Hinduism - Lesson 26

Model number four: Jesus Christ, the Western savior in a three piece suit. I did that little last part. Thought you'd like that. This is also very dominant in India. Many Indians have glamorized America, especially in Britain. They believe that the United States is a great economic power, military power, and they want anything to be like it. They would love for the Indian economy to be like the American economy. A lot of Indians are. I mean, this recent war. The Indians were not as in favor of this as past US initiatives. But as a rule, Indians are generally very pro-U.S.. And part of their frustration with America is that we have typically sided more with Pakistan than with India. That's been our kind of major frustration is and these always try to say, hey, you know, we've been a really good friend of yours in Asia, so why have you not been more supportive of our fight with Pakistan? And there's a lot of reasons beyond that, which we don't have time to develop here. But a lot of Christians in India have only met Christianity through Western missionaries. And more prominently today, they have come to the West and studied Western formulations that were not sensitive to the Indian context, not knowing how to do theology cross-culturally. They don't know how to adapt to a more relevant formulation. So the result is many, many seminaries in India, not a few. Many are like miniature Gordon Cornwell's. But nothing wrong with a miniature Gordon Conwell. But I'm saying they essentially you could be transported. And our students, by the way, who sat in our class in DC. A number of students here have gone. They've gone to school class all day long just to see what would it be like to go to a typical day at NTC. 

And outside there are many, many big differences. And one difference is the women are on one side and on the other. You know, the dress is different. Obviously, they're all Indians. But in many ways, the content of what's being taught by the professors is very, very much the same. What you have here, and as it should be, a lot of it is, of course, is cross-cultural, basic facts about church history, whatever else. But many times there's huge gaping holes of things that are so important to Indian students, so important in context, which are simply not addressed because the person who studied stay in the West and never learned it, never thought about it, or never knew how to address it, you eventually have a problem, a disconnect, so that the churches began to look more Western sound. Western use Western vocabulary. Churches have pews and stained glass windows, organs. All of that is definitely in India, and it looks foreign to people and they just assume that Jesus Christ must have a three piece suit on. You have a lot of emphasis on the especially the Fuller School of Theology school or missions. Church growth techniques have been applied in India in a massive way. A lot of people deeply, deeply influenced by church growth, thought of forward psychodynamic Gavron. Gavron was a missionary in India or his parents where he grew up in India. They believe that McGavin is a great friend of India, which he was. But I think that some of the church growth techniques are really drawn out of Western sociology, anthropology, and many of them are far into the way India actually works. So I asked the question here: Will this approach lead to an indigenous church rooted in the Indian soil? That being said, I think the Indian church has a lot to learn from the Western church experience. 

I think we have a lot to offer. I think we have a lot of experiences because of the longevity of our church in the West, that it's just the newer church in north north India can learn from. But we just need to be go as servants and not present the Western Jesus. The fifth and final model is Jesus Christ. The unique logos made Sonya's and this is kind of what we've seen in on top of Christ as the embodiment of the ideal Christ, the true philosopher and truth bearer. We've developed this already with that case study that a lot of people believe that Jesus Christ should be made to look like a biomedical, high caste world. ANNOUNCER Or send awesome and present Jesus as an esthetic one who has denied the world the pleasures of the world and is more the picture of a true teacher in the Indian context. I think there is a place for this in a limited way. I think, though, that the vast majority of Indians, especially in the bhakti tradition, will find that rabbinical ordeal not only alien to them, but actually repulsive to them in today's kind of Dalit empowerment context. Because today you've heard of affirmative action in our culture. India has also has affirmative action programs, and they have what we would call reverse discrimination. And that used to reverse discrimination, but essentially trying to not only make things equal, but go back retroactively and love lift the dollar to make up for past problems. So, for example, they have certain seats in their Congress. They don't call it Congress, but their Lok Sabha, their House of Commons, house reserved for Dalits. Only Dalits can run for those seats to try to put more Dalits into the power structure of India. 

Universities in India have certain seats set aside for Dalits in the university, things like that. So this kind of thing has created empowerment that the Brahmins are under little bit of a siege in India. And because of that, not everyone, including myself, is convinced that the cameramen ideal is going to be the best way to present Jesus. Though I think once again that it has a role to play in the overall picture. Okay. So those are some models. I think probably the major models that I have observed in India that are currently present in various shades or combinations thereof, But I think essentially those five would be fairly dominant models in India. Questions or comments about any of the five last year and some of the pitfalls of that similar to the ones Jesus was given by the government. Right. Actually, this model is generally much more inclined toward biblical faithfulness than is the other. This model is not necessarily trying to undermine Christ uniqueness or Christ authority as the normative expression of God in the world, but they want to make sure that the face of Christ is Indian that is presented to Indians in terms in which they're familiar with. So they have said that even though India has made up all these different caste and jottings and all the actual teachers of truth in India have come through, the medical traditions of Christ should be viewed in a census and robe and all that. You may notice my book on of on top. Some of you have read that I purposely put on the book a picture of an Eastern Christ. Yeah, that book there are great bless your heart. Just good to have that books always available. Pull out in a conversation. 

