About the Author

Andrea Useem, creator and publisher of ReligionWriter.com, is a freelance journalist and editor based in Northern Virginia who specializes in writing about religion. Andrea holds a Masters of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School, as well as a Bachelors degree in religion from Dartmouth College. Previously, Andrea worked as a freelance journalist in Eastern Africa for four years; she has also lived in Muscat, Oman. She is married and has three sons.

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1. 

   Comment by priya on 26 February 2008:

   i just randomly jotted my thoughts as they came to me.

   * the professor got it right. it is easy to remain hindu because it is so loosely defined. there are practically no major binding rules to follow.
   * being hindu doesn’t stop one from participating in other religious traditions so unless the person wants to adopt another faith that is stricter there is really no need to redefine themselves. call it having your cake and eating it too. or maybe its hedging your bets?
   * to be successfully assimilated, both the majority and minority shouldn’t feel threatened by each other. for most people i know, being hindu is basically a cultural identity. for these people, as far as beliefs go, hinduism = religious pluralism which is very acceptable world view to have in this society. so the average american is ok with hindus. as for the hindus, they don’t have to worry as much about corrosion of religious identity given that it is not so concrete/stringent. this makes assimilation easier for them.
   * will ethnic pride and distinctiveness fade? if things stay the way they are in america, probably. but if hindus feel threatened then it could change. that might happen if, say, india-pakistan relations got much worse and seeped into relations between hindus and muslims here. or if a new wave of religious fervor starts spreading where people want to convert hindus to christianity.
2. 

   Comment by ashish on 29 February 2008:

   Judging from what I saw in the UK, where Indians are more stridently religious (both Hindus and Muslims), I can predict that Hindus will become less religiously affiliated in the US as long as the current climate of tolerance continues. But if there begins to exist the same kind of racial/religious tensions I have seen in the UK, I expect Hindus in the US to become even more wedded to their faith. On balance, that will be a bad thing - but this is just my opinion.
   -Ashish
3. 

   Comment by AM I A HINDU? Best Seller on 23 March 2008:

   Namasthe Andrea: Hindus Have the Highest Religious Retention Rate in the U.S and else where due to

   1. Hinduism is NOT an organized religion like Islam or Christianity. It is A CULTURE, A WAY OF LIFE.

   2. It has no hidden agenda or motive expect to spread truth.

   All Hindus scriptures discuss about TRUTH and how to search after truth. Hindu scriptures state “self-realization” is the ultimate goal of every human being, whether the person is a Hindu or not.”

   3. As Rig Veda 89-1 states, it welcomes truth from every side.

   Beauty of Hinduism is that it accept truth from very many sources. Hinduism is the result of deep meditation of Rishis, who searched after truth through out their lives.

   4. It does NOT proclaim monopoly on GOD or TRUTH or SALAVTION.

   No where in the Hindu scriptures, you will read that Hindus alone have monopoly on God or salvation. Hindu scriptures state, any person who searches after truth will ultimately attain self realization, whether that person is a Hindu or not.

   Voltaire in Essay on Tolerance wrote: I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death, your right to say it. Hinduism is the symbolic representation of what Voltaire wrote.

   Aa no bhadraah kratavo yantu vishvatah
   ” Let noble thoughts come to us from every side”.

   5. Absolute FREEDOM OF THOUGHTS & ACTIONS is the cardinal principle of Hinduism.

   Even an atheist can condemn Hinduism and later can proudly proclaim he or she is a Hindu. In fact, unlike all religions and cultures in the world, Hinduism had an atheistic philosophy called CHARVAKA philosophy founded by Charvaka who rejected existence of God. Charvaka died in bed. He was not killed by any one. He died in bed due to old age.

   Ed Viswanathan
   aamiahindu@yahoo.com
   http://www.amiahindu.com/
4. 

   Comment by Varangali on 19 April 2008:

   Good article, a pleasure to read - would love your thoughts on the American Muslim retention rate. Or is that already in a different post?
5. 

   Comment by Jr on 28 June 2008:

   I am wondering if the children of Hindus who marry non-Hindus in America still identify as Hindus.
6. 

   Comment by Timothy P. Manatt on 3 August 2008:

   This a very thought-provoking post. I had an opportunity to speak with Professor Narayanan a month or so after this blog was posted (if memory serves me correctly), and I believe our conversation may help to shed a little light on her statement here. It may not be so much theological as it is an anthropological statement. In our conversation, we also talked about boundaries, specifically the different kinds of boundaries that religious traditions use to mark themselves off from “the other.” Using my interfaith marriage as an example, we discussed that although my Christian family was very welcoming of my Hindu wife and eager to learn about her customs, they would politely refuse to participate in anything that could be construed as worshiping a Hindu deity and even felt uncomfortable inside Hindu temples. HER family, on the other hand, initially had trouble accepting her desire to marry a “foreigner,” citing what they believed to be obvious differences in cultural values, but had no qualms about attending church and praying to Jesus.

   Why the difference? Well, I think you hit the nail on the head when you made the analogy to “cultural (and I would add “ethnic”) Jews.” The criteria that these traditions use to define themselves over and against “the other”–their “boundaries”–are different. My wife and I often joke that one talks to new friends differently depending on where one is at. In America, the “first question” typically asked is, “What do you do?” But in India, it’s “What’s your caste?” (to which the answer would indicate not only one’s status but also family lineage and region of origin). Similarly, when talking about religion, Christians and Muslims might ask, “What do you believe?” But for Hindus, and perhaps for many “cultural/ethnic Jews,” this question may be of less significance than others.

   If my case study can be extrapolated (and I think that it can), it would seem that the order of import for criteria that mark off the “boundaries” for Christians might be: 1) beliefs, 2) rituals, 3) cultural values, 4) ethnic heritage. But for Hindus, the order might run: 1) ethnic heritage, 2) cultural values, 3) rituals, 4) beliefs. Indeed a typical Hindu family is more likely to accept their child’s marriage to an Indian who has converted to Christianity than an American who has joined the Hare Krishna movement. Because in their eyes, the former is “a Hindu who worships Jesus,” while the later is “a Christian who has seen the truth of Hinduism.”

   I do not know enough about Jewish identity to say too much about it, but perhaps thinking about these criteria for boundaries could help explain the fall in retension rates. It is possible that the community’s criteria have shifted in such a way, for example, that those who would have once considered themselves “agnostic/atheistic/secular Jews” or “Buddhist Jews” now merely consider themselves agnostics/atheists/secularists or Buddhists. If this is the case, my questions would be: 1) what was the cause of this shift in boundary criteria? and 2) is it possible that globalization and continued development in India will eventually effect a similar shift in the Hindu community?

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