduism, because of its extreme diversity throughout the ages, has encompassed complex systems of thought and social hierarchies, which defy any simple generalizations. This overview of the status and role of women in Hindu India, and of the culture’s attitudes toward them, reflects that variety. It should be born in mind that social correlates of gender, such as caste, class, stage of life, age, and family membership, are all variables that significantly affect the position of women in Hindu society, so that women in Hinduism exhibit significant differences in their lives.

It is the case that in prehistory everywhere there were significantly more autonomy and sexual freedom for women (and men) than in later times. There are indications, certainly, that in pre-Vedic times in India (before 1500 BCE), such freedom and autonomy existed among the pre-Aryan tribal people who inhabited every corner of India. Tribal groups such as the Santals to this day do not restrict women’s sexuality and action in any way as their more staid counterparts in the larger culture do (Bhattacharyya 2005:102). Ancient Tamil poetry, dated as early as 300 BCE, shows women freely choosing sexual partners before marriage and relying upon love marriages rather than family arrangements. Also, groups such as the Nayars and Khasis show that matriliniality and matrilocality, which must be associated with more supportive lives for women, were probably fairly common in the Indian, pre-Aryan substratum that provides the cultural undergirding for much of later Hinduism (Ghosh 1976:71).

A pattern develops, visible in the Brahminical texts, of women’s having roles in the early Vedic culture (1500–800 BCE) that began to be denied them even in the late Vedic period (Thapar 2004:118). Some rishis, for instance, were arguably women, and in the White Yajur Veda there are chants that can be performed only by a woman who knows Sanskrit. Though Hindu tradition even up to the present day understands that women were never allowed to recite the Vedas or even witness a Vedic ritual, these examples indicate that this rule was not strictly observed in early Vedic tradition (Figueira 2002:124).

When modernity comes forward in the 18th through 20th centuries and radically changes traditions such as child marriage, dowry, the ban on widow remarriage, and the custom of the childless wife’s burning herself on the funeral pyre of her older husband, it must be understood that these traditions had not been unchallenged and contested in different regions and different movements within Hinduism’s large umbrella (Narayan, 1997: 68-73). Nevertheless, while traditional practices that contribute to the low status of women in India, such as child marriage, sati (widow self-immolation), dowry, and female infanticide, are now illegal, these practices continue in some areas and among groups who have low socioeconomic status (Sen, 2001).

Modern reform movements to improve the status of women first arose in the 19th century, after the country had entered the mainstream of world civilization under British imperial rule. Both women and men worked together to improve the conditions of women’s lives. Reform was strongest in Bengal and Maharashtra and tended to focus on ideals of family and society, rather than the independence and autonomy of women (Sarkar and Sarkar 2008).

A new women’s movement emerged in India in the 1970s, unaligned with any political parties and uninfluenced by foreign or government funding. Primarily composed of female volunteers, these women have sought to highlight the misogynist aspects inherent within Hinduism, advocate for women’s rights over their own bodies and sexuality, and undermine tolerance for domestic violence. They have had to contend not only against nationalist elements, but also against Leftist resistance to discussing the oppression of women.

Hindu women in India today occupy a broad range of statuses, varying from the most modernized, educated, and independent to some of the most traditional, least educated, and subordinate. Social class is now more important in determining the status of women than is caste membership. Educated, urbanized women often marry outside caste, religion, and nationality, and it is becoming more common for young urban couples to choose their own homes together, rather than live in traditional joint families.

A strong majority of Indian women, even as much as half of self-identified proponents of women’s rights and equality, resist the term feminist (Eschle and Maiguashca 2010:158), which is often associated with aggressiveness, sexual permissiveness, immodesty, and a lack of womanly virtues; feminists are assumed to be against motherhood, family values, and men.

Hindu women have the feminine divine before them all the time, as the Hindu tradition preserves a worship of the Goddess that probably dates from the Neolithic. Social conditions, however, support significant oppression of Indian women, especially those of lower social standing. The goddesses who become role models for Indian women are not those that show autonomy and independence, but those that embody subordinate roles. Sita, the obedient wife of Lord Rama, remains the traditional role model for Hindu women in much of India (Pauwels 2008:3). Women understand that the fierce goddesses (which Western women often view as inspiring) are goddesses that are not to be imitated. Uncontrolled by society and convention, powerful goddesses are not seen as role models. In one of the Puranic myths, Shiva calls Parvati (his wife) Kali (“Blackie”) as an insult, and it is taken as an insult to be called a Kali by many Indian women today (Doniger 2010:396).

As is the case in most of the world, women in India have throughout the centuries been the main cultural transmitters of myths and story and simple religious practices. While history records the lives of great male swamis and teachers, little is recorded of the prayers, vows, and devotions of Hindu women who take on the tasks of assuring the welfare of their families by asking for divine intercession and aid. Yet, it is this integrative function performed by women that connects the everyday world to the cosmic order, even as it sacralizes the universe, an essential Hindu practice (Mittal and Thursby 2008:185). While males, in the main, were
free to develop philosophies and movements, women, forced into more limited roles, creatively reached out to the forces of the universe to preserve and protect their loved ones and provide for a harmonious and fruitful society. For every wandering ascetic who did his renunciation for higher spiritual gain, one could count, contemporaneously, thousands of individual women who practiced vows, fasts, and disciplines to ensure the welfare of those around them. This role of women as powerful religious and spiritual actors, although recognized in the cultural lore, is largely unrecorded. The paucity of women saints in the history of Hindu tradition belies the agency that women have exerted in the temples, shrines, and households of India over the centuries. This agency has been central to the continuity of Hinduism over time.

Although movements for equality based on caste and gender have become stronger in India, Hindu nationalism has also gained traction in India, directly challenging progress made in those areas. A contemporary movement with religious, cultural, and political aspects, oriented toward creation of a Hindu state in India and a monolithic Hindu identity, Hindu nationalism is based on the ideology of Hindutva (Hinduness).

