Dialogue with Christians to be edited Part Thirteen

Dayanand,

This message bounced because your mailbox could not handle the attached e-photo.  Therefore, I am resending it without the photo.

Daniel Kikawa has been conducting research in Hawaii (the USA state of his residence) and Japan (the country of his ancestral origin).  His thesis is that the original religion of all people groups was the worship of Jehovah.  If we can go back far enough, we can find remnants of this religion.  Then, when we conduct evangelism, we state not that we are introducing a new religion to the land but recovering the original religion of the culture.  In particular, he tries to discover these remnants in ancient temples and worship practices.  He also seeks to encourage Christians to participate in traditional cultural events and utilize them for their worship.

I pray all is continuing well in your life and ministry.  I returned to the States a month ago, and I am busy with my teaching at the university. It was a highlight of my visit this year that I could get to know you better.  You are such a treasure of our Lord for His outreach of love to the heart of His beloved India.

God bless.

Herb

—–Original Message—–
From: Herbert Hoefer
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2004 10:51 AM
To: ‘Alohake’
Cc: Dayanand Bharati (dayanand_bharati@hotmail.com)
Subject: RE: from Daniel Kikawa

Daniel,

I am keeping my summers free now, so it might be possible to join.

If you’d like to open a discussion with Swami Dayanand Bharati, you can contact him by e-mail:  Dayanand_bharati@hotmail.com  By way of some introduction, I’ll attach a photo that I took on this last trip.  Dayanand is the swamy on the left on the photo.  The swamy on the right is Swami Mukhtanand, who was recently initiated into the role of Christian sanyassi by Swamiji Dayanand to run an ashram in Varanasi, the most sacred city of Hinduism, on the Ganges.

It’s possible that Swamy Dayanand will be traveling to England and the USA in May-June of next year.  I don’t know if you two can connect, but I’m sure you would have a great to share and learn from each other.

Swamy Dayanand’s book “Living Water and India Bowl” has been reprinted recently in a USA edition by William Carey Library.

God bless.

Herb

—–Original Message—–
From: Alohake [mailto:alohake@ilhawaii.net]
Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2004 11:23 PM
To: Herbert Hoefer
Subject: from Daniel Kikawa

Aloha Herb,

    Thank you for sending me the “Rethinking Hindu Ministry” papers. I look forward to reading them. I have been reading your e-mail journal from India with great interest and have forwarded some to others. I particularly was intriuged with Update #7 about Swami Dayanand Bharati. Does one of the papers go over his baptism ritual? It is so unbelieveable that the Hindu family would support it. What a breakthrough.

    If we held a seminar next summer, would you be able to participate?

Mahalo Nui Loa,

Daniel

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Dear Swamiji,

Vanakam

I reached home safely on Monday and started my life back here.  I greatly appreciate your visit to the Ashram and your participation.  I personally learned a lot from this experience.  As you said it is hard to change the mind set of these ‘Christians’.  You do not want to waste your time with them and have chosen the task of sharing Christ with the high class Hindus.  May God continue to guide in this.  My prayers are with you.  I can do my best within my capacity to promote your noble cause and the courage.  After the seminar some people began to understand your position.  Few  of them stated to read your book and have a change of opinion.  I want to continue my seminars among the independent evangelists and educate them to have positive understanding about Hindus and Hinduism.  These ‘Christians ‘ have hard time to understand what it means to be a Hindu and devotee of Christ.  The history reveals that the people who took the stand like were not appreciated in their time.  Howevere, they have made wonderful contribution to Indian Christianity.  Please do not get discouraged over the oppositions you face.  If you understand them you will have sympathy for them and forgive them.  They are stuck in their worldview for so many years and do not have the capacity to come out of it.  Yet people like you should continue to help them to change with sympathy.  I have been with SDA people for 45 years and I find only few responded positively to the idea of Ashram and reaching the Hindus.  I get good response from Hindus and Muslims in my place for the work of the Ashram.  I know that you are not interested to get money from abroad.  Howevere, you can not reject those who want to support you from abroad.  Please try and get permission from Home Ministry to receive funds from abroad and register your Guru Kulam as tax exempt institution.  I want to read more about OM.  Send me the names of some books to read.

Please continue to keep in touch with me.  God bless you. Shanthi

Ramasamy 

Dear Dr. Ramaswami,

Shanti!

Thanks for inviting to visit your ashram.  It is a beautiful place, particular the river just at walking distance.  I enjoyed my evening walk in the river sand after a long gap of years.  Thanks for understand my struggle with Christian world.  As you well understood, I would rather spend time with my own people, as I don’t have much time to become an all rounder.  You have special gift and patience to deal with such people.  I don’t have any fight with the Christians, but the unteachability is bit too hard for me to digest. 

In principle and policy we have decided not to accept foreign fund for the gurukulam and rest of the Trust members won’t accept any change in this matter.  However some Hindu bhaktas of the Lord in the west helped us for gurukulam and also for my personal needs.

Rick will invite you for RF to be held at Atlanta.  If possible try to participate.  My regards to your wife, who arranged a puja room in your house.  It much encourage to hear such news that too initiated by a Christian woman.  God bless your efforts.

db

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Dear Swamiji

I would like to give you an update on my plans for moving to UP and request you for an advice.

For the last 5 months, I have been working on setting up a micro-enterprise-development business in Lucknow. Key idea of my future work is empowering the poor to become self-sufficient. I attended a one week training at Vizag and am planning to attend a two months training in Ahmedabad. I am planning to work in Rai Barelli and Amethi districts and a possibility of working in collaboration with Rajiv Gandhi Foundation has also come up. I am planning to take a Hindi training in June 2006 and spend a month after this to finalise the place to relocate.

As my plans for moving to Uttar Pradesh are coming closer, I am realising the need for the right identity. I have a desire to convert to Christ Bhakta and have Hindu friends recognise me as a god-fearing and devout businessman. I would like to look at possible ways I can express my devotion to Jesus as a businessman. As a Christian when I think of becoming a Christ Bhakta, three things comes to my mind; I believe I need a Hindu name, need to speak good Hindi and need to live out a devout life. I also have two questions.

1. Is there a socially acceptable way for a Christian to take a Hindu name? Can I become a Hindu? What would you recommend?
2. What is involved in living a devout life? Who would you describe as a devout businessman? What characteristics would you observe in the life of a devout businessman which makes him different from other businessmen?

Can you please give me your advice?

KC

Dear KC.

Shanti!

Good to hear about the progress that you are making.  To your specific questions:

1. The socially acceptable way to become a Hindu is do prayaschitta (repentance).  This is bit different from ‘shuddi’ which the VHP is performing to re-convert Christians back to Hinduism.  But this you could do only among the people with whom you would like to involve more closely.  For example Muktanand has performed a praysachitta in Varanasi to declare to his Hindu neighbors and friends about his decision to return back to his Hindu community.  In your case as you don’t have such friends in North now, you have to think about it in future.  Of course legally you can also become a Hindu and for this you have to contact a lawyer.
2. Regarding a devoted business man, I don’t think there is any easy answer in words.  The simplest biblical answer is that you should be as sharp as a snake but as innocent as a dove.  However everyone knows that a business man is not doing social service but doing business to make money.  So he has to follow his business dharma.  In such dharma you cannot tell some of your dealings openly.  This is not telling lie, but be sensitive how you are going to do your business.  The word ‘transparency’ is the unpractical world in business.  Some sincere business man who is also a bhaktas of the Lord alone can give you the right answer based on their experience.  You asked a right question but to a wrong person.