I chose the rabbinical. This is the column of the Brahmins because they actually met with an artist in Delhi in a talk. This I want you to do so I want you can you paint this? And he did A guy in Tony Smith painted this. So this is a my idea but he designed it or did the artist's work. But I wanted the saffron colored in showing Christ superimposed over the saffron. This has, like, powerful imagery in the Indian context. And yet I wanted the Jesus to be an Eastern Jesus. So he has Jesus giving a more die here, which is very Eastern. I mean, Eastern Orthodox. I mean, have frequently Christ. This is a Trinitarian model. And of course you have the halo and all that. That's kind of typical of Eastern views of Christ. But Christ is in a kind of a dharmic pose here, superimposed over the pinnacle, saffron. There's a lot of symbolism here with anybody that is not I don't know, but I noticed it. So in that sense, this is the idea. We're not trying to become Brahma and we're not trying to give away the gospel to the Brahmins like the Dharma people do. We're trying to show Christ as unique but unique over against radical tradition. Sorry. Questions or comments? Yes. It's like. I mean, India, this is what you basically have actually seen through this. You've got the mainline churches which have they actually are in a number of these categories. But you've got the essentially like the PC USA here, United Methodist, that kind of expression of Protestants was very dominant in India. They're they're in big numbers and they're seminaries are very liberal and they don't preserve historic Christianity. You have the Pentecostals definitely at this level, as you pointed out, you have a lot of Western missionary presence. 

That kind of leaves it here, the evangelical secessionist kind of expression like, I don't know, whatever you have to say, it is really very tiny and it wouldn't make one of the categories. I'm not saying it's not important. I mean, even in Dehradun, there is a Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Yes. They're all secessionist and they have a student body of maybe 30 students. And they're all very committed to of that whole, you know, theological world. But they would not be that influential actually in the larger Indian context and are very spread like Latinos are very expressive. They're very emotional. They've encountered demonic stuff all their lives. So it's hard it's a hard sell, actually, for an Indian to be convinced that God doesn't heal today. And it's a very hard sell. I mean, I think it's a stupid sell. And from my point of view, because I'm totally unconvinced of secessionism. But with all respect to those who are there, it's a place from an India, but it's a very tiny place. Very tiny place. Biggest station stands between peripheral and not central. The Howard Labor theological here because of the. Somehow encounters. And that is that like that would be kind of that indicator of that the little group of 730. That's a good question. I mean, I would say that if you were to stop our student body and ask them one by one, what do you associate with the president of the seminary? They wouldn't say reform theology, a five point Calvinism. They would say even though they're all five point Calvinist over there, they would say they don't believe that people can be healed today. I believe we should pray for the sick. Well, why are they? I mean, that's kind of their approach.

Well, that's true. I really don't know. But most evangelicals today are either involved in kind of a Western reader based on what we have here or are involved in inside and outside Pentecostal. Please don't hear me as like classical Pentecostalism. Just kind of a very broad sense. It could be everything from kind of like vibrant worship without a lot of I mean, I've never heard too many times like tongues and of tongues and all that. It's not I mean, it's not like this is like that, but just things like of praying for the sick, believing that God will heal people today. In that sense, Pentecostalism kind of general, when you see it in a sort of similar awesome holistic mode, it's brilliant into this stuff. Yeah. I mean, I think that the discussion, for example, that's present in many Pentecostal churches here about what is the sign of the Baptist Holy Spirit and is there initial evidence versus, you know, could have happened later. And all that whole discussion is not as important to India. And I've had many, many students over the years. To be fair, the who have said to me, I don't believe in the Holy Spirit because I never have spoken in tongues. I've heard this many, many times. What do you think about that? Do you think I felt the Holy Spirit? You know, this is this I've asked as a many, many times. So that mentality is kind of there, but I've never heard it publicly talked about in any a doctrine of teaching that there should be some expectation about that or not. So I think that a lot of the kind of classical divisions that are here would not be as prevalent there. By the way, our school, you know, going to Cornwall is a very mixed bag. 

We now have the number one category is undecided. And then the next two or PC USA, an assembly of God. So that tells me that we have a really a wide mix here. Gordon Conwell I think that's wonderful because I love I love my secessionist friends, I love them. I do. I think they're wonderful. I love I love Calvinism, I love Fivepoint Calvinism. When I hear someone say, Oh, my heart is strangely warmed, it is. I love it. I've never had a day a problem with it. But on the mission field I work a little broader ecumenical base because in the mission field the context is different and you've got to be able to work across certain. I mean, you're working with an evangelical ism, solid biblical theology, but across more of long Anabaptist lines and kind of a and the way they did their theology kind of working in a little more of a broader perspective because many of these churches in India, you have one church in your village, you don't really have a choice of 12 churches to find the exact slice you want. And so right in North India, when I first went to India, it's changed a bit in the last few years. But the statistics, well, I figured it out on the Calcutta one time, the statistics, the likelihood of you being born in a village or a town or city in north India that had a church of any kind, including Catholic, any kind, Pentecostal, Catholic, whatever the likelihood of being born in a village or town or city with a church was one in 3000. That means that 2999 people out of out of 3000 will be born in a village. They had no church at all. 

So that really affects, you know, Westerners who have 20 churches in Hamilton, Beverly, you know, have a different kind of a mentality. And in the mission field, you have to kind of rethink that a little bit. And I go over to Pete's lecture there, speak there. One of the professors comes and teaches church history at MTC, a very warm relationship. They think we're really weird. We think they're a little weird, but we're part of the body and we love each other and we're praise God that there's a place for them in the body. And we think actually they can help potential abuses in our ministry and we think they're a good check for us and they're always worried about us. They're always telling us, as you make they know I've got in control, they think I'm safe. They've brought their heart to me about we're so concerned about entering into theological rails, you know, and people like that within tongues or something. And yet the people I explained to them that now this, this, this group is really, really kind of historic Christianity. You'd be surprised. Really? Yeah. These people pretty solid, you know, And there's a few that are weird, but basically we're pretty solid group. You know, we kind of build a little trust and we help each other. So I my attitude.