Critics charge that these nationalists define Hindu to emphasize Brahminical and upper-caste values, ethics, and practices, and that nationalists have wrongfully co-opted revered Hindu figures such as Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo – both of whom espoused a variety of non-Hindutva views which are contravened by the movement. It also includes extremists and Hindu supremacists who have targeted the economic and political rights of cultural and religious minorities. Supporters point out crimes Muslims have committed against India and the depredations of the Christians in the form of the British and call for an uprooting of “non- Hindu” elements in India as much as possible (Sharma 2011).

Hindutva declares Christians and Muslims to be “foreign” to India because their faiths have holy lands outside the boundary of the modern Indian nation-state. Critics point out that the ideology of Hindutva supports violence against religious and cultural minorities, including sexual violence against women of minority groups and Hindu women who defy Hindutva’s mandates. (Reddy, 2006: 60-3) Further, the Hindutva agenda for nation building subordinates the lives and livelihoods of adivasis (indigenous tribal peoples), Dalits (economically disadvantaged, former “untouchable” castes), and the poor to higher-caste Hindus. In general, Hindutva is not sympathetic to the historical and present struggles for the human rights of spiritually and politically distinct groups, such as tribal groups, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs, as these groups are understood to be antinational and anti-Hindu.

Hindutva’s tenets were first described by V. D. Savarkar in his text Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu?, published in 1922, and can be traced to anti-colonial movements in the late nineteenth century. Scholarly analysis shows that Hindutva drew upon the ethnic and cultural nationalisms of Germany and Italy in the early twentiety century, to promote physical training conducted in cells called shakhas and ideological training that linked “Hindu pride” to the subjugation of perceived enemies, such as Christians and Muslims (Erikson 2001:54-55). The rise of Hindu nationalism is thus framed by the inequalities and struggles in India’s history.

Its agenda is carried out by various groups, including the Shiv Sena and the Sangh Parivar, a network of organizations. The Sangh’s major parties are Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS); National Volunteer Corps, formed in 1925, which provides social service and militant training; Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP); World Hindu Council, formed in 1964, which frames the Sangh’s cultural and religious agenda and works to spread the Hindu nationalist agenda on an international level; and the Bajrang Dal, the militant youth group. Hindu nationalist political parties took various forms through the 20th century, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), “Indian People’s Party,” created in 1980, is the most recent incarnation of the Sangh’s political wing. While the BJP advocates a clear Hindu supremacist agenda, other political parties also empathize with and support “soft” Hindutva, which contains certain aspects of Hindutva that shun violence. The Sangh also operates through a vast network of development groups and service and education organizations, such as Ekal Vidyalayas, Sewa Bharti, Utkal Bipanna Sahayata Samiti, and Vanvasi Kalyan Ashrams.

When India and Pakistan became independent nations in August 1947, divided along religious differences, widespread violence between and within religious communities accompanied the massive displacement of people across newly drawn national borders. Large groups of Muslims moved into Pakistan (a self-proclaimed Islamic state), and non-Muslims moved into India (a self-proclaimed secular state). Official estimates put the displacement at about twelve million and deaths at over one million men, women, and children (Khan 2007:6) More than 75,000 women were abducted and raped by members of their own or other communities. The forms of violence that struck within and across religious lines during the Partition still fill the social memory of India and provide rationale for mutual resentment and anger between Hindus and Muslims.

Hindu nationalists have directly or indirectly instigated a number of high profile assassinations and waves of violence, many of which have remained under- or unprosecuted. On January 30, 1948, Nathuram Godse, a former member of the RSS, shot and killed M. K. Gandhi. At the time, Hindu nationalists expressed intense dissatisfaction with what they termed Gandhi’s “appeasement” of minorities, especially Muslims (Nussbaum 2009:165-68) In 1984, with Indira Gandhi’s assassination as a trigger, Sikh communities were targeted by large-scale violence, concentrated in Delhi and instigated by Hindutva leaders and sentiment. In 1992, leaders of the BJP, VHP, and RSS incited Hindu nationalist crowds to destroy the over 400 year-old Babri Mosque at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, saying that it sat on the ruins of a Hindu temple that marked the birthplace of the god Rama. The destruction of the mosque was accompanied by systematic anti-Muslim violence throughout India, concentrated in Mumbai, for which the Srikrishna Commission held Hindu nationalists responsible (Morey 2005:145-47).

The BJP gained power in India at the national level at the head of a coalition of political parties called the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The NDA controlled the national government until 2004, when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance won elections at the national level, though the BJP continued to rule in various states, alone or within political coalitions.

In the spring of 2002, the torching of fifty-eight Hindutva activists on a train near the town of Godhra,
Gujarat, set off a systematic and government-backed massacre of Muslims throughout the state (Nussbaum 2009:2). Starting on February 28, violence broke out in sixteen of Gujarat’s twenty-four districts, attributed by most to Hindu nationalist groups. Muslim homes, businesses, and places of worship were destroyed by large mobs armed with swords, tridents, kerosene, and liquid gas canisters. Both young girls and women were subjected to sexual atrocities: gang rape and collective rape, as well as sexual mutilation with swords and sticks, before being burned to death.

Independent fact-finding groups have placed the number of dead at no fewer than 2,000, and the number of displaced at 200,000, most of whom were Muslims. Human rights observers classified the events in Gujarat as “genocide” by the standards of the United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948. India’s National Human Rights Commission charged the state government (including police and high-level BJP officials) with complicity at the “highest levels.” However, it has been difficult to secure convictions of those involved in these crimes. Several high-profile cases were moved out of the state by the Indian Supreme Court, because of the court’s lack of confidence in the ability of Gujarat’s judicial system to deliver justice for the survivors (Nussbaum 2009:31-33).

Since these incidents in Gujarat, groups in India and the diaspora have begun to trace international political and financial support for Hindu nationalist organizations. Two reports tracked the funding of Hindu nationalist activities: the Campaign to Stop Funding Hate released one report on the activities of the India Development and Relief Fund, a United States–based charity; Awaaz South Asia Watch released another report on the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, a United Kingdom–based charity.

Sangh leaders have been quoted as promising to strengthen the Hindutva movement in Orissa, a state in eastern India, and in other parts of the country. In Orissa, as of 2005, Hindutva already has a strong network of Sangh organizations and activists, who are reportedly carrying out forced conversions of Christians and tribals to Hinduism, destroying churches, committing selective murders, imposing social and economic boycotts of minorities, and imposing a ban on cow slaughter, which threatens the livelihoods of poor Muslims and Dalits (Osuri 2012:56-60).