God bless you.

db

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As we will go for weekend days for Kodai meeting, there will be always a Sunday service, in which the ashram in charge (Sri Bob Raj) will ask me to share.  But in spite of his announcement and personal request to me, most of the time only few will participate and Prasad will never attend.  One of the main reasons could be the way it is communicated.  Because the previous evening someone in charge of the ashram would announce like this: there is a chappal inside the library.  Tomorrow morning there will be a service and swamiji wii “preach”.

As this convey that on Sunday morning Christian worship their god in church, we, as Hindus need not go their worship (their) god (whereas Hindus have no problem in worshipping Jesus with rest of their gods).  So this time, when Sri Bob Raj, as usual requested me to share and also announce this to our group, I told him that I will announce in my own way.  As he and his wife clearly understood our approach and supported it, he left it to me.  Then I made the announcement in this way: there is a small temple inside the library.  Tomorrow morning there will be a small aradhana (I also used the word puja) and I will give a pravachn.

Though I made the announcement in a way they would understand, yet I was concerned about the order of service, which they won’t understand.  However, as they are not going to remember it for long time, I was happy about the oppertunity to share from the bible (already I decided about talking about the ‘the power of resurrection’).  But to my surprise, Bob Raj, after sometime told that there won’t be the regular service (of CSI) and

he asked me to conduct it the way I would like.  Taking advantage of it, on Sunday morning Isais that as they cannot follow both the words and tune of the regular songs from their song book can I use the bhajans that I wrote and composed, as my group already familiar with those songs.  He gladly gave his permission and except one person (who finally joined at the end to listen the message) all from our group not only participated in the worship but listened the resurrection message.

Dayanand, Bangalore, May 6, 2006

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Koshi and I stayed in one room on August 28^th (1999) night at Mahabalipuram.  Though I become very tired due to several reason (diahorriah last night in train, travel, talk etc.) we talked.  After some general talks he asked: What are the areas in which the Christ bhaktas in your ministry are struggling?  Is it on opposition, lack of proper teaching or on moral grounds etc..

DB:  Most of their struggle is in interpersonal relationship with their family members as most of them are living in joint family.  Few have on moral and other struggle like unemployment.  But they have no struggle with or because of other Christians and church.  Because they always keep a distance from them.  For example one boy has to travel minimum 80 km to attend a church.  So they need not worry about Christians.  I made it clear to them that if at all they fall back from their faith, it is due to their own personal reason and others cannot be blamed.

Then after some talk Koshi said something about ‘discipleing’, about the Christ bhaktas.  But I said:  I want to consciously remove all these kinds of Christian or evangelical technical terms from my mind and life.  I am not ‘discipleing’, any of the Christ bhaktas.  Because in the Christian ministry after ‘discipleing’ a person then will go in his/her way and their relationship would be more in theory.  Where as we Hindus have different understanding of guru-shisya relationship.  Once a person becomes a disciple of a guru, then it is a life long commitment.  That is why in our Hindu tradition no one will accept a guru and disciple quickly.

Koshi:  It is interesting!  What are the other terms which you would like to avoid?

DB: ‘Ministry’.  Because I am not doing any ministry for the Lord.  I am living as a Sannyasi for the Lord.  It is the dharma of a sannyasi to teach and travel.  So I am not doing any ministry.

Koshi:  In that case what is the necessary of baptism and other such sacraments for the Christ bhakta?  Is it not the personal commitment which is more important than outside activities.

Both I and Koshi know where our discussion is heading for.  As a member of Navigator group, which he often denies, they don’t believe in any sacraments.  About this I and his leader John Rejuvray had some discussion in one meeting in Bangalore few years before.  They talk about a ‘pure gospel’, in which there is no place for any kind of sacraments.  Now Koshi wants to push his idea on me.  So I used this opportunity to share my view.

DB:  I understood the gospel as a Hindu.  That is why when one person appreciated my efforts in contextualization I said, ‘I need not do any contextualization as I have understood the gospel as a Hindu.  It is only for Christians to attempt for it.’  So in our Hindu view samskars are very much important in our lives.  From birth to death we have several samskars.  Though birth, marriage and death are the three important ceremonies, yet there are other ceremonies related with each important events.  So to become a disciple of a particular guru or to follow any particular sampradaya (sect) the sadhaka has to under go an initiation ceremony which we call as deeksha.  Without such a deeksha he will only remain as an inquirer and not a follower of that guru or sampradaya.  Even a sannyasi who has to renounce all the rituals can do it only through a ritual.

I read about the western culture where a boy and girl can live together without marriage.  Like wise both men and women can have several sex partners outside marriage.  But such a couple cannot be called as husband and wife.  The woman can become pregnant through her partner, but he will neither be her husband nor the father to that child.  Whereas the woman will become a Single mother.  But in our culture such arrangements are abomination.  So a couple not only need mutual commitment and love but also should properly married to be called husband and wife in any country.  Like wise some westerners in the name of pure gospel are preaching that what is important is our personal commitment to Christ and no need for any outside ceremony like baptism.  Then that person also should tell his Indian followers that they can live as a committed couple without any wedding chain or ring.  If commitment is the only criteria then what is the need of a marriage ceremony?  But as Hindus we give much importance to ceremony also.  We know that mere ceremony won’t create any deep commitment.  But such ceremony gives some kind of social recognition in the family and society.  So even if some western or westernized Christians propagate against baptism and communion sacraments, as Hindus we want to keep them.

Kosh:  Who is that person who is propagating such ideas.

DB:  Whoever may be it, but we are not ready to accept his ideas.

Both Koshi and I know who is that person and which is the group.  But he wants to measure me and I want to measure him.  So Koshi said, ‘very good, very good’.  But I know where his heart and mind is.  And I retired to bed with the satisfaction that through Koshi at least I gave my answer to the Navigators.  I also told him that if others do not find any value in any sacraments according to their interpretation of the bible, we as Hindus wants to have them.  Even if it is not for the sake of bible, at least for the sake of our values we want to have minimum sacraments in following Christ.  As Christ respects those values which have nothing to do with salvation or in our relationship with Him, He too will accept our values, even if all the Christians do not want them any more.

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My dialogue with Kumar Sivam’s parents is usual one, yet it is worth to record.  When I reached his house, after introduction his parents didn’t show any interest even to talk with me.  Just we had some talk that’s all and as I don’t know what else can I do, began to look for some books.  Kumar was busy with one of his phone interviews and his wife went out for other work (as she cannot understand Tamil, she left us alone to talk freely in Tamil also).  However around 11.30 Kumars’ mother keeping a copy of ‘Living Water and Indian Bowl’ asked me whether I’m following both Christianity and Hinduism.

I said ‘NO” and continued to give my regular answer to such questions—I am a Hindu and bhakta of Christ.  If they are 100 per cent Hindus, then  I am 150 per cent Hindu.  Then I explained about samajic and sadhana dharma and how both the bible and Hinduism keep similar view about one following her samajic dharma while choosing one’s one sadhana dharma.  Then I also talked about the need of a guru, not merely following certain family tradition and religious ritual cannot satisfy spiritual needs.  The need for knowledge—the need of a guru to give that knowledge—how to find a true guru or how a guru would find us—our response when a guru reaches us—what is that ‘knowledge’ which this guru Jesus gives—sin (karma, maya, bandan etc.) and need of liberation etc.

