John Carman, a professor at the
Harvard Divinity School, states that some of the similarities in salvation ideas in Sri Vaishnavism and Protestant Christian doctrines of divine grace are striking.Both accept God as a personal concept, accept devotee's ability to relate to this God without human intermediaries, and accept the idea of
sola gratia – salvation through faith by the grace of God alone, such as those found in Martin Luther's teachings. While both Sri Vaishnavism and Protestant Christianity accept a supreme God and shares ideas on the nature of salvation, they differ in their specifics about
incarnation such as Jesus Christ being the only incarnation in Christianity, while Sri Vaishnavism accepts many incarnations (
avatar) of Vishnu.Christian missionaries in 19th century colonial British India, noted the many similarities and attempted to express the theology of Christianity as a
bhakti marga to Hindus, along the lines of Sri Vaishnavism, in their mission to convert them from Hinduism to Christianity.
Similar teachings on the nature of salvation through grace and compassion, adds Carman, are found in the Japanese scholar Shinran's text on Jodo Shinshu sect of Buddhism, even though non-theistic Buddhism and theistic Sri Vaishnavism do differ in their views on God