Thus far, we have covered issues arising within Hinduism: caste, gender, and nationalism. Historically, as well as in modernity, competing religious traditions originating both inside and outside India have presented a clear challenge to Hinduism in the region, and have also contributed significantly to its development as it has both responded to and absorbed various competing doctrines, deities, and traditions.

In the sixth century BCE, a large-scale revolt against Vedic practice occurred in India. The Buddha, a great reformer, decried the supremacy of Brahmins in Vedic practice and in Indian society and called for a path that was open to all without discrimination. He criticized the animal sacrifices made by the Brahmins and their corruption in monetary pursuits. He was joined in this era by the Jain leader Mahavira. Buddhism achieved supremacy in early India through the influence of the empire of the great king Ashoka in the third century BCE (Akira 1990:100-02). However, although it had moments of state glory over many centuries, Buddhism never succeeded in supplanting traditions that looked to the Vedas. Similarly, although Jainism achieved some level of popularity, it never displaced Vedic traditions, though, like Buddhism, it remains a strong presence in India today.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Islam entered an India that was flourishing with dynamic devotional movements, iconic divinities, and wandering ascetics. Islam entered India with a vengeance and stayed to rule. As Islamic presence expanded over North India, the Mughal empire was established in the fifteenth century CE. For several centuries Islam presided over India, and Mughal emporers espoused a wide range of attitudes, from the promotion of religious tolerance by Akbar to the zealous and destructive campaigns of Aurangzeb. Its reach encompassed nearly the entire country, although the far reaches of the south were spared its iconoclasm and its heaviest hand.

The Islamic era (c. 1100 to 1750 C.E.) produced religious interaction that may be unique in the world. State patronage of Sufi traditions led to a confluence of Sufi and Hindu ascetic ideals, and new religious ideas began to develop. The long tradition of Hindu saints who were lower caste, anticaste, or anti-Brahminical were supplemented by Sufi wanderers who held similar views. What emerged were powerful spiritual traditions that condemned all orthodoxy and were socially revolutionary in that they decried caste as spiritually bankrupt and laughed at the Brahmins as scoundrels and worse (Gottschalk 2000). The Sant tradition of North India that emerged in this era was well represented by such people as Kabir, who spoke most radically about the stupidity of untouchability and the foolishness of the orthodox, and continues to have both Hindu and Muslim devotees who claim him as their own (Hess and Singh 2002:3-5).

The Sant and Sufi sentiments that developed in this era merged in the tradition of Guru Nanak (fifteenth century) and the Sikhs, who eschew all ritual, icons, and ritual leaders. For the Sikhs there is no guru except the Granth Sahib, their holy book, which has many verses from the poet-saints of this era (Takhar 2005:5-6).

Other movements, such as the Bauls, remained less institutionalized than the Sikh tradition. They too combined elements from devotional Hinduism, Sufi love poetry and music, and anti-Brahminical sentiments into cultic groups that exist today outside the orthodox umbrella of Hinduism (Openshaw 2002:19-20).

Christianity has existed in India for almost two millennia. The Malakara Orthodox Church, headquartered in Kerala, has generally lived a peaceful existence over the centuries, but one largely cut off from the mainstream of the Christian world. The Roman Catholic nation of Portugal claimed portions of India in 1498, and, once a Catholic bishop was placed at the Portuguese colony of Goa, an aggressive and draconian mission program was initiated by the Jesuits during the Goan Inquisition, which lasted 250 years and oversaw implementation of coercive discriminatory policies and the systematic destruction of Hindu, Muslim, and Jewish culture and places of worship, as well as the birth a strong local resistance movement (Axelrod and Fuerch 1996:391).

During the missionary era from the eighteent century onward, Protestant missionaries, backed by the British government, adopted various plans for developing a successful thrust into Indian society, including the building of modern colleges and hospitals, intellectual appeals to elites, and enticing of Dalits and various fringe groups away from lives devoid of privilege. Even as they were freed in part from many social burdens of caste, some social justice advocates have decried the destruction of Dalit identity in service of Christian hegemony (Rajkumar 2010:37-8). The end result was the development of the third largest religious community in India (after Hindus and Muslims), although today the sixty million Christians represent barely six percent of the population.

Most recently, religious leaders in India have led in initiating interreligious dialogue with the founding of such organizations as theWorld Fellowship of Religions (1973) and the World Union (1958). In the diaspora, Hindus have been very active in many national interreligious councils and have been especially prominent in the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions based in Chicago, Illinois, which holds international conferences in different parts of the world every five years. Among North American organizations that attempt to encourage and focus on dialogue between Hindus and Christians is the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies, which is currently administered by scholars at Notre Dame, Indiana, and Thiruvanmiyur, Madras (Chennai), India. They also publish the Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies.

As the new century begins, India has been hit with a wave of anti-Christian activity fueled by anger over the proselytizing activity of the increasing number of missionaries, spurred on by Hindutva activists and occasionally erupting in violence (Bhatt 2001:199-202). These violent incidents have only increased attempts by Hindu and Christian leaders to pursue understanding, peace, and mutual respect through dialogue.

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Authors:
Constance A. Jones
Sundari Johansen Hurwitt

Post Date:
9 January 2014

HOLY LAND USA TIMELINE

1895 (March 27):  John Baptist Greco was born in Waterbury, CT. Shortly after his birth, the Greco family moved to their home country of Italy.

Circa 1908:  The Greco family returned to Waterbury. Greco briefly attended seminary after high school. He went on to graduate from Yale School of Law and opened a practice in Waterbury.

1934:  Greco formed a chapter of the Catholic Campaigners for Christ and began to preach up and down the east coast.

Early 1950’s:  Greco envisioned a roadside theme park devoted to God.

1957:  Holy Land USA opened to the public.

1960’s:  Holy Land USA began to receive an estimated 40,000 visitors per year.

1984:  Holy Land USA closed to the public.

1986 (March 12):  Greco died at the age of ninety. Ownership of Holy Land, USA was passed on to the Religious Sisters of Fillipini.

