Category: Articles

We are all familiar with the reverence Mahatma Gandhi gave not only to Christ, but to the great religious figures belonging to each and every religion. But the way he describes the relationship between such great teachers and their followers is worth noticing. Whenever I hear someone say, “I received Christ” or “I accepted Christ”,…

I had read some material about Partition before, but recently, while reading the actual words of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Rahmat Ali, I found myself thinking about something beyond the political history of Pakistan. Their words made me ask a more fundamental question: How much of human social life can religion actually carry? As an…

The One Who Is Lost—and the Good Shepherd Who Seeks Kenneth E. Bailey is one of the writers whose works have helped me greatly in reading and understanding the Bible. I have read most of his books, and therefore what follows is not an attack on Bailey. It is simply a question that arose in…

Either exaggerated vilification of India or exaggerated praise I had never heard of Katherine Mayo or of her book Mother India before coming across Mahatma Gandhi’s response to it. That itself made me reflect on how works written with strong prejudices can, over time, lose the influence they once possessed. Gandhi’s response, however, is more…

I have a simple question that arose when I began reading scholarly discussions about karma and the problem of theodicy: Can karma really be called the Hindu answer to the problem of theodicy? I ask this as a layman, not as a specialist in theology or Hindu philosophy. For most of my life as a…

When Paul Called Gentiles “Sinners”: An Uncomfortable Word in Galatians There is a small phrase in Paul’s Letter to the Galatians that has troubled me more and more the longer I reflect on it: “We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners.”—Galatians 2:15 The difficulty is not simply the word sinners. Nor is…

When I read Alf Hiltebeitel saying, “But the term ṛṣidharma was a surprise to me, as I had never even considered that there was such a thing,” I had to smile. Not because I found anything wrong with what he said. Far from it. He was a serious scholar who spent years studying dharma, and…

Saviour Mentality Joseph Mattam, writing about Abbé Jules Monchanin and his relationship with India, says that Monchanin “made a vow to devote himself fully to the salvation of India.” [1] The statement can easily be read in two ways. On the one hand, it expresses extraordinary dedication. A man was prepared to devote his life…

Author’s note To understand this conclusion, it is best to read the following three-part humorous series. The conclusion is presented first because it brings the three articles together. Part One: Easy to Send Someone to Hell Easy to Send Someone to Hell Facebook post Part Two: Which Hell Won? There Was No NOTA Facebook post…

This is a completely imagined interfaith dialogue in which a few ordinary people are also allowed to participate. At the end, the audience is invited to ask questions, which the theologians agree to answer. After listening to a long discussion about which faith is superior and which one offers authentic salvation, one member of the…