From Hinduism to Christianity

Darrell Bock:

Welcome to Table. We discuss issues of God and culture. I'm Darrell Bock, Executive Director for Cultural Engagement and Senior Research Professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. My guest today is Kamesh Sankaran. I don't even know if I pronounced that right, so hopefully we came close. Close enough, huh? Okay. He is Professor of Physics and Engineering at Whitworth College and also teaches in the worldview studies program there and is Chairman of the Board of Partners International. But our topic today is about a conversion from Hinduism into Christianity. And so we're going to walk through Kamesh's life and just talk to him about his life experience and what he can tell us about Hinduism on the one hand and his Christian walk on the other. I think we're in for a fascinating time together. So, welcome, Kamesh to the Table.

Kamesh Sankaran:

Thank you. It's a real joy to be a part of this conversation.

Darrell Bock:

What Kamesh reminded me of and this probably says something about my age is that we last crossed paths about 20 years ago when he was a student at Princeton in an evangelical ministry, college campus ministry, at Princeton. So, he said it's been 20 years since we last crossed paths, which is amazing. I actually can remember back 20 years. And so it's great to get reconnected. Kamesh, let's start at the beginning. Your life. You grew up in India. Talk a little bit about the environment that you grew up in and a little bit about the home that you came from.

Kamesh Sankaran:

Well, thank you for asking. I grew up in a very supportive, caring home in a mid-sized town about two hours from a big city. Now called Chennai. I grew up in a very traditional home. Very conservative in its values and very staunchly Hindu in its worldview and practice. So, grew up in a home and in a hometown where Hinduism was everything. It was in the air that you breathed and in the soil in which everything grew. Hinduism was very much the atmosphere in which I grew up. I grew up in a very, but practicing Hindu. Most Hindus today, especially when we see Indian American Hindus, Hinduism is more of a cultural factor than a religious commitment, but I actually grew up in a very committed religious home and that was my background. That's where I lived until I finished high school.

Darrell Bock:

Let's talk a little bit about that background. When you distinguish between Hinduism as a religion and Hinduism as a culture. Because that is going to be an important distinction for anyone here in the United States who might come across someone from a Hindi background. What is the difference? What does a Hindu religious person look like versus the Hindu cultural person look like?

Kamesh Sankaran:

So, perhaps, a distinction between will be broadly classified as a Judeo-Christian worldview, or if you throw in Islam into that as well. These are canonical religions, where you have a canon of scripture and your religious faith and practice are shaped, or at the very least evaluated on the basis of a canon of scripture. Hinduism does not have a canon of scripture, so that by itself tells you that this is not something in which there's a clear, common structural foundation on which you evaluate this. Moreover, whatever fundamental, or I should say important text and scriptures there may be in Hinduism, 99% of practicing Hindus have never read any of them. So, what does it mean for someone to be a Hindu when 99% of them who call themselves Hindu have never read any text and, even more fundamentally, those texts aren't canonical. That's because Hinduism is much more of a culture rather than a creed. Of course, it is a religion, but it's more of a cultural force than a creedal religion. That can be a difficult idea for someone who grew up in a Judeo-Christian worldview to grasp. So, that's really important. For most Hindus, they're not thinking about the religion in terms of creeds and doctrines and evaluating is this right or is this wrong. That's not the way to think about it. It's just the culture in which their lives are formed and that's the way they go through looking at the world. That distinction is very significant.

Darrell Bock:

Okay, so, having noted that, which means I guess, and maybe having a little fun here, but sometimes we talk in Christianity about people being Biblically illiterate. There's no such thing as being Hindi illiterate in that sense. Is that right?

Kamesh Sankaran:

Well, that's right. Because it's not even expected to be a part of, you don't need to be, say, Veda literate or. So, the idea of what we talk about in Christian life of biblical literacy as being essential to a Christian walk, the idea of, say, Vedic literacy as a part of Hindu life. That concept doesn't exist in Hinduism.

Darrell Bock:

That's fascinating. Now, let me ask you one more question about this. The religious Hindu and the cultural Hindu. Is there not that much difference than observance in the depth of orientation to these writings or what? What makes for the difference?