2008 (June 18):  A new, fifty-foot cross was erected in the park.

2010:  Sixteen year-old Chloe Ottman was found raped and murdered in the unused park.

2013:  Waterbury Mayor Neil O’Leary and Fred “Fritz” Blasius purchased the land housing the former Holy Land USA from the Religious Sisters Fillipini and began plans to restore the park.

FOUNDER/HISTORY

John Baptist Greco was born on March 27, 1895 in Waterbury, Connecticut to Italian immigrants Raffaela and Vincenzo Greco (Gannaway 2008). Possibly due to economic hardship in the late 1890’s, the Greco family returned to Torelli dei Lombardi, Avellino in Southern Italy and remained there until relocating back to Waterbury when John was thirteen. After graduating from high school, Greco briefly attended seminary at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. but left before receiving a diploma due to health reasons. He eventually graduated from Yale School of Law. Greco then opened a practice in Waterbury in 1926, where he continued to work for several decades. He often provided services at low to no cost to fellow Italian immigrants and disadvantaged members of the community (Bremer 2008). A devout Catholic, Greco formed a chapter of Catholic Campaigners for Christ in 1934. Through this group, he frequently visited towns and cities up and down the east coast sharing his Christian faith with passersby. In addition, Greco often sermonized and recited the rosary on a local radio station (Bremer 2008). Through Greco’s life, he and his family were members of the Our Lady of Lourdes, a Catholic church established to serve families of Italian descent in Waterbury.

In the late 1940’s to early 1950’s, John Greco and friend Anthony Coviello began a movement in the Waterbury area to “put Christ back into Christmas.” During this time, he and Coviello were constructing nativities for the town and neighboring areas. This expression of spirituality was not unusual. As Gannaway (2008:30) notes: “Back home in Italy each village had its own saint to celebrate. In this country Italian-American honored saints by creating statuary, grottos, nativity scenes, and passion plays they displayed at mass, at festivals, and at their homes.” Out of these experiences the idea for the future Holy Land USA occurred to Greco. It is possible that he was specifically inspired to create Holy Land by the Italian sacri monti or “sacred mountains” that were popular in Italy beginning in the sixteenth century, which served as substitute holy sites for pilgrims unable to make a journey to the Holy Land itself (Zielbauer 2001).

Soon after conceiving the Holy Land idea (originally called “Bethlehem Village”), Greco purchased a craggy seventeen-acre plot of land called Pine Hill. With the help of friends, neighbors, and the Catholic Campaigners for Christ lay group, the construction of a large cross meant to stand atop the hill began. The 32-foot “Peace Cross” was erected and dedicated in 1956. Over 1,000 townspeople attended the dedication of the cross, whose green and red lights stood for hope and unity in response to the foreign threat of communism. Both Italian and Irish Catholics took part in assembly of the cross, an uncommon occurrence in 1950’s Waterbury. The Peace Cross signified a town coming together to join both American and Christian principles to promote peace, equality and justice (Gannaway 2008).

After the Peace Cross was dedicated, work began on what would soon become a popular Connecticut attraction. Using mostly donated items such as bathtubs, appliances, and scrap metal, along with cement, clay, and bricks, Greco and hundreds of volunteers worked in the evenings and on weekends to assemble artistic representations of Bible stories. Often reminiscent of the yard shrines built by Italian Americans, these rustic dioramas depicted such scenes as Christ’s birth, the crucifixion, and life in Jerusalem. In planning the scenes, Greco and his partners used maps, the Bible, and photographs in order to create more accurate representations of historic and biblical events. At one point, Greco even visited the Holy Land itself and brought back soil and rocks to add to the park (Gannaway 2008).

On December 11, 1958, Holy Land USA was opened to the public under the name “Bethlehem Village” (Gannaway 2008). It soon became a popular destination for church groups and families. In order to attract a wider audience and appeal to travelers, a gift shop and refreshment stand were opened. Greco also installed a large sign reminiscent of one that sits along the Hollywood Hills reading “Holy Land.” At its height in the 1960’s, Holy Land featured 200 small buildings on its seventeen-acre site and attracted upwards of 40,000 visitors each year (Waterbury Hall of Fame n.d.). Meanwhile, Greco continued to practice law and give tours of the park to visitors. A lifelong bachelor, he spent his spare time devoted to the maintenance of his creation.

As John Baptist Greco began to age, two nuns were appointed by the local diocese to assist him in maintaining the park. The nuns, who lived in a convent run by the Religious Sisters Fillipini situated just outside of Holy Land, eventually went on to provide caretaking duties for Greco as his health declined.

As Greco’s physical state weakened, the park went into disrepair and eventually closed its doors to the public in 1984. Greco died two years later and willed Pine Hill and Holy Land to the Sisters. It has remained closed ever since and decays further every year.

Over the past several decades, there have been quite a few initiatives to restore the park to its former glory both by religious groups and citizens wishing to preserve Holy Land’s folk art value, but so far, none have followed through. The cross that sits atop Pine Hill has been replaced twice, the most recent having been erected in December 2013 (Wenzel and Konopka 2013). Also in 2013, the land housing the ruins of the park was purchased from the Sisters by the mayor of Waterbury and his business partner, who have vowed to restore the park.

DOCTRINES/BELIEFS

The objective for which the park was created is summed up in an inscription located at the entrance to the park: “A group of dedicated men present a pictorial story of the life of Christ from cradle to the Cross – it is our prayerful wish that the project will provide a pleasant way to increase your knowledge of God’s Own Book and bring you closer to Him” (Waterbury Hall of Fame n.d.). Therefore, as Greco stated, “We’re not trying to convert people. We’re trying to bring them closer to Christianity. We’re trying to inspire good will and better understanding.”

John Baptist Greco’s devout Roman Catholic beliefs served as the imagination behind the displays within Holy Land. The original goal of the park was to illuminate the Bible so that non-believers and Christians alike might gain a better understanding of their faith. Christian symbols, some of particular interest to Catholics, thematize the exhibits at the park. These included the Garden of Eden, Catacombs depicting Christian martyrs throughout history, The Stations of the Cross, Herod’s palace, Daniel in the lion’s den, and the City of Jerusalem.

