Earlier this month, New Jersey opened the largest Hindu Temple outside India. It sits on 126 acres in Robbinsville, NJ. It is the second largest in the world, behind the Angkor Wat complex in Cambodia, which dates back to the 12th century. According to the article, Hinduism scholar Yogi Trivedi at Columbia University said that the temple is neither Indian nor American but tries to express devotion and service in a way that relates to all visitors.

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The Robbinsville temple is one of many that are sprouting up like mushrooms. In my home county of Forsyth, GA, small temples in storefronts are opening everywhere as thousands of immigrants from India have descended on our area. Recently, county commissioners approved the construction of an almost 30,000 sqft. temple on 6 acres along a busy state highway. It will add to the presence of five large temple complexes already located in the Atlanta area.

The sudden explosion of large temple complexes points to the changing landscape of religion in the United States. According to polls, only 64% of Americans now identify as Christians, with the fastest growing religion being “nones,” people who identify themselves as spiritual but do not identify with any form of organized religion or belief system. Before that trend, Islam was the fastest-growing religion despite post-9/11 negative views. It became especially popular among Black Americans because of their attraction to the discipline of regular prayer, its emphasis on submission to God, and its affinity with people who are oppressed, according to an article published by Reuters in 2007. However, most of Islam’s growth has come through immigration.

Apart from the increase of temples and mosques as visible evidence that the religious landscape in our nation is shifting, we are now also seeing increasing representation of those religions in politics. The U.S. Congress has several staunchly Islamic members, and we see growing numbers of recently naturalized citizens of Indian descent running for local governments. This means that the influence of other religious values and agendas on our legislative branches of government is growing, which may have far-reaching consequences for education, laws, societal values, and culture.

Our Constitution enables the growth of other religions. The First Amendment reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. According to legal experts, the first clause, also known as the Establishment Clause, not only forbids the government from establishing an official religion but also prohibits government actions that unduly favor one religion over another. The implications of that are huge. Perhaps our founding fathers’ primary intention was to guarantee that religious persecution by governments, from which many of the first colonists had fled, would have no place here. But as soon as the new nation opened its doors to the world’s “huddled masses, yearning to break free, the tired, poor, and tempest-tossed,” it also invited in all their God’s, religious practices and values and guaranteed them equal freedoms.

That is, of course, not wrong from a civil and political point of view. But in the spiritual realm, it creates a world of conflict that our founding fathers may not have recognized and that large portions of the American Church do not think about.

The Bible teaches that there is only one God and one mediator between Him and men, namely Jesus Christ. Any godhead outside the Triune God is considered a false god and the work of demons (see 1 Corinthians 10:20). Our Christian worldview divides mankind into those who are redeemed (saved and adopted into the household of God and the kingdom of light) and those who are lost (in bondage to Satan and enslaved by the kingdom of darkness).

And indeed, world religions like Hinduism and Islam are often hostile to Christianity. Radicalism is growing among both and, though forbidden by American law, may creep into the U.S. as both religions grow through rapidly increasing immigration.

Perhaps a greater danger than radicalization, however, is attraction. Hindu practices like yoga and meditation already have widespread appeal, and even concepts like belief in karma and reincarnation have become commonplace. They have even wormed their way into the Church. I’ve heard many believers use the word karma to explain why something bad happened to someone who did wrong, and yoga classes are frequently taught in churches.

The mystical side of Hinduism, like meditation, yoga, and vegetarian diets, is especially attractive to the “nones” who have experienced Christianity as a restrictive yoke and are looking for spiritual dimensions to improve their overall health and well-being. I recently came across the Facebook page of a content creator who had decorated her profile picture with a frame that reads “peaceful, loving, sovereign soul” while sitting in a yoga pose in front of a painting that depicts the Hindu god Ganesh and wearing a T-shirt with an occult star on the front. She teaches Pilates, Yoga, and Zumba and eats vegetarian food – the whole ball of wax. That is symbolic of the nones. The growing presence of Hindu temples that seek to make their religious beliefs accessible to all could mean that increasing numbers of “nones” will veer away from Christian beliefs altogether and embrace Hinduism without necessarily fully subscribing to a religion.

The growth of Hinduism, more than the growth of Islam with its oppressive legalism, is especially concerning. It is a demonic, anti-Christian system of religious beliefs. Its wide range of practices and millions of deities lends itself to picking and choosing spiritual disciplines without realizing they are part of a vast demonic system of deception designed to lead you astray from the One True God.

What does that mean for the American Church? I see primarily two things to pray about:

1. The mission field in our backyard. God is sending the nations to us. Millions of Hindus and Muslims are moving here. The Church must wake up to these harvest fields and return to missions. Denominations and mission societies must collaborate to begin effective outreach to these communities. We must return to prayer-driven, loving evangelism and reach our neighbors – who are now just as likely to have come from India or the Middle East as from another part of the U.S. – with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We must pray that our churches awaken to their mission to the nations on our doorstep, break out of their inwardly focused campus mindset, and equip their members to pray for them and reach them.
2. Spiritual warfare. Islam is demonic. Hinduism is demonic. Both are evangelistic in nature and will bring many unsuspecting seekers under their yoke. And both will provide increasing numbers of footholds for Satan’s demons to attack Christianity where they can. The Church must rediscover its mantle of priesthood and the power of prayer in spiritual warfare. Large mosques and temple complexes mean large numbers of demons who reside there. We may not be able to stop them from being built, but a praying Church can keep the demons they attract from doing their dirty work and leading our nation further astray from God.

Father, awaken Your Church to the urgency of mission to the nations pouring into our country. Ignite a new passion for evangelism in our neighborhoods – especially among the many foreign nationals who have moved in from all over the world. Call Your people to a new engagement with the forces of darkness that are moving in with them through the power of intercessory prayer. May Your Church become a praying and proclaiming Church that meets the Enemy head-on with the weapons of warfare You have given us. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

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Remco Brommet is a pastor, spiritual-growth teacher, and prayer leader with over 40 years of experience in Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the U.S. He was born and raised in the Netherlands and pastored his first church in Amsterdam. He moved to the U.S. in 1986. He and his wife, Jennifer, live north of Atlanta. When not writing books, he blogs at www.deeperlifeblog.com and assists his wife as a content developer and prayer coordinator for True Identity Ministries. Jennifer and Remco are passionate about bringing people into a deeper relationship with Christ. Photo Credit: AndreyPopov/Getty Images.