By the time he was 9, Indian reformer Raja Ram Mohun Roy (1772 – 1833) already had three wives. He was a Kulin Brahmin, therefore, many families wanted to give their pre-puberty daughters to him.
Back then, no Hindu thought that polygamy was wrong, since Lord Krishna himself had 14,000 wives. Radha, who is worshipped along with Krishna, is not one of his wives.
Christian missionaries were teaching India that God created only one woman, Eve, for the first man, Adam. Therefore, monogamy is God’s definition of marriage. It emancipates women and builds strong children, family, and nations.
Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (1820–1891) was one of the first Indian writers to agree with Christian missionaries that healing India requires reforming Hindu marriage. Building a strong India is impossible without empowering women and children.
Vidyasagar’s younger contemporary, philosopher-reformer Keshab Chandra Sen (1838–1884) became India’s foremost champion of monogamy (marriage = one man/one woman). In 1866, Sen delivered a famous address “Jesus Christ, Europe and Asia.” He proclaimed that “India would be for Christ alone who already stalks the land.” His campaigns led to the Marriage Acts of 1872. But those Acts did not dare to regulate the Hindu marriage.
Traditions die hard. The socio-political-religious battle to redefine Hindu marriage in the light of the Bible had to continue for another century. It was won only in 1955, when Law Minister Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar (1891-1956) succeeded in forcing Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru and an extremely reluctant Congress Party to embrace the biblical view of marriage, family and divorce.
Please zoom with us at 9 pm (India Time) on Thurs July 22 to hear this fascinating history at
Meeting ID: 899 2918 3268, Passcode: 140150
The lecture will consider the fact that while legislative success in re-defining marriage and divorce is important, it is relatively easier. Transforming the soul of a culture is much tougher. Given the fact that we are sinners, it is not easy for a man and a woman to devote themselves to love each other for whole of their lives. India’s future greatness or degeneration will depend ESSENTIALLY on the Church’s ability to persist in shining the light of divine revelation on our society’s diabolical views of sex and marriage. Only a Church, empowered by God’s word and Spirit can enable a people to find the grace needed to walk in the truth. Earlier, God’s servants had to wrestle primarily with the animist, Hindu, Tantrik and Islamic views of sex and marriage. Today and, perhaps, for the generations to come, we will have to wrestle with the fact that the revival of Hindu/Tantric views of sex are being reinforced by the Evolutionary worldview. It reduces human sexuality to animal sex — non-sacred.
Sexual perversion has enormous philosophical strength. Non-dualism or Adwaita, for example, is now the philosophical foundation of the West’s current obsession with homosexuality. Although Swami Vivekananda had already introduced Tantra to America, the Hippie (counter-cultural) movement made it a popular phenomenon.
Tantric sex received important philosophical boost from physicist-turned-mystic Fritjof Capra’s book, “The Tao of Physics.” This apologetic work defends Monism and Tantrik sexuality.
Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code” powerfully fictionalized Rajneesh and Capra’s philosophies. Adwaita (i.e. Non-Dualism or Oneism) cannot accept the divinely ordained dualism of male and female.
Trinity is the Bible’s philosophical foundation for (a) the distinction of male and female, and simultaneously(b) the oneness of a family. Trinity’s rejection becomes the basis for the destruction of the Bible’s idea of family, that “the two shall become one flesh.” Very few Christians understand the role philosopher Osho Rajneesh played in turning America’s simplistic [Playboy’s] sexual revolution into contemporary God-mocking perversion.
As you witness Hinduism’s revival and hear ordinary Hindus defend rapist gurus such as Ram Rahim or vote for a mistress to become the Chief Minister of a state, you have to ask: How could our traditional culture call Yudhishtra “Dharmaraja” — “the upholder of the dharma (righteousness) who never deviates from the truth.”
How could a husband who gambled away Draupadi be “the upholder of Dharma” or righteousness? That helpless woman had to marry five “righteous” brothers and serve as their common wife, while each of them also had their own wives.
Could a Draupadi divorce husbands who mistreated her as dispensable property?
Well — Hinduism NEVER developed a theology of divorce, for that concept requires certain presuppositions, such as, the dignity of every person, even a woman. Draupadi was a trophy one of the brothers, Arjuna, “won” in an archery contest. That victory made her their property — she was as dispensable as a goat.
The truth of unique and equal dignity of male and female came to India with the Bible. That doctrine of dignity includes the concept of an inalienable, God-given, right to liberty. Individual dignity and liberty include the right to divorce if a husband treats a wife as an animal that could be gambled away.
India can understand the implications of a revival of “Ram-Rajya” minus the Bible only by asking: how could Lord Rama abandon his pregnant wife, Sita, whose chastity had been verified by the goddess of fire, without any moral or legal questions about divorce?
Or, why wasn’t Kasturbaji given the legal option of divorcing Mahatma Gandhi, who refused to make love to her but slept with virtually everyone else’ wife in his ashrama? (please google https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/gandtantric.htm and read WAS GANDHI A TANTRIC? By Nicholas F. Gier, Professor Emeritus, University of Idaho.)
Our professors of Church history have failed in helping the Church understand the Bible’s impact on India. Therefore, these Thursday night conversations seek to encourage amateur Indians to start studying what the Living God has been doing to bless India with the light of life in order to make it a great nation.
We intend to continue this process for another fifty or so weeks and publish a book, “How The Bible Created Modern India” in time to celebrate the 75th anniversary of India’s independence on August 15, 2022. For details of this project please email <indiaresearch75@gmail.com>
This time-bound project is serving as a model for other scholars to study how the Bible created modern Africa, Indonesia, Korea, China, Europe and the Americas. These collaborative research projects are building a global network of scholars who will create a new online encyclopedia. That, in turn, will become the global home for a worldview that is anchored in God’s revealed truth. Out of the encyclopedia will flow online curricula for “The Third Education Revolution.” (Check out the details on www.ThirdEducationRevolution.com)
You are invited to participate in this education revolution by zooming with us for prayer, on Wednesdays at 11 am (Central Time, USA). The link for the weekly prayer and fellowship meeting is available from <david.glesne@virtuescampus.com>.
On Wednesday Jul 21, 2021 at 11:00 AM Central Time (US and Canada) Zoom Prayer will be at
Meeting ID: 812 8522 1409: Passcode: 054522