Greco also saw social justice as an important part of the Christian faith. Before opening the park, Greco and friend Anthony Coviello marched in a Waterbury parade with the Catholic Campaigners for Christ with a banner that read “Segregation is Unamerican, Unchristian, and Ungodly,” a demonstration of their feelings toward the social inequality of the 1950’s. Greco and friends aimed to emphasize equality of all mankind through inscriptions on tablets around the park. One such stone notes that “We are all the Body of Christ. If one member suffers, we all suffer” (Gannaway 2008).

ORGANIZATION/LEADERSHIP

John Greco served as the primary caretaker of the park from its conception to official closing. The Religious Sisters Fillipini owned
the deteriorating park from 1986 to 2013, although they did not do much in the way of restoration during this time, aside from removing several relics and preserving them in a nearby chapel basement. Pine Hill and the remnants of Holy Land are now owned by Waterbury Mayor Neil O’Leary and partner Fred “Fritz” Blasius, who have announced a plan to restore the park.

ISSUES/CHALLENGES

Holy Land received unfavorable press in 2008 when the body of sixteen year-old Chloe Ottman was found in the park. Ottman had been raped and murdered at the foot of the Peace Cross by a young man in her high school, who was subsequently tried and sentenced to fifty-five years in prison (Dempsey 2011).

Although there has been interest in restoring the park in the years since its’ closing, there have been no groups that have actually followed through on their publicly stated intentions. As the park is currently not secured from trespassers, vandals have contributed to the destruction of the park, defacing and destroying many of the exhibits. Nature has also taken over much of the area so that it barely resembles what it once was. While the park still receives visitors, they now must walk past “no trespassing” signs and enter at their own risk. Until a restoration takes place, Holy Land will serve as an offbeat tourist attraction to a few, tacky eyesore to some, and a pleasant reminder of times gone by to others.

REFERENCES

Bremer, Jennifer. 2008. “Holy Land USA.” American Road , Autumn, Pp. 46–48. Accessed from http://www.flickr.com/photos/roadtripmemories/6030069312/in/set-72157603616821181/ on 17 March 2014.

Dempsey, Christine. 2011. “Waterbury Man Sentenced to 55 years in Holy Land Murder.” The Courant, June 17. Accessed from http://articles.courant.com/2011-06-17/community/hc-waterbury-holy-land-sentenced-061820110617_1_chloe-ottman-francisco-cruz-friend on 17 March 2014.

Gannaway, Wayne. 2008. “Pilgrimage to Waterbury.” Hog River Journal, Summer. Accessed from http://www.wku.edu/folkstudies/a_pilgrimage_to_waterbury.pdf on 17 March 2014.

Waterbury Hall of Fame. n.d. “John Greco.” Waterbury Hall of Fame. Accessed from http://www.bronsonlibrary.org/filestorage/33/Greco2000.jpg on 17 March 2014.

Wenzel, Joseph and Konopka, Jill. 2013. “New Cross Installed at Holy Land in Waterbury.” WFSB, December 19. Accessed from http://www.wfsb.com/story/24264956/new-cross-installed-at-holy-land-in-waterbury on 17 March 2014.

Zielbauer, Paul. 2001. “A Sight That Inspires Ambivalence; Ruins of a Religious Park Await Restorers or the Bulldozer.” The New York Times , November 12. Accessed from http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/12/nyregion/sight-that-inspires-ambivalence-ruins-religious-park-await-restorers-bulldozer.html on 17 March 2014.

Post Date:
3 March 2014

HOUSE FOR ALL SINNERS AND SAINTS TIMELINE

1969:  Nadia Bolz was born.

1986:  Bolz got the first of her many tattoos.

1996:  Nadia Bolz married Matthew Weber, a Lutheran seminary student.

2004:  Bolz-Weber lead the funeral of a friend who had recently committed suicide at her local comedy club. This is the moment in which she felt called to do work in the church and lead people similar to herself to God.

2005:  Bolz-Weber graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder and enrolled in a seminary.

2007:  Bolz-Weber began having meetings in the living room of her home that led to the formation of the House for All Sinners and Saints.

2008:  The House for All Sinners and Saints was founded.

2008:  Nadia Bolz-Weber was ordained as an Evangelical Lutheran Pastor by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) after attending seminary at the Illif School of Theology in Denver, Colorado.

2008:  Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber’s book Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 Hours of Christian Television was published .

2013:  Bolz-Weber’s book Pastrix: the Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint was published and became a New York Times bestselling theological memoir.

2015 (September 8):  Bolz-Weber’s book Accidental Saints was released.

2018 (July):  Bolz-Weber resigned as pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints.

2019:  Bolz-Weber’s book, Shameless: A Sexual Reformation, was published.

FOUNDER/GROUP HISTORY

By her own account, Nadia Bolz grew up in a loving, conservative (Church of Christ) religious family, the daughter of a military officer in Colorado Springs. She describes her religious upbringing as “harsh” and “fundamentalist” (Little 2015). During her childhood she experienced a thyroid disorder that “ caused her eyes to bug far out of her head,” a condition that resulted in constant teasing by her peers and a personal sense that she did not belong (Boorstein 2013). When she was seventeen years-old, she experienced a rapid growth spurt that resulted in her reaching her current height of just over six feet. She reports being extremely self-conscious of her ungainly physical appearance. It wasn’t until she attended a military banquet where someone referred to her as “ a long-stemmed rose ” that she begin to view her height in a positive way. Shortly after the banquet Bolz chose her first tattoo: a long-stemmed rose. After getting the tattoo, she reports having felt “ like a little outlaw ” (Tippett 2013). Bolz briefly attended Church of Christ affiliated Pepperdine University after graduating from high school, but soon dropped out and moved to Denver.

