Being a Christian should erase your cultural identity.
I was on the phone with Wyatt, a white Christian man from Redeemer Downtown where we both went to church. I was trying (unsuccessfully) to hold my temper in check while working out why he attacked me for wishing our men’s group a happy Holi. I had taken the high ground. Instead of going after him in the group chat, like he had done to me, I reached out to him privately to work things out one-on-one.
That was when he told me that Christianity should remove any sense of my Indian-ness.
Holi-Er Than Thou?
I didn’t grow up celebrating Holi. I come from the 2% of Indians who identify as Christian. And here in America, I’m part of the 2% of the population who are South Asian. What I’m trying to say is, I’m in a minority in a minority. In India or America.
And I grew up believing what Wyatt was saying. My parents didn’t teach me their mother tongues of Marathi and Malayalam, or even India’s national language: Hindi. They didn’t cook me Indian food or send me to India for the summer. The only friends I had were the kids from the white churches my parents attended.
Isn’t Holi a Hindu holiday anyway? Why should a man who grew up in a different country and different faith participate in a festival that started with Hindus in India?
A Clear Conscience
Holi is a pagan holiday.
That was what Wyatt had said in the group chat.
In the time since our encounter, I have wondered why he went after me for Holi, when there were many Chinese and Korean people in our church who celebrated the Lunar New Year. Why did he feel emboldened to come after me and my culture and not theirs?
Practicing Christians can point to the Bible and find lots of examples of God allowing people to respectfully participate in ceremonies from other religions as long as they don’t worship other gods. Think of Naaman’s request to Elisha in the Old Testament and Paul allowing Christians to eat meat sacrificed to idols in the New Testament. Elements of Christmas celebrations like the Yule log or even the Christmas tree come from pagan European rituals and were given new meanings for Christians.
Now look, I have very limited experience with Holi. The celebrations that I have seen have options for non-Hindus to participate in the fun. Going to a Holi celebration doesn’t mean that you have to worship Krishna. So a Christian with a clear conscience can participate, right?
No Man’s Land
My friends feel like they have to choose between being Indian and being a Christian
I was sitting at a pretentious coffee shop on the Lower East Side, listening to a fellow South Asian Christian pour her heart out. We had a lot in common: both of us had parents from the Saint Thomas Christian community in Kerala, in the south of India. Both of us had grown up in white evangelical churches here in the states. And both of us weren’t sure where to go if we left the white church.
That’s when she said that for her and her friends, Christianity and Indian identity were incompatible.
In India, our people have been worshiping Jesus for over 2,000 years. Our ancestors were able to be both Indian and Christian. But here, in America, we second-generation kids were under pressure. Bite your tongue when white people say they don’t like spicy food, accept your low racial caste in the dating world, stick to STEM because Indians are supposed to be smart and don’t ever, under any circumstances, make white people uncomfortable.
Indian or Christian: which would you choose?
