jonnybaker

gandhi

on the plane yesterday i read e.stanley jones gandhi:portrayal of a friend. some of you may remember my enthusing about the christ of the indian road [and here and here], stanley jones seminal work. well geoff and sherry who gave me that book also gave me this one and it's taken me this long to get round to reading it...

it's a wonderful read and both jones and gandhi are astonishing. i want to just quote a few extracts from the book as they speak for themselves. the first is an exchange between jones and gandhi that i quoted before...

"How can we make Christianity naturalized in India so that it shall no longer be a foreign thing identified with a foreign people and a foreign government, but a part of the national life of India and contributing its power to India's uplift?" He responded with great clarity:
"I would suggest first of all that all of you Christians, missionaries and all begin to live more like jesus Christ. Second practice your religion without adulterating or toning it down. Third emphasise love and make it your working force, for love is central in Christianity. Fourth, study the non Christian religions more sympathetically to find the good that is in them, so that you might have a more sympathetic approach to the people."

He constantly said to the Indian Christians and missionaries: "Don't talk about it. The rose doesn't have to propagate its perfume. It justs give it forth and people are drawn to it. Don't talk about it. Live it. And people will come to see the source of your power."

jones reflecting on interpreting christ in india:
Jesus is the gospel. We therefore bring him to the East and West and say: Take him direct. You don't have to take our interpretation of Christ, except as you find it helpful in forming your own. Go straight to the gospels to discover Jesus anew, and if you show us a better interpretation we shall sit at your feet. The system which we have built up around Christ in the West may be useful and helpful as embodying a collective experience, but it is no integral part of the gospel. Create out of your own experience the corporate expression of that experience. Christ is universal but he uses local forms to express that universality. We expect you in india out of your rich cultural and religious past to bring to the interpretation of the universal Christ something which will greatly enrich the total expression. Especially now that Gandhi has lived and died we think you can interpret Christ in terms that are lacking in the West.

A movement that was fighting the West was showing to the West its own Saviour in a new way. A Hindu summed it up for me in these words. " We Hindus and you Christians should change sacred books. The Bhagavad Gita gives philosophic reasons for war while the New Testament teaches peace, and yet we are more peace minded and you are more war minded. If we change sacred books it would suit us both better."

the power of gandhi's commitment to non violent resistance and truth changed everything. one of my favourite stories is  gandhi's remarkable fast in delhi in 1948. there was tension and fighting between hindus and moslems. he announced that he would fast until hindus and moslems agreed on 8 things. all eight things were in the moslems favour. i won't list them here but they were pretty full on. after 6 days the hindus and moslems agreed to the terms and the whole atmosphere changed. how much do we need that kind of love of other faiths and cultures today?...

hindustan times photo

a photo of mine is used in the hindustan times epaper (posting it for my own record)

south asia youth network

the south asia youth network has launched a web site. the conference i attended in bangalore last year was organised by the sayn.

gospel and globalisation

you may remember i went to india (scroll down to the india talkie series) last year with a group of youthworkers. as part of the trip we attended the south asia youth conference whose theme was gospel and globalisation. well a book has been put together by adrian watkins and leslie nathaniel of all the presentations, reports and workshops at the conference. i have two chapters in there on worship and world and the emerging church in uk and global contexts. they are notes of two workshops i presented...

the book is available from ispck, to find it just type gospel and globalisation into the search box.

christ of the indian road 3 - a bunch more quotes

just to recap the book christ of the indian road by e. stanley jones is a classic mission text/story. see christ of the indian road 1 | christ of the indian road 2 for my previous thoughts...

when i read the book i went through it an jotted down a bunch of quotes that i liked for my own reference. i put some of them on the blog in those first two entries but never quite finished off so here goes for some others. they highlight a range of issues in mission -

• the importance of christ being separated out from western culture in order for indians to be able to think through what the christ of the indian road might be like and mean rather than feeling that to accept christ would be to become western.
• keeping a healthy distance from church culture in mission realising how easy it is for an agenda of mission to be subverted. his tactics were often to not meet anywhere near a church building and to get his discussion evenings hosted by hindus and muslims on their turf instead. he describes his approach as follws: 1) Be frank 2) Announce that there will be no attack on anyone's religion 3) Allow questions at the close 4) Get the leading non Christians to chair the meetings 5) Christianity must be defined as Christ  6) Christ must be interpreted through experience 7) drop term Christianity from language, and Christ must be in an Indian setting, Christ of the Indian road (p26)
• looking for/identifying resonances and common ground with hinduism as a starting point for relationship and dialogue rather than looking for differences and creating opposition.

these are what i'd call his mission instincts. whenever i read stuff like this i'm always asking myself what the equivalent is in the culture(s) i'm in. what does this mean for the emerging church? anyway here are the quotes...