After moving to Denver, Bolz went through a ten-year period during which she was a heavy drug and alcohol user. During this period, she openly states that she was “an angry, self-endangering teenager who was happy dying before age 30” (Byassee 2013). In addition to using alcohol and drugs, Bolz-Weber, participated in the feminist performance art group Vox Femina, worked as a stand-up comedienne in Denver and experimented with a variety of religious traditions, such as Wicca, Quakerism, and Unitarianism. In 1996, she met a young Lutheran seminary student named Matthew Weber. They fell in love, married, and later had two children. The marriage lasted until 2016; Matthew Weber currently pastors his own Lutheran Church (Tippett 2013). Bolz-Weber was drawn to Lutheranism because it resonated with her personal experience. As she put it, “When I learned about simil justus et peccator I was like, ‘Oh yeah, we are all sinners and saints at the same time’” (Byassee 2011).

It wasn’t until 2004 that Bolz-Weber felt the drive to become a leader of her own church community. A friend had committed suicide and Bolz-Weber was asked to lead his funeral. She performed the funeral at the Denver comedy club that she had frequented throughout her early adult life. It was at that moment she felt that these were her people and that God was calling her to lead them (Boorstein 2013). She recalls that “I looked out and I thought: ‘These are my people and they don’t have a pastor – and maybe I’m actually called to be a pastor to my people'” (Little 2015). Although her parents are very conservative religiously, when she announced her decision to go into the ministry, her father immediately supported her:

“My father did not read the 1st Timothy passage about women being silent in church. He read from Esther. From my father I heard only these words: ‘But you were born for such a day as this.’ He closed the book and my mother joined him in embracing me. They prayed over me and gave me a blessing…” (Falsani 2013).

She later reported that “He is so unbelievably supportive of me and this ministry. I’m not sure he’s ever failed to tell me how proud he is of me every time I see him” (Byassee 2011). In 2008, Bolz-Weber, who was still a student at Iliff Seminary, and five friends planned the start of what is now the House for All Sinners and Saints in her living room. Her bishop was also supportive of her innovative initiative. She recalls that “I actually told my bishop at some point during the process, ‘Look, you could put me in a parish in the suburbs of some small town, but you and I both know that would be ugly for everyone involved, so how about I just start one?’ He goes: ‘Yeah, that sounds like a better idea'” (Little 2015).

DOCTRINES/RITUALS

One of Bolz-Weber’s most important theological touchstones is that individuals are simultaneously saints and sinners, the struggle out of which the name of the church was born. As she has put it, “It’s dark in there,” she said tapping her chest over her heart. “We’re all simultaneously sinners and saints. We live in response to God’s grace. Nobody’s climbing the spiritual ladder” (Draper 2011). She elaborated that “I have this enormous capacity for destruction of myself and other people, and I have an enormous capacity for kindness as well. So I felt like someone was finally able to say, yeah, you’re simultaneously both of these at all times” (Tippett 2013). Because we are both sinners and saints, we continually need God’s grace. We unify with Christ through the rituals of baptism and Eucharist, but must struggle to maintain a connection; life is “continual death and resurrection” (Tippett 2013). The struggle is therefore ongoing but never complete. As Bolz-Weber has summarized the matter, “It’s not like ‘I once was blind, and now can see’: it’s more like, ‘I once was blind and now I have really bad vision’” (Brown 2014).

While Bolz-Weber, as part of the emerging church movement, is willing to innovate, she also seeks to remain faithful and connected to the Lutheran tradition by insisting that “You have to be rooted in tradition in order to innovate with integrity” (Byassee 2011; Draper 20110). One foundation is the assertion that it is faith not works that is the source of salvation. Another foundation is her commitment to the Bible and to Jesus. In this regard, she charts her own course as she rejects both the progressive left and conservative right alternatives. To the progressives she says that “I reject the premise I often hear in progressive Christianity that in order to be down with multiculturalism or with peace and social justice you have to jettison the Bible and Jesus. I think those are the only two things we have going for us” (Vicari 2013). To the conservatives she asserts that the Bible should not only be honored but also “questioned and struggled with;” and she has referred to the Bible as a “cradle for Christ” but not ultimate gospel (Vicari 2013).

Weekly church services are held on Sunday evenings, with some innovative features. The sanctuary is organized in the round so that the altar, Bolz-Weber states, is “quite literally and metaphorically at the center of our lives together as a community” (Tippett 2013). The service itself is highly participatory as members may elect to lead specific sections of the service. On most Sundays Bolz-Weber delivers a ten to fifteen minute sermon from the unelevated center of the congregational circle. Congregational singing, sometimes of hymns in Latin, is entirely acapella. The Eucharist is shared every week. When the service concludes, there is a ten minute “open space,” a time when members of the congregation can silently contemplate their experience of the service (Tippett 2013). In addition to the Sunday services, church members meet for “office hours” at local coffee houses, and the church sponsors annual “beers and hymns” and “blessings of the bicycles” events (Verlee 2013).

In her most recent theological writings, Bolz-Weber directly takes on traditional Christian teachings on sexuality, and particularly the sexual repression that is fostered by the idea that spirituality at sexuality are inherently in tension. She sets out her position in Shameless: A Sexual Reformation (2019), a book that is highly controversial within the conservative Christian community. A conversation with Eliza Griswold (2019) summarizes her position:

This idea that salvation comes through sexual repression,” Bolz-Weber said, “that shit comes out sideways.” In “Shameless,” she sets out to build a sexual ethic around human flourishing rather than around rules encoded by men centuries ago. This begins by recognizing that with sex, as with everything else, “it’s not about being good—it’s about grace.” This, she argues, is actually just the natural extension of classical Lutheranism.

LEADERSHIP/ORGANIZATION

“House,” as participants often refer to it, was informally launched in the Fall 2007. Bolz-Weber initially founded House for disaffected young adults, and she refers to House as a “freak show” church. The church reaches out to and has a core membership (about one third) of gays, transgenders, and a variety of social marginals (Brown 2014). Indeed, a mural featured by House depicts Jesus at the Last Supper surrounded by a collection of these social outcasts (Bolz-Weber 2012). As one journalist noted, “Part of House’s gift is that it reaches people whom much of the rest of the church, even those trying to be gay-inclusive, never could reach” (Byassee 2011). As another describes her appeal to outsiders, “She’s a tatted-up, foul-mouthed champion to people sick of being belittled as not Christian enough for the right or too Jesus-y for the left” (Boorstein 20013). Bolz-Weber is well aware of House’s Millennial generation base and advises others “Don’t market a product to them like you would to their boomer parents, because they will … resent you…” (Byassee 2011). Gay inclusiveness is particularly emphasized; Bolz-Weber performed a civil union as soon as civil unions became legal in Colorado, and House has “naming rites” for transitioning transgender members (Byassee 2013; Tippett 2013).