Kamesh Sankaran:

Hinduism doesn't care a whole lot about what you believe, per se. It only cares about how you live and function in a society. And so the, I suppose the real distinction that they would make would be in terms of the strictness to which you adhere to its prescription of life, not so much to your belief. Belief is, in some ways, irrelevant because belief requires some evaluation of some non-negotiable fundamentals in terms of doctrine. They don't exist in Hinduism and so you rarely have debates about theology and doctrine. It's more about functional lifestyle commitments.

Darrell Bock:

That's actually where I was going next, which is, if you're going to talk about living in relationship to your function, et cetera, what kinds of values are being put forward as kind of marking out what it means to live in the context of Hinduism?

Kamesh Sankaran:

In that case, and that's really where the cultural power of Hinduism comes in, there is a broad ethic of how to go about life in Hinduism. There are, of course, many layers of worldviews beneath it, but most practicing Hindus don't think about any of them. And so when we talk about things even in our Western culture when we talk about things like karma and dharma, there's so much of theology loaded, buried underneath it, but Hinduism talks about life and going through a base on certain prescriptions of how you approach life in family relations, in your workplace, in your broader relationship with society, and those are the things that matter in Hinduism. It's also important to note that there isn't a single code of ethics for an entire society. The code of ethics varies based on what strata of society you're in. And so those are some of the criteria by which people are how should I say segmented based on their cultural or observant Hindus.

Darrell Bock:

So, these layers, and I take it this is where the caste system and things like that come in. That's probably distinctive in relationship to seeing society vis a vis, say, the way a Western culture might view people and that kind of thing. There's not an inherent. I'll say it this way. You can correct me. There's not an inherent equality between people in the structure of the society and that needs to be, people need to stay aware of that as they engage with each other. Is that a fair summary?

Kamesh Sankaran:

You're actually getting to the heart of the matter here. From a Judeo-Christian worldview, even one as practicing Christian or not, we function in a society in which we have been shaped by the Judeo-Christian teaching of every human is created in the image of God and that our underlying value comes from being in His image. And then, as Christians, as those who are redeemed by Christ, we are adopted into his family so that highlights our value as human beings. However, that assumption cannot be made when you're functioning in a Hindu culture because your underlying value and identity is not the same. That's where the ontology of human beings in Hinduism is different. Because the basic assumption of Hinduism is that we are all living in a maya, loosely speaking, illusion, and that everyone is trying to get out of this maya and escape this trap of what Hinduism teaches is an illusion of a physical world. There are different calibers of human beings in terms of how detached they are from this maya. And so there is a categorical difference between those who are in the upper caste or middle versus the lower caste in that some are simply more removed from the trap of maya, according to Hinduism, and some are more trapped in the maya. So, there is a fundamental distinction and, therefore, there isn't that equality that we see in a Judeo-Christian worldview.

Darrell Bock:

So, the ability to move from, say, one strata of life to another is, let's say, made more challenging in a Hindu context.

Kamesh Sankaran:

Absolutely. And it's not merely a socio-political matter. It's also a religious matter.

Darrell Bock:

Interesting. I'm trying to think if there's anything else I want to ask about it. Well, let me ask one other question because I'm sure you're aware of this. Of course, one of the things that's going on right now in India is India has kind of reasserted its Hindi roots. Talk about the implications of that for Christians who are in India and what that has been. I mean, I know it means travel into India for people who are Christians trying to do Christian work has become more challenging. That's one thing that I know has happened. What else is happening within the country?

