As promised, here is a pointer to the follow-up of the story of the religious transformation of Bobby Jindal as reported by Francis C. Assisi and Elizabeth Pothen of Indolink.com:
Not yet out of High School, Jindal acknowledges that it was “a time of constant prayer and struggle” as he anticipated the ultimate confrontation with his parents. It came, rather unexpectedly, when he was recovering from a serious car accident and his mother wanted to know “which God†he had thanked for his safety.
Jindal explains: “I had resolved not to lie when faced with such direct questioning and admitted my Christian faith. I had prepared myself for the worst. I knew my parents had every right to end their financial support or kick me out of their house. I realized the consequences of my decision and was ready to face these hardships. I had decided the freedom to worship Christ was more important than the material comforts provided by my parents, including the privilege to attend Brown that fall. I even made plans to attend a local university and had arranged housing as well as a job to support myself.”
But Jindal, who had secured his financial position with a generous academic merit scholarship, was not as prepared for the emotional battles. He was also careful not to lie to them. As he rightly asks: “Is any faith worth having if it motivates its adherents to deception, especially between parents and children?”
I’ll let you read the rest of the article for yourselves with one exception. The following was my favorite quote:
Jindal’s “search for truth†continued even though several members of the clergy advised him that in certain instances deception could be justified.
“several members of the clergy advised him that in certain instances deception could be justified” LOL
That sentance seems to sum up Christianity (to me anyway)
I also wonder if George Bush was told the same thing 😉
I was being flippant with my quotation but to be fair the type of “religious deception” that the clergy were probably refering to is the type of deception that prevents persecution. Jews concealing their religion to survive the Holocaust and the Falun Gong in China are two examples that come to mind.
Bobby Jindal’s spiritual struggle/conversion took place in the US, where non-white, non-Christian immigrants and their children are faced with societal pressure to assimilate. It’s fair to ask whether his spiritual struggle is all about an internally-motivated search for truth or whether it might have been affected by these external pressures. And if external pressures to assimilate were an appreciable factor, then in what other ways might he have assimilated?
And how would any possible drive to fit into American society have affected his politics?
Jindal makes the important point that his parents did not pay attention to his curiosity about Hinduism. This seems to occur pretty commonly both in India and America. On one’s own it’s pretty hard to make head or tail from the whole thing (since it’s not an “organized religion”).
He seems to have put much thought into his decision to convert, which deserves respect. It’s too bad, though, that (at least as indicated by the article) he didn’t have a fair chance to investigate the tradition he was brought up in.
Abhi, I think you got his point exactly. To quote in context from the letter:
Deepa, if he really wanted to assimilate into American culture through Christianity, he would have been sorely dissapointed. It simply doesn’t work that way. If his faith wasn’t genuine, I wonder how he was able to endure the strain of familial relationships, among other things. To anyone, especially an Indian, such relationships mean a lot.
Found the original letter through the EBSCO Religion and Philosophy database. Not sure if there would be a problem for SM by posting the original article (respect for copyrights, etc). Anyhow, most local libraries and universties allow remote access to it. For those interested, the Access Number record is 9407223640, published in 7/94.
Sund00bie, i’m glad that you found further, comic “justification” for your negativity towards christianity. yay for you! remind me to do the same and judge other faiths unfairly–and CYA/qualify it by saying “to me anyway”. LOL. how (not) funny.
p.s. thanks for clarifying, abhi.
But if people are highly susceptible to the pressures to assimilate, those pressures can overcome familial bonds, etc. The perceived reward of “fitting in” (whatever that involves, conversion to Christianity or a mohawk hairstyle) could be stronger than anything else.
Bobby grew up in Louisiana. I grew up in Minnesota. Both of these areas are highly Christian and there is high pressure from peers at school to convert. People knocking on the front door all the time trying to convert you. Part of the definition of being “American” there is to be some sort of Christian. Now, it’s true you may still not be wholeheartedly accepted as an American if you convert, but it is a selling point. It’s only after conversion that its truth can be tested.