Have we not often in the past led India and the non Christian world to think that our type of civilization in the West is the issue? Before the Great War was not Western greatness preached as a reason for the East becoming Christian? This was a false trail and led us into many embarrassments calling for endless apologies and explanations. (p14)...

... But standing among the shadows of Western civilization India has seen a figure who has greatly attracted her. She has hesitated in regard to any allegiance to him, for India has thought that if she took one she would have to take both - Christ and Western civilization went together. Now it is dawning upon the mind of India that she can have one without the other - Christ without Western civilization. That revelation is of tremendous significance to them - and to us. "Do you mean to say" said a Hindu lawyer "that you are not here to wipe out our civilization and replace it with your own? Do you mean that your message is Christ without any implications that we must accept Western civilization? I have hated Christianity, but if Christianity is Christ, I do not see how Indians can hate it". (p17)

A friend of mine was talking to a Brahman gentleman when the Brahman turned to him and said "I don't like the Christ of your creeds and churches". My friend quietly replied "Then how would you like the Christ of the Indian road?". The Brahman thought a moment, mentally picturing the Christ of the Indian road - he saw him dressed in Sadhu garments, seated by the wayside with the crowds about him, healing blind men who felt their way to him, putting his hands upon the heads of poor unclean lepers who fell at his feet, announcing the good tidings of the Kingdom to stricken folks, staggering up a lone hill with a broken heart and dying upon a wayside cross for men, but rising triumphantly and walking on that road again. He suddenly turned to the friend and earnestly said "I could love and follow the Christ of the Indian road". (p32)

The tremendous question presses itself upon us: Will the present Christian Church be big enough, responsive enough, Christlike enough to be the organ through which Christ will come to India? For mind you, Christianity is breaking out beyond the borders of the Christian Church. Will the Christian Church be Christlike enough to be the moral and spiritual center of this overflowing Christianity? Or will many of the finest spirits and minds in India accept Christ as Lord and master of their lives but live their Christian lives apart from the Christian church? I believe in the Christian Church with all my heart and believe that in it has centered the finest moral and spiritual life of the world. , but here is a new and amazing challenge, for this outside Christianity is going straight to the heart of things and saying that to be a Christian is to be Christlike. This means nothing less than that ancient rituals and orders and power at court and correctly stated doctrine avail little if Christlikeness is not the outstanding characteristic of the people of the churches. If Christianity centers in the Christian church in the future it will be because that church is the center of the Christ-spirit. (p70)

We have had as chairmen of our meetings members of legislative councils, judges, lawyers, generals, college presidents, professors, and leading Hindus and Mohammedans of every type. We have had the meetings in the open spaces in the cool of the evenings, in Town Halls, Hindu and Christian college auditoriums, Theosophical society halls, and even in Hindu temple compounds. The reader will probably note that I have omitted Christian churches from the list. There is a real prejudice against them, so we seldom or never have meetings for Hindus and Mohammedans in them. (p89)

India can now take from Christ because she is able to disassociate him from the West but she finds it difficult to take from the Christian Church or from missionaries, for in these cases the disassociation is not easy. But even here Western missionaries may lose their Western identity so to speak and so merge their lives and endeavors with India that they are no longer part of the dominating influences but take their place as serving friends and brothers. (p109)

This Christian spirit scattered here and there in many Indian hearts must express itself in some kind of corporate relationships. Some kind of church will be the final outcome. We will put our Western corporate experience at the disposal of the forming church in India and say  to her "Take as much as you find useful for your purposes but be first hand and creative and express Christ through your own genius" (p162)

In the customs and forms of Hinduism I think there are five living seeds:
1. the ultimate reality is spirit
2. the sense of unity running through things
3. there is justice at the heart of the universe
4. a passion for freedom
5. the tremendous cost of the religious life (p182)

Every nation has its peculiar contribution to make to the interpretation of Christianity. The Son of Man is too great to be expressed by any one portion of humanity. Those that differ from us most will probably contribute most to our expression of Christianity. (p204)

christ of the indian road 2 - the concrete christ

at gracelet on sunday night i read a whole chapter from the christ of the indian road. the chapter is called the concrete christ. It begins...