Kamesh Sankaran:

Let's first establish something. That the current policies of Hindu nationalist party that make life difficult for Christians is not an accident in that it is tied to their theology, which informs how they enact socio-political practices. So, the reason why the Hindu nationalist party is so determined to weed out any Christian activity is going back to what we were talking earlier about. The Hindu prescription of a way of life in society. Hinduism prescribes a specific way in which society ought to be structured and we touched on the caste system. The caste system is not merely a vertical hierarchy. It's also a horizontal hierarchy and segregation as well. In other words, Hinduism prescribes a very establishmentarian structuring of society, where every person has a slot on the grid from the moment that they born and you don't have the freedom to take yourself in or out of that slot to which you were assigned when you were born based on your karma from your previous life, in Hinduism. Imagine trying to construct a society like this house of cards and then somebody comes to Christ and sees the freedom that he or she has in Christ and decides that, you know what? I'm not going to choose to remain in this little slot that the Hindu society has assigned to me, so I'm going to pull myself out. Well, then this whole house of cards is going to collapse. You have to, in that worldview, enforce a specific structuring of society in which nobody has the freedom to escape from it because if one person chooses to escape from it, the whole house of cards can collapse.

Darrell Bock:

It's like pulling a string on cloth and the cloth will come apart if you pull enough strings.

Kamesh Sankaran:

Exactly. It ruins the fabric of society. And-

Darrell Bock:

Go ahead. I'm sorry.

Kamesh Sankaran:

And that drives the Hindu nationalist party to then ensure that we don't want Christians coming and giving people this freedom. That is actually part of the motivation and what that means is that the policies that are enacted are targeted towards two fronts. One is, of course, towards any what they see as a foreign influence on religious activity in India, which they see as fundamental threat to the very fabric of society, but also to Christians within the country who, in the deepest worldview commitment, these people have all betrayed your society anyway. So, the only question is how do you deal with someone that you consider has already betrayed your society? To some extent, try to bring them back into the fold? The re-conversions? Or, just to make their life miserable enough that they don't play any significant part? So, some combination thereof.

Darrell Bock:

Of course, what we're saying about Christianity is also true of Islam and other religions that are in the area as well.

Kamesh Sankaran:

Absolutely. And, perhaps, their bigger concern is with Islam, but Islam and the Christian faith fall under the same category as foreign influences in that worldview.

Darrell Bock:

This will be last question on India, and it's probably a little bit dangerous to generalize, but my sense is from what little I know about India is that the Christian presence in the country is largely in the southernmost regions of the country and that, as you move north, the religious makeup of the country changes. Is that a right reading?

Kamesh Sankaran:

That's a generally correct trend. Perhaps an exception will be in the northeastern parts of India in places like Nagaland and so forth. There's a very strong Christian presence in the northeastern parts closer to China. In that region, there's a strong Christian presence, but in the rest of the mainland, that pattern is correct. That there's a stronger Christian presence in the south and not as much in the north.

Darrell Bock:

And then my other understanding and I said the last question was the last question, but I guess I've lied now. Anyway. My understanding is that one of the things that was happening in India was that because of the message of the Gospel and the way in which it was penetrating particularly the lower castes in India and it was making a penetration within the lower castes that this was viewed as a disruptive element. Is that the Nagaland portion of what we're talking about or was Nagaland already somewhat Christian before then?

Kamesh Sankaran:

The general observation which you made is absolutely correct. We see this from the Gospels. Christ was always more appealing to the downtrodden, who did not have much of a social standing, and those that had social standing that they were trying to protect were generally the ones who were opposing Christ. Of course, there are variations, but the pattern is there. That pattern has been true when the Gospel came to India as well. Those that were at the bottom of the barrel in the hierarchy of Hinduism did find the Gospel more appealing in that it gave them a value and a worth and the dignity in the eyes of God that they didn't realize that they had in the Hindu worldview. The pattern in Nagaland, I should speak with some caution in that I have not looked into that carefully. The appeal was much more broader. You have a much larger fraction of the population in certain parts of India in the northeast that responded to the Gospel. Unlike in the rest of the country, it was predominantly those in the lower strata of the Hindu stratification that responded to the Gospel.

Darrell Bock:

Interesting. Okay, so that's helpful. I think it's important as our world becomes more polaristic and the neighbors that we have are constantly in flux, if I can say it that way, because of the way people are moving around these days, for people to understand if they come across someone of a Hindi background, what the mindset might be as they interact with them. So, I really appreciate you taking the time to walk us through this. Let's talk about, you moved from India and I take it you came to the United States for educational purposes.