Bobby Jindal has genuine Christian faith, there’s no doubt. But that doesn’t preclude pressure to assimilate as a factor in his initial exploration of and conversion to Christianity. And it’s fair to ask whether he was susceptible to that pressure (and I’m not saying he was). The decision to convert (to any religion, in any society) is generally not taken in a vacuum.
jindal is an interesting case, but not particular special. if you look at the indian diaspora, you note that a substantial number of hindus (and muslims) have converted to christianity in foreign locales. in trinidad as many as 1/4 of south asians are christian. same in south africa. a smaller percentage, but a prominent number, in mauritius, malaysia and fiji can say the same. why is this? i think part of it is that indians tend to see faith as part of their communal affiliation and it is wrapped up in the organically developed rhythms of the land. though there are conversions from and to various faiths in southern asia, they are not particularly common because they mean that you are being unmoored from a whole host of social and personal links and associations. it is not just a personal decision.
when south asians moved abroad, it was generally into a christian environment. by moving overseas, whether voluntarily or semi-voluntarily (indentured servitude) they were tearing themselves away from thousands of implicit, unseen, supports. they were confronted by a vigorous, personalized, confessional faith system in christianity. this likely explains the popularity of “reformed” hindu movements like arya samaj in trinidad and mauritius, they can compete on a personalized level with christianity. similarly, reformist muslim gropus like the ahmaddiya are also popular among the diaspora community.
the united states is the extreme case of personalized faith. americans switch churches like swingers swap partners. though there are communities, like the cajuns, who have a tight integration between faith and ethnicity, in generally there has been a delinking in the united states of these two identity aspects in a way that is not so common in the rest of the world. over 1/4 of mexican americans are now protestant. most japanese americans are no longer buddhist. many cuban americans are protestant. many americans are jewish and protestant backgrounds convert to catholicism. many of the prominent intellectuals and thinkers in american zen buddhism are of jewish origin. i could go on and on, but you get the gist.
in the case of indian americans, hindu, sikh and muslim, i think there are commonalities and differences. my experience is that the highly educated skew among south asian americans has resulted in a slight tendency toward not focusing on emotionalized, personal and passionate religion. the thousands of implicit supports for familial faith traditions are torn away, but parents busy in the hospitals, universities or business don’t notice, and don’t realize. i think this is especially a problem with hinduism because it is less explicitly a confessional personalized religion than islam, though there have always been bhakti-devotional movements, they have been a slice, not the explicit central core, of hinduism.
though i am cautious about making a hindu-jewish analogy normally, i think this is an instructive case. today, about 1/3 of “jews” are “jews of another religion.” this usually means christianity. 1/3 are “jews of no religion,” that is, “cultural jews.” and 1/3 are religiously active jews. i suspect that hindu indian americans in the united states will follow a similar trend. you will have
1) a large number convert to christianity (as they have in other diaspora communities) 2) a large number revive and reformulate their faith in a way that is more in keeping with the “american” tradition. while in other countries jews are usually religious (orthodox) or secular, in the united states most jews adhere to a non-orthodox movement (reform, conservative, reconstructionist). i suspect that american hindus will begin to “protestantize” their religion just like catholics, jews and buddhists have done (there is a “buddhist church of america” composed mostly of japanese americans and their non-japanese spouses which has basically taken over much of the forms of american protestantism and filled it with buddhist teaching and doctrine). 3) a large number will “secularize” and become part of the amorphous “no religion” category.
also, if you are curious about non-christian environments, many of the hindus, though not the muslims, who settled in rangoon (yangon?) in burma (myanmar) in the 20th century switched their affiliation to buddhist, and those who did not leave after independence have started to disappear into the general population. the muslims, because of their greater religious difference, tend not to get absorbed (and myanmar has a large indigenous muslim community in which they can socialize and draw support).
p.s. on a related note, the chinese and japanese communities abroad have also, more or less, been partially absorbed into their host religious environments. what might interest some though is that in these cultures, though outsiders label them “buddhist,” organized buddhism had little day to day salience. when they moved abroad, particularly into christian environments, they generally converted to christianity, or, formulated a far more thorough buddhist identity than they had ever had in the home country in response to their christian environment.
I wonder why I personally find myself so disgusted by his conversion. It’s not that I dislike Christianity, per se (religions in and of themselves are ideals). It’s that I disbelieve his “search for the truth.”
Truth does not lie in any more in Christianity than in Hinduism, or Buddhism, or Sunni Islam, or painting a face on a waffle with low-carb maple syrup and saying it’s Jesus. I am appalled that so many Indians ignore this fact (be they Hindu, Christian, Muslim, or whatever) and support him and donate to his campaign fund purely on the basis of his country of origin.
The guy just makes me angry on so many levels, much the same way “Jews for Jesus” do (per Razib’s example, kinda).
I need to formulate Rules for Compromise.
as said before, i think his personal beliefs are his beliefs, we can’t get inside his head, though as someone who doesn’t really believe in unmitigated free will i would not be surprised if bobby had become abdul if his parents had settled in the UAE or perhaps he would have taken an interest in therevada if he was a resident of bangkok. he seemed to be interested in hinduism, and add in some rather rational reasons to go shopping elsewhere to fill his cravings, and i think you can connect the dots….