After sharing all these often quoting from Hindu scriptures, finally I asked her what is her view about Kumar’s faith in Christ.  For this she said, ‘I thought that I should have done something more to teach about Hinduism.  In our home we never do much puja or rituals.’

When she mentioned about Kumar ‘leaving’ Hinduism for ‘THAT’, I specifically asked her, what does that ‘THAT’ means.  And she said ‘Christianity’.

For this I said, ‘this is the common mistake done both by Christians and Hindus.  Christians failed to communicate and Hindus failed to understand.  To her another question, ‘what is lacking in Hinduism that he found them newly in Christianity,’ I said, ‘it is not founding something new, but the very Hinduism—through its scriptures, tradition, community prepared me to found a guru and though him the Truth about God and man.’  Of course this is the common argument raised by every Hindu.

Finally I told her that she need not entertain any more guilty conscience that she could have done something more which would have prevented her son to become a Christian.  But her upbrining prepared him to receive the Truth and also urged them to seek it before it is too late.  I also said that postponing the quest for mukti to some future birth is not good and quoted few scriptures in support for this.

Before my talk with Kumar’s mother, in my talk with his father, who has not interest in books or reading or even in spiritual matter, I said, ‘in spite of having Veda, Gita and dharma we become bad to worst and there is no honesty and integrity either in our personal life or in our public life.  Whereas western people, though all are not Christians but atheist, materialist and secularist, have relatively better integrity and honesty both in private and public life.  This he too agreed.  Finally I prayed and we went for lunch.

Dayanand, Mathigiri, April 12, 2006.

Swamiji,

    Do trust that your eye appointment went well and that you have a diagnosis and way to cure. Appreciate you spending the time with my parents and I do believe that the Lord help you make a very positive impact on my parents. My mother especially was impressed by your desire to live with the family in every day situations. Her typical idea of a ‘sanyasi’ is someone that has ‘renounced’ worldly life, but that can be viewed as ‘escapism’ and ‘shirking’ of one’s family duties by the rest of the family. It often causes resentment. My mother had questions on what comprises the ‘puja’ that is conducted and to which God do we conduct puja. I had a chance to spend another half an hour with her and share about the elements of Communion and it being the most sacred, ancient and solemn tradition from which a follower of Christ proclaims the sacrificial death of our Lord, draws power from Him for forgiveness of our sins, rejuvenation and strength for righteous living. I shared with her about how the Lord Jesus before he was betrayed washed the feet of his disciples as a model of humility and described the bread and wine and what they will symbolize after his death.

    I have a couple of thoughts on the part about western society living with higher levels of honesty and integrity even when they are atheists and secular.

1. Even though they may outwardly claim that they are atheist or secular, perhaps they have been raised for several generations with the Bible as a foundation and have therefore absorbed those values. The values of honesty and integrity when you put them in light of eternity make sense. But if you think this present life on earth is all there is (which should be what atheists or secularists adhere to) then I see no point in being honest. The only motivation for being honest is the repercussions being caught doing something that you can be punished for. Otherwise ‘situational ethics’ will take over. I will live for today. Eat, drink and be merry. Get away with as many things as you can.

2. The other point I have is – honesty and integrity truly find their match in a place like India. I feel it is easy to live by those values in a place like the US or parts of Europe where population sizes are reasonable and opportunities abound. However, in a place like India where even for every small opportunities there are 20 people competing it really becomes a test of ones values. The temptation to cut corners is huge if it means beating the 19 people to get that opportunity.

Looking forward to your visit on Easter.

Shanthi,

Kumar

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Dear Kutty achan,                    Erode, August 6, 1998.

Greetings in Jesus Name.

I thank God for the blessed opportunity to meet you again after a gap some years at Nagpur.  Though I have to disagree with most of you because of the principle for which I stand, yet that meeting helped me to understand the mindset up of the so called “Hindu Converts”.  They are no way different from the Christians in several areas.  Before I left Nagpur on 27th I told Hansraj ,” In future meetings if you invite people like me, first prepare the minds of the participants.   Never give first sessions to people like me.  Above all ask them to keep a HUMAN face in their relationship with others even though they cannot agree with them.”  Arun Shourie in his book (Missionaries In India: Continuities, Changes, Dilemmas. ASA Publication, 1994) in the epilogue says that the Catholic Bishops were extremely warm, friendly and humble even though most of them never agreed with him.  The Protestants, particularly the so called “New Converts” should have the same spirit.   Other wise we may fail to listen our own people to whom we want to share the gospel.  However our personal time at Hansraj’s house broke some ice as it gave an opportunity to share my views.  My one personal conviction is that without knowing a person’s background (including his struggles) we should not judge him.

Now coming to our matter I promised to send some of my papers for your personal study as well as publication in Times of India.  Considering the limitation of time I have, here below I am sending one small write up which was never published.  If you find it useful use it.  Actually I become sick after returned from Nagpur and slowly recovering.  Whenever time permits, I will send some more of my papers.   I will arrive Delhi on September 10 by Tamilnadu express and will stay at The Brotherhood House.  I am leaving Delhi on 15th.  Hope to meet you in person.  My regards to your wife.  Keep writing to me back about your comments on my papers which will help me to improve my writings.

Yours sincerely,

Dayanand

Dear Friend,                            

Greetings.

The main purpose of this two page personal letter is to `Chat’ with each other.  This is just an informal letter.  As we receive lots of religious magazines related to our faith, yet we don’t want to add one more to it, which will finally end up in not even opening the pin.  But we would like to sit and chat with you on some practical issues.  And any chat is not going to remain one way traffic.  So we expect to hear you too chat with others.  Raise any issue, problem related to your personal-public life–including your faith and let us hear from each other.  The main purpose of this personal letter is to provide an open stage for us to come together to discuss our life in this country as believers in Religious faith(s).  Your experience, questions, struggles, problems and answers will help others in their life situation.  Then why not come forward to share one another’s burden.  Close here expecting your reply for the next issue.

DAYANAND BHARATI.

                                                      MORALITY

“Democracy”, Mr. Vajpayee emphasised, “Was more a moral than just a constitutional or legal system.  While constitution and law are important, the prestige of Parliament is its life-giving strength (Pranshakti) and this must be bolstered by observing morality and ethics”.–G.B.Pant Award for the best Parliamentarian of the year 1994.  Times of India, Aug.18, 1994, p.1.

“Does morality hold any value in this age of corruption and competition”, asked the Army-retired Bank Manager, after his long quarrel with the TTE while I was travelling with him from Kanpur to Lucknow.  Though he held the Second class ticket, yet knowing that he should not travel in the II class sleeper coach, yet  boarded in my compartment at Kanpur with his family.  And caught by the TTE, he first started in mere argument that every body is travelling not minding about the rule.  When the TTE, not yielding to his arguments started to fine him, the Bank Officer began to quarrel with the TTE.  Finally I have to interfere, when the Bank Manager started to use unparliament words against TTE,

even threatening to beat him with cheppel, if he (TTE) do not fine rest of the passenger in the same compartment (I had my II class sleeper class ticket).