Kamesh Sankaran:

I did.

Darrell Bock:

Most people don't think of physics as the way into the church, so how did that work?

Kamesh Sankaran:

I was in undergrad in a small school in Chicago and then I went to Princeton, where I did my master's and Ph.D. Until that point, I was very much a practicing Hindu. And, yes, it was my research lab in plasma propulsion for spacecraft that was the platform setting in which Christ drew me into himself. I had a dear friend who was a fellow researcher looking at plasma propulsion systems for spacecraft and we spent most of the day, from the waking moment to the time we went to bed together, working 14 hours a day together. He was a committed Christian and I was a committed Hindu at that time. We just lived life together, so to speak, and the topic of religion would come up as a part of day in and day out conversations because he was fairly open about his Christian faith. I was a student of world religions and I thought I knew something about Christianity because I had had culturally Christian friends all my life. So, I thought I knew a few things about Christianity, but this guy was different. He apparently really believed that stuff. There was one day we were having dinner and there was a conversation. The cross of Christ came up and he actually explained what, it must have struck him that I didn't quite get what the cross was about and he explained to me that Christ bore our sins on the cross to reconcile us to God. And I had never heard that before. I had known Christians all my life and I've participated in some loose Christian cultural activities. I had never heard that before and it was startling that how come I had never heard that before, but it was also offensive because I was a very self-righteous, pharisaical Hindu who dotted all the I's and crossed all the T's. I tell people that most people, when they think about their pre-Christian life, they think about the younger brother in the so-called prodigal son story, but I was the older brother who was so confident in his own self-righteousness. His message that the cross of Christ bearing my sins at the cross, our sins at the cross, because we couldn't reconcile ourselves to God. That was actually offensive. I said, wait. Okay, maybe other people are so bad, but I am not so bad. So, that led to a long journey of wanting to actually read. Well, first, it was an academic curiosity. I said, wait. What this guy is saying is not anything that I've heard before. I started reading the Bible and it was a long process of grappling with what the claims about God's nature, my nature, and the relationship between me and God as the Bible was saying and what I had believed. They were not all compatible.

Darrell Bock:

In thinking about that, thinking about where you were as a Hindu believer, I take it that what you saw yourself as you were functioning the way you were supposed to be functioning and doing the things you ought to be doing, et cetera. You were giving it your best shot, if I can say it that way-

Kamesh Sankaran:

Yep.

Darrell Bock:

And so the idea that somehow you could come up short and have a need was just completely off the wall.

Kamesh Sankaran:

Absolutely. That's exactly right. And not just that. That the need was so great that no matter how hard I tried, I could never meet that. That was an idea that I'd never considered and it was a bit offensive in that, whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you saying that I'm so bad that I can never fix my own problems? My friend said, "Yeah."

Darrell Bock:

Gee, thanks. Oh, wow. So, you went through this process, and I've read your story, which you summarized in a Christianity Today piece earlier this year. What brought you to your knees, if I can say it that way, were a series of events in your life. This is actually very similar to my older brother's story, who came to the Lord in his 50s. When he was in his 20s, he was on a list, least likely to come to Christ, as far as my wife and I were concerned and we prayed for him for years. We thought he would never come. That he was as far as away as you could get. And then he went through a series of personal crises and his life and it opened up and began to see the world differently. I take it your story is similar to that in terms of the kind of journey that you had. God really went to work in the circumstances of your life to show you the need for the Gospel.

Kamesh Sankaran:

Absolutely. The recognition that we can try to intellectualize it and keep it at arm's length as much as want, but when it gets to be personal sometimes I wondered to what extent Satan's accusation against Job, but actually touching his life and see how he responds. There's something about academia in particular. We like to play around with ideas because there's no real stake, we think, to those ideas, but when things hit personal life and relationships, that's when you realize that, wait, these things are significant. I really had to wrestle with if this is true or not.