…but, i think non-christians, and those of the less hardcore stripe in general, are right to be a bit wary of his i-know-the-truth-and-you-do-not-but-will-so-help-you-god attitude, especially when his truth is usually disjoint with the truth of the majority of the south asian community (which he is now an exemplar of).
i’d be interested in knowing why he chose catholocism over an evangelical strain of christianity. most catholics i know, including very devout ones, have very little interest in converting others. but in both of these pieces, jindal seems to speak the language of evangelicism more than catholocism — bringing people into the Church, finding the love of Christ, personal relationship with Christ, etc. moreover, it seems that the girlfriend who prodded his conversion was an evangelical, not a catholic. most evangelicals i know do not really see themselves as in the same boat as catholics (minus mel gibson and the Passion following). many i have had conversations with believe catholics will go to hell as sure as any hindu or muslim. this wrinkle doesn’t seem to be explored by the authors, who lump all christian faiths together, but I wonder if this feeds into the political opportunism. Taken as a given that his christian faith is true and heartfelt, he may well have chosen catholocism over evangelicism (even though he may have been leaning towards that pole) because of the religious demographics of louisiana. just a thought, i’m not saying this is actually true.
southern louisiana is heavily catholic. baton rouge is kind of on the border, despite its name, but he also went to a catholic school, and being a catholic is pretty good politically (most louisiana politicians have been from catholic cajun backgrounds on the state level).
Really, really good comments, Razib.
And good point, Salil and Razib, about the “search for truth.” If someone believes he has the truth and you do not, how do you feel about supporting him, when an increase in his power might thus conceivably undermine you?
Yo Salil, interesting a priori assumption of the lack of truth….
Razib, good points. I know my friends are unusual, but I’ve got several Jewish and Hindu friends (and the comparison isn’t abnormal — it’s made all the time at American Academy of Religion conferences; my favorite talk this year was on Hindu mothers, Jewish mothers, and the culture of food!) who have the belief-set of a different religion but still consider themselves Jewish or Hindu. They’ll give two reasons: one, well, you’re born Jewish or Hindu, so conversion to or from is impossible; two, they keep up the cultural practices to varying extents.
I know my friends are unusual,
no, hinduism and judaism can be ethnic religions. this is not nearly as true of islam or christianity because the latter have confressional/doctrinal preoccupations. one can be a cultural muslim or christian i suppose, but it sounds much more of an oxymoron to say you are an atheist muslim or atheist christian than an atheist jew or atheist hindu (reconstructionism does not make theistic claims and there has always been a vibrant atheist philosophical movement within hinduism).
but, my point would be that ethnic religion generally does not persist in the long term in a society where pluralism and individual choice reign supreme. culturally jews who intermarry generally do not have predominantly jewish identity grandchildren. similarly, hindus who are cultural hindus are probably more likely to intermarry and end up with grandchildren who appreciate, but do not fully identify with, their south asian ancestry. by the 3rd generation even that starts dissolving.
the fact is that the american jewish community is actually metastable, orthodox jews (who have high birth rates) lose a great number of children every generation to other forms of judaism (more liberal forms). a great number of liberal jews leave religion, switch to another religion, or transition to orthodoxy. once jews leave the religion or become believers in an another religion intermarriage becomes more likely and the cultural saliency becomes diluted. the high birth rate of the 10% of american jews who are orthodox serves as a well which constantly refreshes the further reaches of the jewry….
the take home message is that cultural judaism is viable as a long-term familial strategy in israel, just as cultural hinduism is a long term strategy in india. but in the united states it is not. there is a joke among jews, “there’s no such thing as 3rd generation reform.” as long as indians migrate to the united states the hindu population will remain metastable as a portion of every first generation takes the step toward culturalism. but barring back-migration, the numbers game gets you in the end….
Some really excellent points and topics brought out by this thread. Thank you, Bobby Jindal!
On the question of wheteher Jindal’s conversion to Catholicism was affected by him being raised in a heavily Catholic populated region and having gone to Catholic schools, I believe that is a given. Of course, it affected his choice to become a Catholic. He’s a product of the environment like we all are. To deny environmental pressures’ role in affecting a major life decision is ridiculous. Now the more important and interesting question of wheteher his conversion was politically motivated is one we obviously can just speculate on. The degree to which that played a role, consciously or subconciously, is obviously very difficult ascertain unless you are Bobby Jindal. So Bobby, if you’re out there, tell us! Inquiring minds want to know!