Does accepting the Bible's teachings lead one to some very anti-Hindu perspectives on account the Bible seems to be against polytheism and idol worship?
There is nothing relating specifically to Hinduism / Hindus in the Hebrew Bible or New Testament, given that they are both Middle-eastern collections of sacred texts, just as there is nothing in the Vedas or the Upanishads about Abrahamic faiths and their practitioners.
So to begin with, we are speaking here about two distinct cultural-religious 'families' - both geographically and philosophically - that amount to separate spiritual traditions in origin, neither of which has anything directly to say about the other.
As such, it would be exegetically incorrect to read
anything in the Bible as pertaining to Hindus. If Christians whom you've met do in fact hold anti-Hindu sentiments (and I'm very sorry to hear that), they can only do so on the basis of 'deductions' from scriptural precepts, which in their literal meaning have no applicability to Hinduism or Hindus.
With all that being said, some of the later Christian church fathers - during the founding generations of the Christian faith (circa. 100 - 500 A.D.) - did acquire information about Vedantic religious traditions, as recorded by Syriac Christian chroniclers such as Bardaisan (A.D. 154 - 222) who had the opportunity to encounter and learn from Indian gymnosophists and mystics. Bardaisan's account (recorded by Porphyry
De abstin., iv, 17 and
Stobaeus (
Eccles., iii, 56, 141)) is the earliest direct contact between any kind of Christian and any kind of Indian religious thinkers that I'm aware of.
His estimation of them was extremely positive:
"
For the polity of the Indians being distributed into many parts, there is one tribe among them of men divinely wise, whom the Greeks are accustomed to call Gymnosophists. But of these there are two sects, one of which the Bramins preside over, the Samanaeans the other.[10]
The race of the Bramins, however, receive divine wisdom of this kind by succession, in the same manner as the priesthood. But the Samanaeans are elected, and consist of those who wish to possess divine knowledge.
And the particulars respecting them are the following, as the Babylonian Bardaisan narrates, who lived in the times of our fathers, and was familiar with those Indians who, together with Damadamis, were sent to Caesar. All the Bramins originate from one stock; for all of them are derived from one father and one mother. But the Samanaeans are not the offspring of one family, being, as we have said, collected from every nation of Indians."
— Porphyry
De abstin., iv,
The 'Brahmins' are Hindus, the 'Samanaens' are the
Sramanas (Buddhists or Jains).
St. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215) - himself one of the earliest mystical theologians in the history of the church - is the next church father I've found with anything at all to say about Hindus and (again) he gave them a sympathetic treatment, portrarying their religious tradition as part of the "
divinely inspired philosophy" that the Logos had implanted via
semina verbi (seeds) throughout the world:
CHURCH FATHERS: The Stromata (Clement of Alexandria)
"The way of truth is one. But into it, as into a perennial river, streams flow from all sides...
Should it be said that the Greeks discovered philosophy by human wisdom, I reply, that I find the Scriptures declare all wisdom to be a divine gift...
Thus philosophy, a thing of the highest utility, flourished in antiquity among the barbarians, shedding its light over the nations. And afterwards it came to Greece. First in its ranks were the prophets of the Egyptians; and the Chaldeans among the Assyrians; and the Druids among the Gauls; and the Sramanas among the Bactrians; and the philosophers of the Celts; and the Magi of the Persians, who foretold the Saviour's birth, and came into the land of Judaea guided by a star. The Indian gymnosophists are also in the number, and the other barbarian philosophers. And of these there are two classes, some of them called Sramanas, and others Brahmins"
St. Clement refers to the Buddha in a similar fashion:
"...εἰσὶ δὲ τῶν Ἰνδῶν οἱ τοῖς Βούττα πειθόμενοι παραγγέλμασιν. ὃν δι’ ὑπερβολὴν σεμνότητος ὡς θεὸν τετιμήκασι.
Among the Indians are those philosophers also who follow the precepts of Buddha, whom they honour as a god on account of his extraordinary sanctity..."
—
Clement of Alexandria,
Stromata (
Miscellanies), Book I, Chapter XV
Another fourth century patristic text - from circa A.D. 350 - called the
Recognitions refers to Indian priests (
Brahmins) in a positive light:
CHURCH FATHERS: Recognitions, Book IX (Clement of Rome)
Chapter 20. Brahmans.
There are likewise among the Bactrians, in the Indian countries, immense multitudes of Brahmans, who also themselves, from the tradition of their ancestors, and peaceful customs and laws, neither commit murder nor adultery, nor worship idols, nor have the practice of eating animal food, are never drunk, never do anything maliciously, but always fear God. And these things indeed they do...nor have malign stars compelled the Brahmans to do any evil.
As you can see, the author praises the Hindu Brahmins and the "
tradition of their ancestors" for its pacifism, high moral standards, vegetarianism and reverence for the divine. The text even claims that Hindus do not 'worship idols' (i.e. perhaps because of the concept of Brahman / Atman, courtesy of which there is one Self behind the manifold diversity of deities).
All of these early Christian references to "Hindus" or "Buddhists" are largely positive appraisals. I can find none that are negative in tone - at least that I know of (and trust me, I've read a
lot of Patristic literature), or which designate followers of either religion as "
idol-worshippers" or reject the potential wisdom they have to offer.
Indeed, in the early middle ages so popular did the biographical accounts of the Buddha's lifestory become in Christian circles - that some fathers recast him as a Christian saint (who was venerated as such right up to modernity):
How the Buddha became a popular Christian saint