Darrell Bock:

So, you went through another interesting thing in your story that fascinates me. And yours is not the first that I've heard where someone goes through this. Your curiosity about Christianity came in part from the culture you were seeing in movies and that kind of, your exposure to your perception of what Christianity was. Yours is, like I say, not the first testimony I've heard from someone who's not in a predominately Christian country. That this is kind of another way in that God initially uses, which may strike people who have been immersed in a Christian culture as strange. So, talk about that a little bit.

Kamesh Sankaran:

The reality is that most practicing Hindus who, say, live in India, but not just those who live in India but those who live in the US or who have lived in the US for a long time. What they think of as Christianity is what most of us professing believers would actually not want associated with Christianity.

Darrell Bock:

Fair enough.

Kamesh Sankaran:

Things that are communicated through the broader culture of movies and everything else. That's what's considered to be Christianity. So, it is a true statement that most Hindus and, by the way, as you said it, this is true of many of those who live outside of the US. Most that live in the Middle East, most that live in India, and those that come from Islamic or Hindu backgrounds who still live in the US. Their view of Christianity is popular culture. And that is not a good view. In fact, within the church, we have often wondered about, gee, do Christians come across as bigoted, all of these things? Well, if you come from a Hindu or Muslim background, and especially from those parts of the world, you actually have a very low view of Christian morality.

Darrell Bock:

Because West equals Christian.

Kamesh Sankaran:

And whatever is popular Western culture, that's Christianity.

Darrell Bock:

Interesting. I'm going to make an analogy. I'd like to get your reaction to this. And that is I guess the portrait of Christianity in popular culture is to Christianity what Bollywood might be to Indian culture. Is that-

Kamesh Sankaran:

Oh, that's correct. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It's not an authentic portrayal, but that's what's seen.

Darrell Bock:

Yeah, exactly. That's done for the benefit of some of those who may know what Bollywood is. But anyway, still, it's we used to do movie I'll just say this much so that you have background. We used to do movie nights with our kids when they were younger and some of our favorite movies that we enjoyed because of the music and just the feel of the movie were Bollywood movies. So, every now and again, we'd have a Bollywood night at the house and have friends over and talk about it. It was one of our ways of trying to get, probably not understand a culture, but get a feel for cultural differences and that kind of thing that do exist. So, that's the background for that remark. Let's turn our attention. So, you came to the Lord. I take it you were obviously nurtured in a good church environment, et cetera, and deepened your experience. And then you moved on. Again, your life has such interesting turns in it. Because I don't think. Again, I don't think of a professor of physics as necessarily being connected to Partners International. Connect that dot for us.

Kamesh Sankaran:

Part of my discipleship in the faith and, incidentally, one of your former students was to get involved after I was put through two and a half years of mentoring and discipleship and walking my way through God's word and Christian thinking and life was serving the church in various roles. Part of it was in small group settings, leading Bible studies and small groups to fellow students at Princeton, but part of it was in the church. Especially in missions. I was grateful to be part of a church that took the Great Commission with utmost seriousness. I was a part of the team that of the missions team and I was very grateful to have been exposed to significant trends in world missions through that. As committed and as involved as I was in it, there was something in the back of my mind that was like, but there's a gap here. Just to put some perspective, the Great Commission is a command for every believer. No follower of Christ is exempt from the call to go and make disciples. But it also means that it is just as much as a command for the believers in each of those places, in India, in Iraq, in Algeria, as it is for the believers here. So, that was the first part that was, even though I took God's word seriously and following it very seriously, I wasn't raised in the Christian culture in the US and that's where part of that disconnect came. I said, well, this is the last command that the Lord gave to his disciples before his ascension, so I must take this at utmost seriousness. But then I'm looking at him and saying, but this is true for every believer. For the believer in India and for the believer In Iraq as much as it is for the believer in the US. So, what are we doing about the believers in India and Iraq and every other place to follow through, to live up to their calling on this? That was one of the questions that was just nagging me in the back of my head, but didn’t have a way to address it. But in the meantime, there was this other part of my calling and there was working in a campus ministry setting. So, God opened the door for me to come and be a professor here, using my Ph.D. and my professional training, and using that as a setting for mentoring and discipling college students. But when I came here, in my very first week, I was introduced to this ministry that I had never heard of before. Partners International. I found out that it dates all the way back to 1943. World War II in China. So, when I heard that, since 1943, this ministry has been empowering indigenous ministries to build the church in these least reached places, Wow. This is what I've been percolating in the back of my mind. I just never knew that an organization like this existed. So, in 2004, I got involved with it and, eventually, I joined the board of directors.