India is the land of mysticism. You feel it in the very air. Jesus was the supreme mystic. The Unseen was real to him. He spent all night in prayer and communion with the Father. He lived in God and God lived in him. When he said 'I and the Father are one' you feel it is so. Jesus the mystic appeals to India, the land of mysticism. But Jesus the mystic was amazingly concrete and practical. Into an atmosphere filled with speculation and wordy disputation where men are often drunk with the wine of their own wordiness he brings the refreshing sense of practical reality.

and then Jones launches into an inspiring telling of the story of Jesus from birth to resurrection reflecting on his teaching, life, miracles, death, resurrection. he lists one inspiring thing after another. it reminds me of the sermon of a good black preacher who reels off one item after another to build the sermon to a climax and work the crowd. he concludes...

There is no deeper need in India and the world today than just this practical mysticism that Jesus brings to bear upon the problems of life. 'No man is strong who does not bear within himself antithesis strongly marked' The merely mystical man is weak and the merely practical man is weak, but Jesus the practical Mystic, glowing with God and yet stooping in loving service to men, is Strength Incarnate.It is no wonder that India, tired of speculation, turns unconsciously toward him, the mystic Servant of all.

when i read a book i often either underline bits i like or write them out - it helps me chew over them again. so i have written this chapter out for my own benefit. if you are interested in the whole thing download concrete christ [pdf] or buy the book.

Technorati Tags: india, mission, grace

christ of the indian road 1 - in conversation with gandhi

i have just finished reading the christ of the indian road by e.stanley jones. geoff and sherry maddocks have raved about his book to me for some time. i was so slow on the uptake that in their despair they posted me a beautiful copy published in about 1925 (thank you - it's a wonderful gift). when someone goes to that length you simply have to read the book! so i have been reading it this week and it is amazing. it's up there with vincent donavon's christianity rediscovered already for me but not many people i have asked have come across it so far...

i will blog about it several times probably and if you are a cym student on the module i teach after christmas i will be making you read it and talk about it i am sure - be warned.

well today i was doing a training session for cme (continuing ministerial education) in rochester and canterbury dioceses - this is people who have been ordained in the last three years. i really enjoyed the session - hopefully the enjoyment was mutual. i read a few quotes from the christ of the indian road. one of the pieces i read is a dialogue jones has with his friend gandhi about christianity. it speaks for itself and is as good advice for the emerging church (or any other church) as it was then in india. a couple of people were asking me for a copy of the piece so here it is...

"Mahatma Gandhi I am very anxious to see Christianity naturalized in India so that it shall no longer be a foreign thing identified with a foreign people and a foreign government, but a part of the national life of India and contributing its power to India's uplift and redemption. What would you suggest we do to make that possible?" He very gravely and thoughtfully replied:
"I would suggest first of all that all of you Christians, missionaries and all begin to live more like jesus Christ". He needn't have said any more - that was quite enough. I knew that looking through his eyes were the three hundred millions of India and speaking through his voice the millions of the East saying to me, a representative of the West itself "If you will come to us in the spirit of your master we will not be able to resist you". Never was there a greater challenge to the West than that, and never was it more sincerely given. "Second" he said "I would suggest that you must practice your religion without adulterating or toning it down". This is just as remarkable as the first. The greatest living non Christian asks us not to adulterate or or tone it down, not to meet them with an emasculated gospel but to take it in its rugged simplicity and high demand. But what are we doing? As someone has suggested we are innoculating the world with a mild form of Christianity, so that it is now practically immune to the real thing... "Third I would suggest that you must put your emphasis upon love, for love is the center and soul of Christianity". He did not mean love as a sentiment, but love as a working force, the one real power in a moral universe and he wanted it applied between individuals and groups, and races and nations, the one cement and salvation of the world.... "Fourth I would suggest that you study the non Christian religions and culture more sympathetically in order to find the good that is in them, so that you might have a more sympathetic approach to the people." Quite right.

Technorati Tags: india, mission

india talkie revisited - post colonial guilt and contextual worship

in june i blogged a series of posts called india talkie which were my reflections on my visit to india. some of them reflected on the challenge of the cultural forms of church - e.g. is christianity a foreign religion

sunil came across my posts and we have had an exchange of e-mails that i am posting below (with his permission). i found this really helpful - it justs highlights the complexities of mission and contexts...

Hi Jonny

Somehow stumbled upon your blog site. Saw Jakes and Sheila and I think I was supposed to drop in when you visited their coffee house. Anyhow I have some thoughts on some of your postings. Expecially the bit about culture and indigenous worship.