Finally compromised was reached and only charging the actual rate the TTE left the compartment.  He could not collect the fine because already he collected some fives and tens from rest of the passenger.  After a long gap of silence the Bank Officer and I entered in talk and in the course of our talk he asked that question.

Though I was not expected such a question from an educated man that too army retired Officer, I said,”I know that the TTE is a corrupted fellow.  We all know that we are living in a morally degraded society.  But simply blaming the society for all its corruption imagining as if we are not part of it won’t solve this problem.  My immediate concern to interfere in this matter was not to protect the TTE or to help him to uphold the law.  My only concern was your two sons (12 and 10 years respectively).  Anything your children are going to learn in this world is first from their parents.  They may be very much influenced by the world as they are growing up and the modern world is depriving them the fellowship of their parents and elders very much.  Yet the first impression that they will get is from their parents.  Now, as they have seen you using un-parliament words that too before their mother and the way you threatened the TTE to beat even with chapel etc, would definitely make its own impression on their young mind.  Now tell me what kind of morality would you expect from them as they grow up?

The Bank Manager remained silent for few minutes.  After some thought he said,” No.  I would bring them up in such a way to face the challenges that they will first learn how to survive than to think about MORALITY”. THIS INDEED SHOCKED ME and what about you?   What actually Morality means?

I would like to hear more a practical answer than philosophical one.

Welcoming your reply,

DAYANAND BHARATI.

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Topic Review – Newest First (only newest 5 are displayed) mrihs Luke 14:26 – The Cost of Being a Disciple At a seminar over the weekend one attendee objected to “staying in one’s community” when coming to faith in Christ. It seems that in this passage the point Jesus is trying to make is that genuine discipleship to Christ means that He comes first, not family, marriage, property or possessions. This often gets twisted to “one must hate his family to be a disciple”, what of Exodus 20:12, honor your father and mother? Robert Gundry says, ” to follow Him they had to renounce all other priorities ” and “Love for family must look like hatred by comparison with devotion to Christ.” in his book A Survey of the New Testament, 1981, Zondervan, p. 160. Other helpful scriptures and comments on this issue would be appreciated.

My response

I personally feel that the word ‘community’ has various interpretation both in the bible and to our respective nation we live.  Keeping in mind that Jesus came among the Jews, in which the sense of community as a called out people by God is understood.  But here in India, community is more a sociological arrangement which is based not on one’s faith allegiance but group identity.

In our walk with our Lord, He comes first.  But what Jesus told to his disciples in Mathew 10:37 (whereas in Luke 14:26 He address it to the crowds ‘traveling with’ Him)talks about His disciples’ priority to their family in which all have the same kind of spiritual cum religious allegiance to One God.  What I mean here is that in a Christian home, where everyone knows the Lord, the first priority of the entire home should be the Lord, because their spiritual as well as social life is based on their relationship with the Lord.

Limiting myself with Indian context, if a Hindu or Muslim  decided to follow the Lord, in the name of priority leaves her/his community and join a Christian community S/he never demonstrates her/his spiritual allegiance to the Lord but changing her/his sociological identity which is more secular than religious one.

Having said this now I would like to ask one question: can any one actually renounce all other priorities to follow Him?  Once He becomes my first priority then what happens to my RESPONSIBILITY to witness for Him to my own family, community, society and people?  And what is the FIRST PRIORITY in our RESPONSIBILITY as the followers of the Lord?  If I understand bible correctly the answer is not to enjoy an isolated happy joyful spiritual life in the Lord with other bhaktas only, but BE A WITNESS TO HIM first to our own people.  And for this we cannot leave our family, community and society.  This applies to those who live in a nominal Christian family as well.

Does the bible ask us to ‘renounce’ everything and does ‘self-denial’ mean ‘renunciation’?  I think Luke 14:33 does not talk about ‘renunciation’ because the word ‘In the same way’, … relates this verse to the previous verses 28-32.  And the NIV notes says, for 14:28 ‘Jesus did not want a blind, naïve commitment that expected only blessings.  As a builder estimates costs or a king evaluates military strength (v.31), so a person must consider what Jesus expects of his followers. 14:33: give up everything he has.  The cost, Jesus warned, is complete surrender to him. (p.1569)

Mathigiri, May 11, 2003.

Dayanand

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Dear Uncle, Ranikhet, June 26, 1999.

Greetings in Jesus Name!

Thanks for your comments for the recent book reviews in TAMAT April 1999.  During my recent visit to Chennai Rick showed your letter to me and was laughing and said, ‘So Rev. Titus thinks that I am writing book reviews using your name’, because in your letter you thanked him for his (?) two book reviews: The Ashram System by Patrick Olivelle and another on George David’s book’

Then I told Rick, ‘Yes Titus Uncles thinks that you are using my name to write some book reviews.  In my last visit to Sat-tal Ashram in September 1998, when I met him he said, “They know how to handle books in TAMAT”.  That time I told Uncle that I too write some book reviews in it.  For this he responded by saying, “Oh, it is you who writes.  But I thought that Rick is writing using your name”.  “Why should he use my name to write”, was my response then.’

For this Rick said, ‘Already I have one pen-name and why I need another one.’

The main purpose of writing this letter is to thank you for your encouraging comments for my book reviews even though you are still not ready to recognize that we INDIANS too can write good book reviews, articles and other things and not necessarily only a Westerner or a white man.  This shows the slave mentality of Indian Christians not to recognize Indian’s contribution to the Kingdom of God and even if they know this they want to give all the credit only to a westerner.  Of course this spirit is not at all new and that is why Sitaram Goel in his book ‘Catholic Ashrams Adopting and Adapting Hindu Dharma’ commented that those Indian pioneers who championed for the cause of indigenisation were never recognized while they were alive and worst that all their contribution was credited to westerners.  But after their death now the church is resurrecting them as the champion of indigenisation.  Sri Goel is talking about Brahmabahdhab Upadhyay, Sadhu Sunder Singh and Palani Andi in his book.  And your letter is endorsing what Goel has written. 

One more final but important thing, as far as my knowledge goes Rick didn’t even read the book ‘The Ashrama System’ and how can he, even using my name could ever write any review for that book—unless the westerners have the brain to write reviews even without reading any book!

Anyhow thanks for your encouraging comments.  I know that my letter is bit strong but the Indian Christian mind won’t understand soft voices.

Yours sincerely in Christ,

Dayanand Bharati.

Rev. Titus response:

July 222, 199.                                   P.O. Bhowali, Dist, Nainital, U.P.-263-132.

Dear Brother Dayananda!

Thanks you for that good letter of June the 26th, which I received yesterday.

I’m sorry for the “sin of presumption” on my part, in not acknowledging the TAMAT article where it belonged.  I stand corrected.

In my childhood I read a story, of twin brothers who were alike in many ways.  They thought alike, they wrote alike.  Many people did not recognise which was which.  And one day when Peter died, the people by mistake buried brother John!  My error was something like that.  I would gladly transfer to you whatever I wrote to our friend.

Reading scholarly book reviews is of immense help to people like me who cannot afford to possess the costly actual books.  Then where we timely need, we can try to reach it.

Keep on—God bless you!

Very sincerely yours,

D.P. Titus.

@@@

Frank, Pl. don’t share or try to publish any or part of this dialogue.  This is not ready to share with others.  Thanks. 

dayanand

Dear Dayanand

Just send me whatever you have!

