We are all Hindus now (from Newsweek)

America is not a Christian nation. We are, it is true, a nation founded by
Christians [and Deists], and according to a 2008 survey, 76 percent of us continue to
identify as Christian (still, that’s the lowest percentage in American
history). Of course, we are not a Hindu — or Muslim, or Jewish, or
Wiccan — nation, either. A million-plus Hindus live in the United States, a
fraction of the billion who live on Earth. But recent poll data show that
conceptually, at least, we are slowly becoming more like Hindus and less
like traditional Christians in the ways we think about God, our selves, each
other, and eternity.

The Rig Veda, the most ancient Hindu scripture, says this: “Truth is One,
but the sages speak of it by many names.”

A Hindu believes there are many
paths to God. Jesus is one way, the Qur’an is another, yoga practice is a
third. None is better than any other; all are equal. The most traditional,
conservative Christians have not been taught to think like this. They learn
in Sunday school that their religion is true, and others are false. Jesus
said,

 “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father
except through me.”

Americans are no longer buying it. According to a 2008 Pew Forum survey, 65
percent of us believe that “many religions can lead to eternal
life”–including 37 percent of white evangelicals, the group most likely to
believe that salvation is theirs alone. Also, the number of people who seek
spiritual truth outside church is growing. Thirty percent of Americans call
themselves “spiritual, not religious,” according to a 2009 NEWSWEEK Poll, up
from 24 percent in 2005.

Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston
University, has long framed the American propensity for “the
divine-deli-cafeteria religion” as

“very much in the spirit of Hinduism.
You’re not picking and choosing from different religions, because they’re
all the same…. It isn’t about orthodoxy. It’s about whatever
works. If going to yoga works, great–and if going to Catholic mass works,
great. And if going to Catholic mass plus the yoga plus the Buddhist retreat
works, that’s great, too.”

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