I think it's always a danger to slot people. When you go to a different country one expects things to be in a certain way. Ya indigenous worship is surely the way forward but what defines indigenous? My family have been Anglican for over a 150 years. All my friends, whether Christian, or non-Christian speak English, listen to rock. What is indigenous? indigenous Christianity today seems to be a
post-colonial reaction for Easterners and post-colonial guilt for the West. so the West still prescribes what Christianity should look like in other cultures! No sinister motive this. Just a lack of trust and
understanding I think. the Holy Spirit will inspire us to be who we are meant to be. Imposing is always dangerous.

But I completely agree with your statement, 'globalisation, global, western and even american were all getting merged together, sometimes as though they were the embodiment of evil!' I've married a Britisher and we see it every day. Racial prejudice is alive and well all over the world!

These issues of race and culture are only truly answered in Christ. He
is our peace, breaking the dividing wall between us.

Thanks for reading
Sunil

Sunil
Great to hear from you. Thanks for taking the trouble to write. I completely agree with you that it is very difficult to define what is indigenous. And this was my first visit to India... I realise that there is plenty of Western influence in youth culture in India etc. and it is complictaed. My posts were not meant to rubbish that in any way. But I still think the issue of contextual worship is important. It must connect with and come out of Indian soil - maybe as a fusion or a remix? But not adopted wholesale. I don't think it is just post colonial guilt (though you are right I do have plenty of that!!!). I was particularly reacting to what felt like english worship from two centuries ago... I can't believe that is a good thing for India today? It's irrelevance here has led to decline in the church amongst young people. I interviewed several people when I was in India (including Jakes). I could send you a DVD if you are interetsed. But one in particular was interesting on this issue. Ganesh works for the IMA and is from  hindu background - all his family are hindu. He is if you like outside the church culturally. He basically said that for his family and those who have grown up outside the church they see it as foreign in its cultural expression and this turns them away from Christ. This is why I think it is more than just post colonial guilt - long term unless worship connects at some grass roots level with peoples context it ends up being alienating. I realise that in many areas this will have western components in the mix. But in other places it probably won't and shouldn't...

I run a blog as you know. Would you mind if I posted your e-mail on it? I think it adds an intersting dimension to the discussion. You certainly have got me thinking.
cheers
jonny

Hi Jonny

I do agree about contextual worship. I guess it's just that I react a lot to some things. When I studied in London School of Theology (then LBC) we learnt a lot about contextual worship and its importance.. In fact my 3rd year dissertation was on a similar thing. My conclusion was that actually that my church in it's particular context needn't radically change it's musical style, because that's what people have grown up with. Also deciding what is contextual is a difficult process. In a rural area it is simpler because there is more homogenity in culture. But what about a city? There are people from all over India here, speaking different languages. My chief worry here is to impose something that looks unreal.

If a church sounds like 18th century England then obviously that's hopelessly out of context. But straightforward bhajans (indian devotional hymns) for an urban english speaking community will also be out of context. You are quite right in using the terms fusion and remix. That is the only way to go. Aradhna are kind of close. They interweave hindi and English songs within one session of worship. Have you heard them? But many musicians down south say that the singing is too complex for a congregation.

I think the issue is very important, but for some reason not many of the churches have got into the act of at least thinking about it. There was a songwriter in the early 20th century (1905) who did write many songs from scripture with Indian tunes. But they're all forgotten. My father is trying to translate them into English and get them published.

The ideal would be if the local church in each area could write their own music pertaining to their own context, musically and lyrically. But there is a a long way to go. But conversations like this ensure that the seeds are planted and watered.

I use the term post colonial guilt because the issue of contextualisation is often brought about in relation to colonialism. But the first evangelicals to come on mission were very into contextualisation. It's a whole mission history lesson to find out how it all started getting confused.

Anyhow thanks for writing and responding to my rant and hope things are well with you.

I have no issues with you putting up the posts.

Sunil

Thanks... I have actually booked aradhna  for greenbelt this year as I co-ordinate the worship. There is also a group called sanctuary who do a kind of alt worship meets british asian culture. I think you’d find it very interesting. Pall singh who heads it up is doing something very unique...

I’ll add our exchange to the blog

blessings
jonny

Technorati Tags: india, mission, india talkie

new blogs

steve hollinghurst starts blogging

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india talkie 15: dave's photos

dave has uploaded his india photos and has a series of reflections on india

Technorati Tags: india, india talkie, photos