I still don’t have your address and phone, if you send it I will send you our magazine The International Indian 10^th anniversary issue in which I have explained in a letter to PM Vajpayee about Karma and Christ based on my understanding from one of your earlier emails!

YBIC

Frank

Thanks for your response.  In stead of sending ‘whatever’ I have, I thought it is better to begin one with you.  But before I share my views regarding your letter to Vajpayeeji, I have to clear one thing that any of my response is not against you personally or any individual.  I only want to raise some questions regarding such approach.  So please don’t be offended if any of my view is not agreeable to your views.

My first question is what is the use of writing such letter to such people?  We all know that they neither have time nor any concern or interest to read such letters.  Of course we know that, most of the time, any such letter or book written by any Christian is not to confront their opponents but only to inform and educate their own people in the church or mission.  For example Vishal Mangalwadi wrote the book challenging Arun Shourie.  We all know well that a person like Arun Shourie is not going to respond or even read such books.  Their only response is ‘just ignore’ them.  However we have at least to appreciate that Shourie went to the Catholics to address them which latter appeared in his book.  Whereas most of the time several Christian writers involve with their dialogue partner in absence.  Of course there is nothing wrong in attempting even such writings or dialogue.  But what it is going to achieve is my question.  Because most of the Christians ‘react’ than giving proper ‘response’ to any of the challenges raised by their opponents.  Such reactions are neither going to get any response from their opponents nor going to educate their own people either in the church or mission. 

If at all the Christians want to involve in any genuine dialogue with the people of the other faiths, they have to train and teach their own lay people than confronting their opponents in an elitist or confrontational way.  Because, the time and energy which is invested in reacting to fundamentalism is not going to bring any positive result.  Above all I personally feel that we should be honest to ourselves when we try to write to address any people who are beyond our reach (both in position and principle).  Often such writing is only help to fulfill any personal evangelical agenda or (western) mission projects and programmes, than reaching any audience (both in the church/mission or opponents camp).  What do I mean by honest to us; let me share one my disappointment in such writing, which appeared several years before in one Evangelical Magazine.  One Christian using a pseudo Hindu name as well role, wrote against the evangelicals attempt to convert Hindus.   When I first read it I genuinely thought that it was really a letter written by a (liberal) Hindu to the evangelicals.  So in response I wrote a long letter back to him.  But later when I met one young ‘convert’ who is involved in that magazine told me that that letter was written by a Christian using a pseudo Hindu name.  When I challenged that young man about such a fraudulent ways, he too agreed with me that originally that letter was written not for publication but to train few young people to think in those lines, but by some mistake that letter leaked out and published in the magazine.

What I mean by fraud is that in order to achieve some mission project/agenda several times such Christians never remain honest either to the bible or to their Hindu and Christian audience.  To say in another way, such individual writers use all kind of people and audience to fulfill certain personal agenda—either to make a living or please some others.  They know well that their writings are not going to hit their imagined target or to help any lay people in the church or mission to train to involve in any ‘living dialogue’.  Because most of the time what such Christian writers write is beyond the reach of the lay people—either too elitist or too negative or worst of all unscholarly.

If at all the evangelicals want to have any genuine dialogue with their Hindu friends and neighbors, they cannot do it by writing books and articles addressing any imaginary or non-responding audience.  It is like fighting in the air.  For example recently I read two chapters in a book ‘Christianity and Hinduism’ by Dr. Tinnent.   When I got those two chapters, I began to read it with much enthusiasm to learn for any new information for dialogue.  But I was not only disappointed but also discouraged to see that writing such books, such Christian writers are in no way helping the lay people in their church and mission to involve in any living dialogue in their life situation—working place, neighbors, etc.  The worst part in such writing is that they are not even elitist and scholarly level.   Merely gathering several information by reading books, they instead of remaining faithful even to that information, try to fix them according to their own personal ideological agendas.  […ideology plays an integral part in the very act of understanding, interpreting or studying anything….— Richard King, Orientalism and Religion, Postcolonial Theory, India and ‘The Mystic East,’ New Delhi, Oxford, 1999. p.81] On the other hand, if they train few lay people in the church and mission field to ‘learn’ and ‘know’ their (Hindu/Muslim etc.) neighbors with whom they are rubbing shoulders, at least they could contribute something to their mission.  I have no objection if they really want to write in a scholarly way for other scholars—like J. Gonda, Patrick Ollivelle, Richard Fox Young  etc., at least several people can learn from these scholars.  But those who attempt to write by fighting in the air—targeting only an imagined audience, are not going to contribute anything genuinely to the Kingdom of God.

I have faith and only hope in the lay people.  They are the best one to involve in any kind of living dialogue with the people of the other faiths.  They need not know all hair splitting information about their and other’s faith.  Simple bhakti, witnessing life, using every opportunity to share their faith and conviction in the Lord through simple means—bhajans, worships, prayers etc. can reach others.  Otherwise mere academic dialogue or confrontational-ism with their opponents, the church and mission is further going to alienate their dialogue partner. 

Each one claim this millennium for themselves—American claiming it as theirs (the first millennium belongs to the Romans/Greeks, second to the Europeans and their one for them) and Asians claiming it for them (Vajpayeeji told in his recent visit to China that if China and India co-operate with each other, then this millennium will be ours).  And now I, on my part want to claim this millennium for us—LAY PEOPLE:  The first millennium belongs to the (Roman) Church, second one to the Missions and this millennium belongs to Us—Lay People.  And if any one sincerely writes anything to help us to get some training we will welcome it.

Mathigiri, June 25, 2003.

Dear swamiji

You have hit the nail on the head in your response although we are not aware of the contents of the purported letter to the PM. That Indian Christians mimic their western counterparts is well known and this “Letter to the PM” is another example. Instead of
sensitising Christians in their vicinity they embark on such grand futile projects. I found that in this letter you are mild and not your usual aggressive self.  So the letter should not hurt anyone personally.

On Arun shourie I want you to check with … on the facts. If my memory serves right the CBCI invited trouble by inviting Shourie to deliver few talks at their conference in the early nineties (I am not sure of the year). Researching on the history of missions
and finding major blunders in approach and attitudes of the missionaries he exposed their ways at the conference. Afterwards he published his findings as a book. I think the CBCI did not publish the text of his lectures in their proceedings. So I think the lectures preceded the book. But anyway check this fact with….
with regards

Rao.

Dear …,

Thanks for your response.  I am encouraged to see that you are agreeing with my points.  Regarding Shourie your facts are correct I think, but my point of referring him in my response is to show that at least the Catholic had the guts to invite and listen their opponents view, which later used by Shourie to write a book.  But in most of the Protestant circle, all the time they hit an absent opponent and always fighting in the air.

