Subject: Faith, Witness, and Freedom
Note
This article is written in response to a short message I received from a Hindu convert:
“I am my parents’ son and a brother of my sister and nephew of relatives, who are all sadhakas of a Devi Devata. Like many Masihis [Chrisians], I failed to get any of my relatives saved or to embrace the Lord.”
His words were not argumentative. They were heavy. The weight was not theological — it was emotional. This reflection grows out of that weight.
Introduction
Many Hindu converts to Christ carry a quiet burden. They believe in the Lord. They pray. They try to live sincerely. Yet somewhere inside, there is a lingering thought: “I have failed. My family is still not saved.”
Where does this feeling come from? Is it born from bhakti — from devotion itself? Or is it shaped by certain religious expectations?
I call this condition evangelical captivity.
Evangelical Captivity: When Devotion Becomes Performance
In some evangelical settings, faithfulness is subtly measured by results. How many did you bring? How many accepted? How many were baptized? Without saying it openly, the message becomes clear: if you truly love the Lord, you must produce visible fruit.
Slowly, devotion becomes performance. Witness becomes pressure. Love becomes anxiety.
The convert begins to think:
“I am saved; they are not.”
“If I really cared, they would have changed.”
“If they remain outside, I am responsible.”
This is not bhakti. This is captivity.
True bhakti blossoms freely. It cannot grow in a climate of constant measurement.
Lessons from Early Christianity
Before there was a finalized New Testament, early believers lived by shared memory, oral teaching, Hebrew Scriptures, and community life. Authority was lived and relational. The gospel spread through merchants, migrants, women, slaves — ordinary people — not through guilt campaigns. Even leaders like Paul did not measure their worth by the response of every listener. Many rejected the message. Yet faithfulness was not judged by numbers.
When we read history, including insights from works like The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church {Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church and the Causes which Hinder It, WS Publishers, 1997. See the Appendix}, we see that the church often grew naturally — through relationships, integrity, and daily life — not through imposed anxiety. Witness flowed from life. It was not enforced by statistics.
Where Guilt Enters
Modern evangelical culture, especially in its more activist forms, sometimes intensifies the language of mission. Statements like those attributed to Charles Spurgeon “Every Christian is either a missionary or an impostor.” —(Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 19, 1873)1 are powerful. But when removed from context, they can create unintended psychological pressure. The convert may begin to believe that failure to convert family members is spiritual negligence.
But are we the savior? Or is God?
We can testify. We can answer questions. We can live transparently. But we cannot control another soul. To carry responsibility for someone else’s eternal destiny is to carry what belongs to God.
Witnessing Without Guilt
Sharing faith is not wrong. Silence born of fear is not healthy. But speaking out of anxiety is also unhealthy. A Hindu follower of Christ can remain fully devoted, fully sincere, and yet not feel condemned because relatives remain within their ancestral paths.
You are not their judge.
You are not their redeemer.
You are not their conscience.
Bhakti is relationship. It is not a quota.
Conclusion
Evangelical captivity happens when devotion is overshadowed by imposed guilt. When love is replaced by measurement. When faith becomes performance.
Breaking free does not mean rejecting mission. It means restoring joy.
Devotion is sufficient.
Integrity is sufficient.
Witness given in freedom is sufficient.
The rest belongs to God.
Ashram, February, 21, 2026
- “Every Christian here is either a missionary or an impostor. Recollect that. You either try to spread abroad the kingdom of Christ, or else you do not love Him at all. It cannot be that there is a high appreciation of Jesus and a totally silent tongue about Him.”—Spurgeon, op. cit. information accessed by Perplexity, February, 23, 2026
This summary of my synopsis was generated with the assistance of ChatGPT on February 23, 2026.
Summary of the Synopsis on Roland Allen’s The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church,
In The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church and the Causes Which Hinder It (1997 edition), Roland Allen confronts a troubling paradox: modern missions invest immense energy, organization, and finance — yet often fail to produce self-propagating churches. His burden is not statistical decline but spiritual sterility.
Allen’s argument begins with a foundational warning: “If we establish missions rather than churches, two evil consequences… inevitably arise” (p. 2). When what is planted is a mission structure instead of a responsible local body, dependency becomes inevitable. Authority remains external. Initiative weakens. Expansion slows.
This pattern is not confined to colonial history. Even so-called indigenous missions can replicate the same model. Foreign control may disappear in appearance, yet structural dependence remains intact. Instead of living churches that multiply naturally, new mission fields are continually manufactured — fields dependent on funding, supervision, theological certification, and institutional approval. Such systems cannot produce spontaneous expansion.
Allen identifies several hindrances.
First is artificial dependency in leadership training. “Christ trained His leaders… we train in institutions” (pp. 20–21). His concern is not education itself, but formation detached from life. Leaders raised in institutional “hothouses” often return to their communities ill-prepared for organic leadership. Instead of nurturing initiative, training can create either timidity or quiet resentment.
Second is doctrinal control maintained through external authority. “Maintenance of doctrine… by external authority… is a contradiction” (p. 46). Doctrine cannot mature under perpetual supervision. When creeds are imposed without inner assimilation, faith becomes secondhand. Living conviction is replaced by borrowed orthodoxy.
Third, Allen questions rigid moral regulation: “No standard of morals… capable of legal expression in the NT” (p. 68). When morality is codified into inflexible rules reflective of foreign culture, spiritual growth is stifled. The Spirit’s gradual work is replaced by mechanical conformity. The proud remain untouched while the weak are discouraged.
Fourth, he critiques the export of civilization along with the gospel: “They must adopt our civilization… The new civilization had no root” (p. 78). Christianity becomes associated with foreign habits, social structures, and cultural markers. Such transplantation produces communities detached from their own soil — vulnerable, isolated, and often socially suspect.
Organization itself becomes another hindrance. Allen warns that “organization… obscures and deadens… spontaneous freedom” (p. 8). When evangelism is professionalized, the ordinary believer’s initiative declines. “Paid agents… work for the mission” (p. 108), while the laity become dependent spectators rather than active witnesses.
Closely related is ecclesiastical centralization. Allen laments a condition in which the “church [is] given to the ministry, not ministry to the church” (p. 129). When sacraments and authority remain tightly controlled by external clergy, local congregations cannot mature in responsibility. Leadership becomes positional rather than relational.
Allen insists he writes not as a theorist but from deep pastoral concern. Excessive restraint, he observes, “forces godly zeal into opposition to order” (p. 16). Fear of disorder often suppresses genuine spiritual vitality. The result is uniformity without life.
In his final chapter, Allen outlines what missionaries should actually deliver: the apostolic tradition, the sacraments, and freedom. They must “leave new-born churches to learn by experience… watch over… guide” (pp. 150–152). Guidance is necessary; control is destructive. The missionary role is transitional, not permanent.
The principles are simple yet radical: trust the Holy Spirit. Allow the gospel to incarnate within local culture. Permit mistakes, growth, and correction from within. Spontaneous expansion cannot be engineered; it emerges where responsibility and freedom coexist.
Allen’s vision challenges every mission model that equates structure with stability. Sterility results when organization replaces trust, when supervision replaces faith, and when expansion is managed rather than released.
The question remains as urgent today as in Allen’s time:
Do we trust the Spirit enough to let the church grow without our control?
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