By Shafer Parker

A funny thing is happening in the run-up to the next American presidential election. A first-generation American Hindu named Vivek Ramaswamy—his parents are from India—is making a serious run to be nominated as the Republican presidential candidate. How serious? Well, according to the polling averages provided by RealClear Politics, this wealthy, but relatively unknown entrepreneur is polling just a few points behind former vice-president Mike Pence and less than one point behind Nikki Haley, a two-term governor of South Carolina and ambassador to the United Nations under President Trump. On the other hand, he is streets ahead of Senator Tim Scott, national conservative radio talk-show host Larry Elder, and three state governors who are too far behind to be worth naming. In other words, a growing number of American conservatives are taking Ramaswamy seriously, even though, unlike his fellow aspirants for the nomination, he has never held office or hosted a popular network TV show.

Now, that’s all I want to say about Ramaswamy’s politics, or for that matter, American politics. Faith Beyond Belief is an apologetics ministry and I’m well aware I’m primarily writing to a Canadian audience. Then why, you ask, did I start with Ramaswamy? I’ll tell you. In what follows I want to make a few points about the meaningful differences between the Christian worldview and all other worldviews. Again, why? Because the differences are monumental, and meaningful, not just for those who contemplate national leadership, but also for determining how people will behave in every aspect of life. Ramaswamy figures into this discussion only because his run for the American presidency signals that the world’s non-Christian religions have gained a foothold in North America. Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Atheism, and especially Islam are well entrenched in the landscape, and as Christians we need to think about what that means.

It means words matter. In a largely laudatory article, columnist David D. Begley says of Ramaswamy, “Vivek is not Christian, but he believes in God.” Here’s the problem. Begley’s statement is true, but misleading. It is true enough that Vivek is a Hindu, and therefore not a Christian, but the second part of the statement is troubling. And the fact that Begley left it hanging there without explaining that Ramaswamy is a Hindu demonstrates that he is willing to paper over the radical difference between the Hindu worldview and the Christian worldview. As a Hindu, Vivek may believe in many gods, or one God, or, perhaps, one supreme deity who reigns over many lesser deities. Or he may believe in no God at all. Hinduism presents a smorgasbord of religious ideas from which followers are free to pick and choose according to taste. So, to state without qualification that a Hindu believes in God is at best, misleading.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s stipulate that Ramaswamy believes in one God, an entirely respectable position in the Hindu world. Still, the question remains, what kind of God does he believe in? Unfortunately, the Hindu scriptures (the Vedas) are no help. They are quite philosophical, but where deity is concerned, they contain nothing approaching a concrete description of an actual person.

Nor do Hindus believe that God is approachable, or knowable. Instead, the primary focus is on the correct use of dharma (duties, rights, laws of conduct, virtues, and right way of living) as a means of maintaining one’s karma, thus improving one’s chances of a happier rebirth (reincarnation). And so on, reincarnation, after reincarnation, after reincarnation, until at some point still hidden in the mists of time, the individual ceases to exist, and suffering comes to an end. In such a system, God is a theoretical construct, a philosophical idea, who plays no meaningful role in the individual life.

Moreover, thanks to reincarnation, Hinduism is a religion without judgement, and thus without deadlines or penalties. There is no “Tax Day” by which one must have filed one’s spiritual T4 to avoid trouble with Heaven’s CRA. There is no celestial audit in which the living God Who literally has the receipts for everything, will personally sit down with each one of us to go over the record (Rev. 20:11-15). Nor is there an all powerful, but all loving God who has willingly sent his Son to die for our sins and thereby wipe away the condemnation found in those records (John 3:16; Rev. 20:15).

Logically, the practical outcome of a faith without judgement is spiritual laziness. A Hindu may not prefer the status afforded his current incarnation, but why bother to change anything? Maybe life will be better next time, or if not, the time after that. Because despite the supposed connection between karma and spiritual ascent, there are no precise guidelines, and thus no way of knowing that any work or sacrifice in this life will make a difference in the next.

Christianity is exactly opposite. Everything is about the life you are living now, and how choices made now affect eternity. Read this passage to yourself aloud from Hebrews 9:26-30 and notice how often the word “once” is given prominence. “[Christ] has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgement, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”

The Bible also goes out of its way to emphasise the singular nature of God and everything that has to do with our relationship with Him. “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Eph. 4:4-6). The logical, and appropriate consequence of all this? It means we are called in the here and now to heed God’s call to follow Christ. “Behold, now is the favourable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” II Cor. 6:2). Jesus himself urged people to follow Him without hesitation or delay. Otherwise, he warned, a horrible judgement was already on its way (John 3:18, 36). Of course, because the nature of God is so definite, those who call on His name in repentance and faith, find that He is ready to immediately establish a relationship that will last for eternity. Sometimes being forced to choose is the best thing that can happen to a person, even in matters of faith.

Now back to Ramaswamy. As a Hindu, he may believe in something he calls God, but he can’t tell you what it is. It may be nothing, or it may be demonic, and the terrible thing is, Ramaswamy has no way of discerning the difference. Nor does his god provide the fullness of life that is found in Christ. In his classic work, Christ at the Round Table, missionary to India E. Stanley Jones tells the story of a simple Christian who spoke to a group of Brahmans, the religious elite of India (Ramaswamy is a Brahman). Afterward, a Hindu magistrate asked if the group could meet the next day to hear the message again. When they came together, he said, “As you saw yesterday, our (Hindu) discovery and realisation of God was indefinite and uncertain. That of you Christians was definite and certain.” Jones finishes that story with this: “He saw what was obviously a fact—that men in Christ were finding the realisation of God, and that this was lighting up their whole lives.”

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