Let me share my personal feeling again.  I have no objection if any Christian (evangelical) wants to work among any particular group to uplift them.  But this they should do sincerely for keeping the welfare of that particular group in their mind and not to fulfill any kind of personal ideological agenda or (Western) Mission programme and project.  For example if any evangelical Christian sincerely want to reach the Dalits and in this process exposes any brahminical hegemony and (social-political-cultural-economic and etc.) oppression on this suppressed people I welcome it.  But in this process they should do all kinds of research and should write not merely to oppose brahminical hegemony but also to help the Dalits to learn from her/his writings.  Of course all the time s/he cannot write to the need and level of those simple people, if s/he really wants to confront such brahminical—elitist hegemony.  But if her/his message simply remain on elitist level and never reaches that simple audience in any form s/he may not achieve anything merely opposing any kind of oppression.  But those people who oppress Dalits and others to establish their particular ideological agenda—brahminical hegemony etc., are not going to take the writing of such opponent’s (the Christian writer’s) view seriously.  And the bad part in it is that many of those brahminical oppressive people know well that those who are opposing them cannot reach the simple Dalit and other oppressed people.  That’s why they are more afraid of politicians like Mayawati than Mangalwadis.  But the worst part in such writings is that they are done to react quickly than to respond soberly.  One hardly finds any kind of scholarly analysis but propagandist attack.  This I feel they often do to please someone else who sponsors both their life and work.  Because instead of actually involving with the situation of the people to whom they want to help, simply use them for their personal and principle needs.

Those who merely use others only for their personal aims are oppressors in one way or the other.  But there are real and sincerely writers who write without any need to involve in the actual situation of the people.  But they keep their research also objective and without any personal prejudice and interpretation (often) write in a scholarly way.  But many a Christian writers—particularly who claim to expose the oppressive agendas of the others, often do it with subjective agenda, not to help the suppressed people but help themselves.  This irritates me much.  In such writers’ attitude I find some kind of hegemony towards the very people to whom they want to help.  Their writing reaches none except to make several white papers filled with block letters.  And when I hear or learn that they do it in particular to satisfy someone else’s project, programme and plan I become angry.

I don’t know the reason why I write this.  But I want to share with someone what I feel.  Please do not share or discuss with anyone else.  I feel that in Evangelical circle in international level some people sitting somewhere else put us in neat category.  And assuming a self-anointed role as the apostle to that particular category, they want to help them.  This they do in several ways.  But the wide gap between them and their targeted group is very big—not only culturally, economically, socially etc. but even in both understanding and being understood.  Because they selectively involve with their targeted people.  They do all the work to fulfill somebody’s agenda and programme and they involve only to that extent.  Of course there cannot be any natural equality between them and the people.  But the dichotomy of ‘we’ and ‘they’ creates some kind of mental black between them.  Because of various natural differences ‘they’ both cannot become ‘one’.  But when the self-anointed apostle come with an unrecognized hegemonic attitude, any sensitive people in the targeted group easily feel it.  I have this feeling these days.  I may be wrong, but I again and again feel it.  Then I am tempted to say ‘Leave us alone’.  Don’t use us for your personal evangelical ideological agendas.  See us human being like you and not mere objects or some project.

This feeling become stronger when these days I read all about C1, C2, C3, C4, C5 & C6 etc.  Even though there is nothing wrong in dividing the so called ‘converts’ in such category for practical understanding, yet those who divide us in such categories stand as outsiders and look us through the prism of any one of these category.  I don’t the reason, but it hurts me.  If some scholars in order to do some genuine research about the church growth among the un-reached people, use those imaginary categories, they can be excused.  But those who say that they are involved with any one such group go back and report or write with an attitude of ‘me’ and ‘they’, then I feel that we are being only used by them without actually being helped.

Thanks for reading this ….  Forgot it as soon as possible.  I write this only to unload the burden from my mind.  I don’t know with whom I can share this?  As you are in secular situation and live for the Lord without any evangelical agenda, I thought you are the right person to share.  I only get irritated when I read such writings and papers and not with any one who sincerely try to involve themselves as much as possible understanding their limitation.

Dayanand

Mathigiri, June 30, 2003.

Dear Frank Raj,

Thanks for sending your letter to Vajpayeeji.  Even though I read it with some interest, after reading it the one thought that came to my mind is that such writings and the kind of response which I want to give are become, again some kind of stereotypical and intellectual exercise without actually having any purpose.

This response is not to challenge you or to irritate you, but to point out how such letter, if at all read by a person like Atalji or some other in that camp only going to irritate them than to help them to (re-)think their identity.  In the past several such futile (stereotypical) ‘fight in the air’ was attempted by the Christian and I know yours is not going to be the last one.  But following your step let me imagine in this way that someone in the Hindutva camp by chance read your letter.  Then what kind of response s/he will give to such challenges?  The following is one such imaginary response from Hindutva camp:

Dear friend,

I don’t want to thank you for such a funny letter.  Though the best answer to such letter is ‘just ignore’ it, yet I want to bring to your kind attention one point.  Suppose if we in Hindutva camp are ready to change the word ‘H’ for ‘I”, then are you in the so called minority groups in India are ready to do the same?  Because for us the word ‘Hindu’ is not merely a cultural identity, apart from a national identity. But do the so called religious minorities have the same kind of claim for their identity in India?

Most of the Christians and Muslims first consider themselves some one identified with their own faith and not with the nation.  Let us leave the Muslims here, most of the Christians living in India think and say that they are ‘Christians’ first and then only Indian.  They don’t even think that one could be a ‘Christian’ (religious affiliation) and ‘Indian’ at the same time.  Can’t you be a son, father, husband, brother and friend one at the same time?  Of course cynically you can argue that in my relations to my parents I am the son, and to my wife a husband etc., but in my personal identity I am a human being alone.  But such objective argument will never touch the core issue.  I remember one editor of a leading English News paper from Delhi, in one Conference (First Generation Christians, held at Nagpur) even told that, ‘there is no place for nationalism in our Christian faith’.  Several times I heard from Christians that as they are the citizen of the Kingdom of God, their nationality never counts in this life.  I want to know whether any Christian in America or England would have the same opinion regarding their national identity.  When I met one Christian gentleman at Delhi from England, without knowing his nationality I asked him, ‘are you from British’?  For this he said, ‘I am a Wales’.   I met another from England who refuses to identify himself even as British and insisted that he is a Scottish.  The same is with an Irish from there.  But why only Christians in India are not Indian first and then a Christian or at least both Christian and Indian one at the same time.

But we have no problem in identifying with our national identity as Indian.  However to bring to your kind attention about the historical meaning even for this word force us to call ourselves as a ‘Hindu’ to ‘Indian’.  Let me quote one from England:

     ‘Hindu’ in fact only came into provenance amongst Westerners in the eighteenth century.  Previously, the predominant Christian perspective amongst the Europeans classified Indian religion under the all-inclusive rubric of Heathenism.  On this view there were four major religious groups, Jews, Christians, Mahometans (i.e. Muslims) and Heathens.  Members of the last category were widely considered to be children of the Devil, and the Indian Heathens were but one particular sect alongside the Africans and the Americans (who even today are referred to as American ‘Indians’ in an attempt to draw a parallel between the indigenous populations of India and the precolonial populations of the Americas).  Other designations used to refer to the Indians were ‘Banians’, a term which derives from the merchant populations of Northern India, and ‘Gentoos’, which functioned as an alternative to ‘Heathen’.  Nevertheless, as Western knowledge and interest in India increased, the term ‘Hindu’ eventually gained greater prominence as a culturally and geographically more specific term.— Richard King, Orientalism and Religion, Postcolonial Theory, India and ‘The Mystic East,’ New Delhi, Oxford, 1999. pp.99-100

