Syncretism of Form: Hindu Mantra’s and Christian Worship

After a fourteen-hour train ride I was tired, sweaty and needed a nap. The compound where I am teaching in Nasik, India, is a retreat center. The buildings are old, some dating back to when the British built them over 100 years ago. The bungalow is rustic, but clean. After my bucket bath I had just one hour to rest before the teaching sessions began. But I couldn’t sleep.

Less than 17 meters (50 yards) from my little room a local church youth group, probably 30 of them, were having a retreat. For the entire hour they chanted, sometimes with fervor, then dying down only to rise again, Halleluiah, HALLELUIAH, HALLELUIAH, HALLELUIAH…you get the picture. I was astounded that was all they did throughout my attempt to sleep. With hands clapping, it seemed there was a competition the girls and boys on who could shout the loudest. For one solid hour it was Halleluiah, HALLELUIAH, HALLELUIAH, HALLELUIAH. Nothing else.

I asked to my host later, “What is it with all the noise going on in that room?”

With a wry smile he said, “Baptist call it noise, others call it worship.” He did admit, however, they were extreme.

Fair enough. I get the point. On further reflection, however, the “noise” that troubled my rest I believe has a deeper missiological meaning, one that I have observed in Africa as well as India.

Form, the way people do things, is often culturally determined. How people assemble themselves around the table for supper, give and receive gifts, conduct business meetings, marriage ceremonies or bury the dead, all have a culturally prescribed form. Like “loan words,” (vocabulary borrowed from another language for communication, e.g. “safari” for travel, “daktari” for doctor or universal technological words used by all languages, i.e., Email or Internet), form of worship is often borrowed. Much of the form of Sunday morning Christian worship around the world is borrowed from the West. I can close my eyes in some churches in Delhi and hear the same praise songs I hear in the U.S. Even if the language is in Swahili, Hindi or Spanish the order of service is usually music, announcements, offering, special song and sermon. Churches that try to contextualize the form often do not move too far away from traditional/historical patterns.

Syncretism, of course, is contextualization that has crossed the line and adopts form from the host. In the Roman Catholic tradition they are often accused of syncretism in places like India who put a statute of Mary, or one of the saints, outside their churches for people to offer prayers. Across the street the Hindu’s offer prayers to statues of Shiva. With the form being same, is there a distinction in praying to idols.

Though unintended, the halleluiah chorus across from my hovel was not that different from the mantra’s of the Hindu’s. The constant repeating of a word or phrase is common to any Buddhist at their temples or the priest reciting prayers to Krishna. Do the mantras have power? Do the worshippers or God move closer to one another by the incessant repeating of words? I contend the separation of mantra of the Hindu and the Christian is so thin one could hardly discern the difference between the two.

Shouting has always been associated with casting out demons and evil spirits. The witchdoctors have been doing it for centuries, as they believe that forceful speech is the only way the spirits will respond. Power is in the chants and the more vigorous the presentation the greater the chances for overcoming evil.

I am well aware that those who hold tightly to these forms of display will disagree with this post, just as those who maintain dead liturgy continue to embrace their form of worship. I am a proponent of contextualization, but I suggest that some of the forms used here in India look and sound too much like those who venerate the gods of stone.