The first meeting of what would become the House for All Sinners and Saints took place in Bolz-Weber’s living room with only eight persons in attendance. Five years later, services were drawing over 100 attendees, and weekly attendance continued to grow to around 600. House’s influence extends well beyond the relatively modest worship services, however. Resonating with Millennial generation culture, House reaches out through its website, Facebook, Meetup, a blog, sermons posted on the Sojourner and Patheos websites, and Bolz-Weber’s string of books (2015, 2014, 2013, 2018, 2019). As one member put it, “We live our life online, and lots of outsiders consume and comment on what we do” (Byassee 2011).

House for All Sinners and Saints has received preferential treatment from the ELCA, which elevates the church as a model.. The standard requirement of serving in a traditional parish for three years before leading one’s own church was waived by the denomination. Rather than reduce financial support for newly planted churches, the denomination has continued to support two-thirds of her modest salary. In this regard, Bolz-Weber has commented that “They just recognized it was a calling….They trust me as a theologian and recognize I’m reaching a culture not typically reached” (Draper 2011).

Bolz-Weber herself is an arresting figure and is most readily distinguished by her myriad of tattoos. As Brown (2014) describes her distinctive appearance:

It’s not just the four-inch oval belt buckle she wears, with an enamelled icon in the middle of it, and the words: “Jesus loves you” etched around the top. Her left arm is almost like a cathedral window, covered in scenes from the Bible. There’s a creation, surprisingly small; a nativity; Jesus in the desert; the raising of Lazarus; the angel at the empty tomb; and Mary and the disciples at Pentecost. She is having the Annunciation tattooed all over her back.

On her forearms, Bolz-Weber displays “tattoos of Mary Magdalene, Lazarus, and an image of the women who stayed with Jesus during the crucifixion—unlike the disciples, who were conspicuously absent.” Asked about the women, Bolz-Weber replied “They’re the only ones who fucking showed up” (Griswold 2019). Bolz-Weber herself focuses on the religious significance of the tattoos: “In a way, my arms are like the stained glass in a medieval cathedral. They are pedagogical” (Brady 2013).

During her tenure as pastor, Bolz-Weber sought to flatten the church structure and create a participatory, interactive atmosphere. She downplayed her own authority, describing it as a constraint on herself rather than a source of power over others. “It’s not that I’m special, I’m just set apart not to have the same freedom as everyone else,” she says. “I’m not free to flirt with people here, to have my emotional needs be met by people here, I’m not free to preach anything else but Christ and him crucified” (Byassee 2011).

In July 2018 Bola-Weber announced her resignation as House pastor and plans to continue lecturing and writing. Upon her announcement she stated that

I am not leaving to take another job. I am not leaving because of any reason other than the fact that it is my job as the founder to do so and I think it’s the right time. I am leaving simply because my work here is done. I told Pastor Reagan this week that if he weren’t so damn good at being the pastor of this church I’d stay longer, so really it’s partly his fault (Cachero 2018)

ISSUES/CHALLENGES

While Bolz-Weber is often described as a Lutheran “rock star,” she has her share of detractors. She is accused of self-promotion (Graham 2013):

So, to borrow from Reverend Nadia’s vernacular, this is bull excrement.This woman is all about the marketing and the calculated coolness, from the pop-culture and NPR references down to the tattoos and the cursing. You don’t get to boast you have “no outreach strategy” when you have a book, an Amazon video, a church tour, and interviews with several Washington Post writers you had at “Hello, you little s–t.”

And she is accused of theological and moral deficiency:

… there are problems with Rev. Bolz-Weber, big problems. The problems I’m referring to rest in two areas, her teaching/theology, which is non-Biblical in many important areas, and moral issues that she seems to take pride in and actively flaunts (“Exposing Nadia Bolz-Weber 2013).

Bolz-Weber has created a challenge for House by taking positions that have raised concerns with both progressive Christians on the left and evangelical Christians on the right. For example, she experimented with Unitarianism but rejected the church, stating that they have “a high opinion of humans” while in reality “People are flawed” (Tippett 2013). She accuses progressives of turning church into simply a nonprofit organization (Boorstein 2013). To conservatives she admonishes that church isn’t supposed to be “’the Elks Club with the Eucharist’…. Religion should be “something that’s so devastatingly beautiful it can break your heart. Instead it’s been: ‘Recycle.’ And ‘Don’t sleep with your girlfriend’” (Boorstein 20013). And she refers to reading the Bible literally as “reading idolatry.”

The most recent controversy surrounding House comes directly from Bolz-Webers call for a Sexual Reformation in Shameless (2019). One target of her writing has been “purity culture. In Bolz-Weber’s words, “Purity culture equals rape culture,”…“It says to young women that your bodies aren’t your own and you can’t be a sexual being until you are the property of your future husband” (Griswold 2019). Bolz-Weber launched a campaign against purity rings, inviting young women to send her the gold rings, which she promised to melt down and recast (with Artist Nancy Anderson) into a “golden vagina” sculpture (Kuruvilla 2018). Those donating rings were promised a “Certificate of Impurity.” From Bolz-Weber’s perspective the purity rings combine the worst of capitalism with the worst of conservative secular culture, marketing virginity as a fusion between religion and patriarchy (Griswold 2019). Bolz-Weber generated even more visibility for her position when she confronted Vice-President Mike Pence over his defense of his wife’s acceptance of a teaching position at a conservative Christian school that formally prohibited  homosexual behavior. She tweeted in response that “We will stop criticizing it when you stop using Christ’s name for education that promotes bigotry” (Griswold 2019).