The next point that I would like to raise is, are you dare to write one such letter even to  Christians and Muslims in India to change their words ‘C’ and ‘M’ for ‘I’?  We all know well that you cannot do it.  All these years we Hindus remain only a soft target for anyone and everyone to hit on our values without being reciprocated.  But only people like you, who are not ready ‘pay attention to the plank in your own eye, always attempt to look at the speck of saw dust in your brother’s eye,’ alone forced us to become what you call as ‘fundamentalists’.  I know well that along with me your own Lord Jesus Christ would hate such a pharisaism among you.  First try to teach your own community in India to become Indian as well as Christians in their identity.  Then if you have courage, dare to ask the Muslims in India to become Hindustani Muhamadani—Indian Muslims.  Then we will try to stop reacting strongly—as both Jesus and Paul have done against pharisaism—if not consider to give up our ‘Hindutva’ identity to the heathen identity of ‘Indianess’ given by your own bosses from abroad.  [an after thought on August 4, 2003.  When in recent Supreme Court judgement on some property dispute of a Christian, recommended the govt. to think of a common civil law.  Immediately the so called minorities (including the political minorities—like Congress party etc.) began to oppose even to start a genuine dialogue on this subject.  Do the Muslims and Hindus have separate Civil and Personal Law in England and any other country like that we have here?  This again shows how the so called minorities refuse to merge with the wider national identity as Indians/Hindu (which is not a religious identity even in our constitution—when it comes to the personal law) and further alienate themselves from the main stream of Indian life.]

     You may even say that at least some Christians in India are attempting to make their faith expression indigenous.  But if you scrutiny such attempts, most of the time those attempts remain either superficial or another ‘missionary’ project to convert some gullible Hindus.  By merely naming as ‘Church of South India’ (CSI) or ‘Church of North India’ (CNI), neither the church nor the mission in India are going to become indigenous in any manner.  [Pl. read the book: ‘Finding Jesus in Dharma by Chaturvedi Badrinath, ISPCK, Delhi, 2000].  In their physical, mental, theological, worship and orientation Christians in India still remain Westerners and not even try to become ‘Indian Christians’.  This being the truth, I need not talk about your Missionary Agencies.  Name one indigenous missionary agency in India which is not looking the face of her western masters for their survival.  And the worst part in it is that even all the so called indigenous endeavor are coming from the West as their project and programme and not from any seriously thinking Indian Christians.  And still worst part in it is that even if any Indian Christian dare to do it, then unless it is endorsed and approved by some Western Missionary (agency), then s/he cannot survive among her/his own people.  Both Brahmabandab Upadhyay and R.C. Das are the best two examples for this.  The former was crucified by his own church for his daring attempt to indgenize the Christian theology and the latter died penniless in his old age for the same endeavor. 

     Any true follower of Christ in India need not hesitate to call themselves as ‘Hindu’ Christ bhaktas.  If the Jews followers can remain as Jews (culturally, socially and to some extent religiously too) and Muslim followers of Isa (Jesus) can remain as Muslims (in the same way as Jews followers of Jesus), why cannot any Indian followers of Christ can remain as Hindu followers of Christ?  So there is no need for any ‘Hindu’ should give up his Hinduness to call her/himself as Indian.  The Hindutvaa which you think as the fundamentalism has its own historical problem as it excluded ‘the Others’ from its Hindu/Indian identity.  But it only remained as a normative and (historical) point of reference now and even now that’s also reinterpreted in several ways according to the changing politosocial scenario.  At the same time you have to remember that the concept of ‘the Other’, viz., excluding the others—particularly related with their faith is not only unique to the Hindutva Hinduism.  Do not Islam and Christianity follow the same concept in their theology?  The Islam call others as ‘kafirs’ (unbelievers—viz. as they do not have the same kind of faith as they have) and in the Catholic Church there is no salvation outside the church and in the protestant circle not only those who accepted Jesus as their personal savior, but not accept their particular denominational doctrine are ‘the Others’.  We need not talk about the Pentecostals—who excluded every other human being from (their) Kingdom of God.  You may say that this kind of religious ‘otherness’ is only related to the faith and not national/territory identity as we find in the Hindutva agenda.  If this is true then tell me is the Islamic terrorist activities in Kashmir is territorial/ethnic or religious?  Why Kashmir Pandits are driven away from their own land in the name of freedom fight at Kashmir by the Muslims?  Living outside India, that too in a Muslim country, would you dare to write against such fundamentalism we found in Islamic world (irrespective of the nation)?  I need not point out the racialism that we still found in several so called Christian nations in the west.

Of course everyone has right to point out the mistakes in other system, irrespective of one’s own failures in every area.  So you too have freedom of writing and speech to point out our ideology as objectionable to you.  But the truth in it is that as along as you are going to be an outsider (both culturally, socially and geographically) to us ‘Indians’ (Hindus) like your Christians in India (not even Indian Christians), then we hate such Pharisaism along with your Lord Jesus Christ.

Yours sincerely,

An Indian Hindu.

Well before closing this response I have to clear one point again.  In future if some one analysis my life and faith, they may use this response to point out my opposition to Christianity, Mission, Church etc. reflects truly my inner struggle or bitterness against Christians and Church or even against Christ Himself.  In clearing such misinterpretation about my faith and conviction in our Lord, I have to say that for me Bhagavan Muktinath (Jesus Christ) is my Parama guru and Saviour, I believe in the Universal body of our Lord, which is the Church for me.  I believe in the fellowship with other bhaktas of our Lord, irrespective of their nationality and cultural background.  For me the Word of God (the bible) is the Scripture for me.  Regarding all the doctrinal position of the bible (starting from the virgin birth to second coming) is a matter of faith and stands beyond mere rationalistic interpretation.  So my response to your letter to Atalji using a pseudo Indian Hindu is to point out any such ‘fight in the air’.

Note:

Dear Frank,

After receiving your TII, I realize that your main audience is not the people in the church or mission but people in the secular world.  So to some extent you have a relevant audience to write such letter.  But some in Christian circle (like that article appeared in ‘Our Link’ by a Christian using a pseudo Hindu name) write to no one.  So my first response is irrelevant considering the context in which you have written that letter to Atalji.  However in my aggressive response I reacted even to such letter, which, I may share with you soon.

Dayanand

Dear Dayanand

Any feedback on my article?

I would appreciate your thoughts when you receive my magazine.

Best

Frank 

Dear Frank,

Shanti!

Actually I wrote one response even before you sent your letter to Atalji through e-mail.  And after reading your letter I wrote another one.  But I am not sure whether I should send both of them to you or not.  I don’t want to hurt your feeling unnecessarily.  Personally I don’t know anything about you.  However when I shared my first response with some of my friends to know whether my letter would hurt you or not, one wrote back:

You have hit the nail on the head in your response although we are not aware of the contents of the purported letter to the PM. That Indian Christians mimic their western counterparts is well known and this “Letter to the PM” is another example. Instead of sensitising Christians in their vicinity they embark on such grand futile projects. I found that in this letter you are mild and not your usual aggressive self.  So the letter should not hurt anyone personally.

But I still didn’t feel like sending them now.  Now I have three responses to your letter [one before reading your letter to AV and one after and one to this comment from my friend].  And the problem with me is that I don’t know how to write precisely.  For every short question I will write pages of response.  So several times my own response makes me tired to re-read.  How much more others will find it difficult with it?  For the time being this response from my friend is enough to share what my feed back is.  If you still insist, then I will send one that I wrote before I read your letter to Atalji.