Darrell Bock:

Well, it's a fascinating story and Partners International then, as you said, really is designed to encourage the development of the church from within the context and cultures where those churches reside and to help equip them to do that. Is that basically what it does?

Kamesh Sankaran:

Absolutely. Exactly.

Darrell Bock:

How many countries is Partners International involved with?

Kamesh Sankaran:

Approximately 40 countries and all in the least reached, least Christian, regions of the world.

Darrell Bock:

So, much of the 10/40 window, for example, and that kind of thing.

Kamesh Sankaran:

Well, it is. And since you brought up the term 10/40 window. The term was coined by the former president of Partners International, Luis Bush, as he was trying to define the regions where we work. Yes. So, North Africa, Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.

Darrell Bock:

Luis is another good friend, so we have lots of connections. Well, great. This has been a fascinating journey. So, as you look at your encouragement in Partners International. There are actually two aspects to your life that are fascinating. One is the fact that even though you have a science background vocationally, you are very engaged with the church. And then the second part is that your role on a campus. You just alluded to mentoring students and coming alongside them going through, which I take it is an attempt to do for others what was done for you, if I can say it that way, when you went through college.

Kamesh Sankaran:

Amen. I could not have said it better. My life was transformed by the investment my campus ministry in my life, but also there were some faculty members who were very involved in the campus ministry and their investment in my life was just had a dramatic impact on me. There's no way I could've received all of those things and not given. That just didn't seem right.

Darrell Bock:

Interesting. And so you've been at Whitworth, really, the whole of your professional career. Is that right?

Kamesh Sankaran:

Yes.

Darrell Bock:

I'm curious. This has nothing to do with the podcast, really, but it's just a curious question. What actually do you teach? What do you spend your time talking to students about?

Kamesh Sankaran:

The job for which I'm getting paid. Two-thirds of it is teaching physics and engineering. Given my background in aerospace engineering and plasma physics, that's what I teach. That's two-thirds. The other one third, I head the senior capstone of the worldview studies program that every student takes to graduate. I bring together a team of about a dozen faculty members from different disciplines to examine what are the policies that exist in education and in economics and sociology and to really lift the hood and examine some of the underlying worldviews behind that.

Darrell Bock:

Interesting. So, I take it Whitworth College has a liberal arts DNA, if I can say it that way?

Kamesh Sankaran:

That's correct.

Darrell Bock:

And this is the course that's designed to help students put all the pieces together.

Kamesh Sankaran:

That's right. It's the liberal arts backbone of the institution. This worldview studies program.

Darrell Bock:

Interesting. And then physics, you're just teaching people how to design stuff that can fly. Is that basically a simple way to say it?

Kamesh Sankaran:

I joke with my students that, at the end of the day, it all comes down to rockets.

Darrell Bock:

There you go. Well, this has been fascinating, Kamesh. I really appreciate you taking the time to interact with us and to talk with us about your life and background. It's a fascinating story and we really appreciate the insight that you gave us with regard to the Hindu approach to life and lifestyle and the situation in India as well as the way in which God has worked marvelously, obviously, in your life to bring you to himself. And now you're very much committed to reflecting what God has done in your life with others, which is such a wonderful model for how to live.

Kamesh Sankaran:

Thank you. Praise be to God.

Darrell Bock:

And so, again, I thank you for your time and your interest and I thank those of you who are watching with The Table. We're glad that you're with us and hope you can be with us again. I'll just remind you that if you're interested in other episodes of The Table Podcast, you can find them at voice.dts.edu/tablepodcast. There's a subscribe button you can get there automatically and, that way, you can hear us. We release once a week and we really appreciate you being a part of the Table and hope you'll join us again soon.

Kamesh Sankaran:

Thank you.

Darrell Bock:

Thank you.