In the end, the greatest challenge facing House may be its growing popularity. As the church and Bolz-Weber have received national publicity, church services have drawn growing numbers of mainstream individuals. The combination of larger gatherings and a more conventional congregation challenges active individual participation and congregational cohesion. Bolz-Weber is acutely aware of this challenge and has addressed it directly ( Bolz-Weber 2012) :

I know that there are some who have been part of this church for awhile who are feeling a sense of loss around the growth. There was a greater sense of intimacy and community before we grew. Also…there was never a line at the prayer station. But there was also far less diversity. I want to honor the real feeling of loss they are experiencing, but at the same time I want to be clear about something: this is not our church. This is a gift God has given us. This church is here as a gift from God for us and for us to share so that others can also receive what we have been enriched by. Two years ago someone asked me what was the biggest issue facing my congregation. The fact that everyone involved likes it just the way it is was my answer.

Clearly, House is a work in progress and the ultimate outcome of its innovation and experimentation remains to be determined. At least part of the answer may become apparent in the wake of Bolz-Weber’s resignation as pastor.

REFERENCES

Bolz-Weber, Nadia. 2015. Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People. New York: Convergent Books.

Bolz-Weber, Nadia. 2014. Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint. Nashville, TN: Jericho Books.

Bolz-Weber, Nadia. 2013. Cranky, Beautiful Faith: For Irregular (and Regular) People. Norwich, United Kingdom: Canterbury Press.

Bolz-Weber. 2012. Whose Church Is This? Mine, Yours, Theirs, or God’s? Accessed from http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2012/01/goldilocks-church-what-size-is-just-right/ on 3 July 2015.

Bolz-Weber. 2012. “Mural of the Last Supper by House for All Sinners and Saints.” Accessed from http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber on 3 July 2015.

Bolz-Weber. Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 Hours of Christian Television. New York: Seabury Books.

Boorstein, Michelle. 2013. “Bolz-Weber’s liberal, Foulmouthed Articulation of Christianity Speak to Fed-up Believers.” The Washington Post, November 3. Accessed from http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/bolz-webers-liberal-foulmouthed-articulation-of-christianity-speaks-to-fed-up-believers/2013/11/03/7139dc24-3cd3-11e3-a94f-b58017bfee6c_story.html on 29 June 2015.

Brady, Tara. 2013. “’I Swear Like a Truck Driver’: Tattooed Female Weightlifter Who Boozed and Took Drugs Becomes Rising Star of the Lutheran Church.” Daily Mail, November 5. Accessed from
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2487631/Tattooed-female-weightlifter-Nadia-Bolz-Weber-hit-Lutheran-minister.html#ixzz3eYC58QPh on 30 June 2015.

Brown, Andrew. 2014. “Tall, Tattooed and Forthright, Can Nadia Bolz-Weber Save Evangelicism?” The Guardian, September 6. Accessed from http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/06/tattooed-nadia-bolz-weber-save-evangelism-christianity on 30 June 2015.

Byassee, Jason. 2011. “ Ancient Liturgy for Scruffy Hipsters with Smartphones: A profile of Nadia Bolz-Weber and House for All Sinners and Saints. ” New Media Project at Christian Theological Seminary, October 18. Accessed from http://www.cpx.cts.edu/docs/default-source/nmp-documents/ancient-liturgy-for-scruffy-hipsters-with-smartphones-a-profile-of-nadia-bolz-weber-and-house-for-all-sinners-and-saints.pdf?sfvrsn=0 on 29 June 2015.

Cachero, Paulina. 2018. “Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber To Exit Church After “Epic Dance Party With Red Velvet Cake.” Maker.com, July 3. Accessed from https://www.makers.com/blog/pastor-nadia-bolz-weber-exits-church-with-epic-dance-party on 15 February 2018.

Draper, Electa. 2011. “ Pastor Turns Heads by Blending Tradition and Irreverence. ” The Denver Post, April 23. Accessed from http://www.denverpost.com/ci_17912633 on 29 June 2015

“Exposing Nadia Bolz-Weber.” 2013. Accessed from http://www.exposingtheelca.com/exposed-blog/exposing-nadia-bolz-weber on 3 July 2015.

Gingerich, Barton. 2013. “Lutheran Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber Cuts Through Some of the Ways in which We’ve Made Christianity Too Comfortable.” Pray, November 21. Accessed from http://humanepursuits.com/a-cranky-god/ on 3 July 2015.

Graham, Tim. 2013. “WashPost Rinses and Repeats Praise for Tattooed Pastor And Her ‘Bull Excrement’ Gospel.” Newsbusters, November 17. Accessed from http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2013/11/17/washpost-rinses-and-repeats-praise-tattooed-pastor-and-her-bull-excremen on 3 July 2015.

Griswold, Eliza. 2019. “The Lutheran Pastor Calling for a Sexual Reformation.” New Yorker, February 8. Accessed from https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/the-lutheran-pastor-calling-for-a-sexual-reformation  on 15 February 2019.

House for All Sinners and Saints Website. n.d. Accessed from http://www.houseforall.org on 29 June 2015.

Kuruvilla, Carol. 2018. “This Pastor Is Melting Purity Rings Into A Golden Vagina Sculpture.” Huffington Post, November 28. Accessed from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nadia-bolz-weber-purity-ring-vagina-sculpture_us_5bfdac5ee4b0a46950dce000 on 15 February 2019.

Nadia Bolz-Weber Website. n.d. Accessed from http://www.nadiabolzweber.com on 29 June 2015.

Tippett, Krista. 2013. “Transcript for Nadia Bolz-Weber – Seeing the Underside and Seeing God: Tattoos, Tradition, and Grace.” On Being, September 5. Accessed from http://www.onbeing.org/program/transcript/nadia-bolz-weber-seeing-the-underside-and-seeing-god-tattoos-tradition-and-grace on 29 June 2015.

Verlee, Megan. 2013. “Pastor Leads A New Brand of Church for ‘Sinners and Saints’.” NPR, December 24. Accessed from http://www.npr.org/2013/12/20/255281434/pastor-leads-a-new-brand-of-church-for-sinners-and-saints on 29 June 2015 .

Vicari, Chelsen. 2013. “ Meet the New “Punk” Powerhouse of the Emergent Movement.” Juicy Ecumenism, November 7. Accessed from http://juicyecumenism.com/2013/11/07/meet-liberal-evangelicals-rising-star/ on 3 July 2015.

Publication Date:
10 July 2015