Yours at His feet,

Dayanand

Dear Dayanand

I sense a delay and reluctance in sending me those letters you wrote, you are concerned about hurting me and I appreciate your consideration! I just want to reassure you that I have learned some tough lessons in my life on the ‘being abased and abounding’ circuit. I see your letters as valuable insights, which could prove useful to me. And in humility I say, I know how to roll with the punches, as indeed any red-blooded Christ bhakt should!

I have been mulling over this notion your friend has of my letter supposedly “mimicking western Christians” and I am curious about how or why my letter does that. And that too he arrived at his conclusion without even reading my letter! As for sensitizing Christians in my vicinity I would like to invite him to visit Dubai and stay in my home to understand our magazine ministry. If he is unable to see that it is NOT the PM I am targeting, he has missed the point of my letter.  I wonder if my first name Frank leads him to stereotype me as a western Christian. It is an abbreviation of Francis the name I was baptized with as a Catholic.

I am keen on receiving all three of your letters, especially the one you wrote AFTER receiving my letter to Atalji. And don’t worry if they are long letters.

Since you don’t know much about me, LT Jeyachandran can perhaps give you some insights. My wife and I have lived in Dubai for nearly 25 years and before that in Los Angeles for five years. I am from Tamilnad, (old Mylapore family in Kutcheri Lane) grew up in Delhi, and my wife Christine is from Goa. We have two daughters, Shana (33) is married with a daughter living in Dubai with her husband Ben, and Raina (30) is doing her Masters in counseling after working with me for 7 years (in sales & marketing) at Gordon Conwell in Boston. Both my children are Christ bhakts as indeed my son-in-law Benjamin from Vancouver who is Caucasian but was a pagan, Buddhist and Hindu before he met Christ. It might interest you to know that my maternal grandfather was Anantha Krishna Iyer from Palghat. He was a planter in Malaya, my pet name Balan used by childhood friends comes from him. My parents were Catholics and most of my family of five brothers and four sisters is still Roman Catholic.

My 10 year old magazine is the only publication of its kind in the Indian Diaspora that has penetrated the secular market of the Indian professional and business community with the gospel presented to them in natural, relevant ways without any apologies. It is not a “Christian” magazine nor meant to be but I make no secret that it is Christ I am introducing them to not Christianity.

I do look forward to hearing from you.

YBIC

Frank

Dear Dayanand

I am 53 years old, used to suffering and do not think too highly of myself, just trying my best to attend to my patch in the vineyard.  I can certainly learn from your feedback, pls send me whatever you have!  BTW I am not in the least enamoured of “Christianity” in fact I have little interest in it.  But I do have strong views myself and I hope it can be a two way dialogue.

In Him

Frank

Dear Frank,

Shanti!

Thanks for sending TII which I received to day.  I also received your mail yesterday.  Your e-mail further forced me to think twice before sharing my response with you.  In fact your humbleness in sharing all about your life, even giving some biographical information moved my heart.  But you should understand that I am not like you in every sense.  I am neither a writer nor a trained professional in any academic discipline.  I am still a student on several subjects.  I cannot even write like you.  All that I attempt to write are mere brain storms and rather my own attempts to relieve my inner struggle.  So when I write (or react strongly), I will never share with that concerned person with whom I disagree.  Because in my response I try to relieve myself strongly reacting rather try to soberly giving my response.

Another impediment with me is my language.  I studied only in Tamil medium and I never liked this language English.  Out of compulsion and without any other (international) alternative, I write in English.  But neither I know grammar nor the art of writing in English.  The reason to say is not due to any inferiority complex but to tell that several times I cannot even express what I feel properly in this language.  That’s why some times I seek the help of some of my friends who edit my brainstorms before I could share with others.

So before you read the following one, you should keep all these limitation on my part.  However I will send the third part of my response after what you think about this first one.  The second one is my personal response to my friend’s comment as well as related some other paper (a Phd. work by another person, who sought my comments on his thesis), which is not directly related with your article.  The third one is a strong reaction as my friend told revealing my ‘aggressive self’.  Rest after hearing from you.

Yours at His feet,

Dayanand

Dayanand

‘If he is unable to see that it is NOT the PM I am targeting, he has missed the point of my letter.’

                                                                                    –Frank.

–along with me, I think my friend clearly understood that you are ‘Not’ addressing the letter to the PM.  That is the main point of my argument.  Because by writing such letter some (evangelical) Christians are merely ‘fighting in the air’, is my point, with which my friend had too agreed.  Of course this is not strange in the (secular) world, where several people have written such letter addressing to some famous people.  And there is nothing wrong in writing one such letter by any Christian to any political leader.  But such stereotypical writings help none.  However, considering your magazine which is secular in its nature, you may have a wider audience—but most of them might be living without any touch with down to earth (with Indian as well as Indian Christian) reality.                                                         

dayanand

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June 27, 2003

Dear Swamiji,

Greetings and best wishes to you!  (Shanti)

Thank you so much for your excellent answers to my many inquiries for my friend here in the US. 

Just to let you know, she was delighted with all the information you gave her.  Already from some of our conversations, she has shown a different attitude!  When her mother and father recently gave her eldest son a new bicycle, her mother said “wait before you ride it”  She ran into the house and got 2 limes and red and yellow powder and did puja for him.  My friend would have normally been very critical and hesitant in this situation, but this time she just went to her son and explained to him that his grandmother was simply blessing him and asking God to protect him as he rides his new bike.  She turned it into a positive time instead of what would have normally been very uncomfortable for all.  (This woman is a real learner)

After we spoke last time she had several other questions I would like to ask you.  Here they are:

She would really like to have your paper on the ‘gita, as would I.  Did you ask someone to send it to us?  If so, who, and I will follow up on it.

–here with I am sending my Gita Paper as the attachment.

My friend and her husband are moving into a new house in August.  Her husband has already mentioned that he would like to have a puja room in their house and she was wondering what to do.  If he insists on setting up the idols they were given at their wedding and on other occasions as gifts, she wonders how she can worship her Lord in the same room. What advice would you give to her? 

–in recent Voice of Bhakti (vol.2, no. 2, May 2003)the editors response to Dr. Valerie M Inchley’s question may help you a lot.  You can visit the web site in this address: www.BHAKTI.COM

My response to such situation is that for every Hindu we can communicate the gospel beginning from a pluralistic context.  If we insist exclusivism from the beginning, then such an approach even close their heart and mind to the gospel.  No sincere Hindu will say ‘NO’ to prayer—even to Jesus.  If her husband knows that she is the bhaktas of Mukteswar (Jesus), she can even worship in the same puja room.  In fact she can invite her husband to join with her in her prayer and puja to Jesus in the same room.  She can tell him that she has no objection for him to keep his deities in the room, but she would prefer to do puja to her ishtadevata (god of personal choice) who is Jesus.  There are several beautiful Sanskrit bhajans which she can learn and use them.  When time permits she can explain the meaning to her husband also.  Here I am sending the two by Upadhyaya with meaning.  If know how to record and send the tune by e-mail I can do that.  But I am not a computer wizard.  If nothing can separate us from the Love of God not any puja room, or idol or ritual can separate us from the Love of our Lord too.

She was wondering about sending her children to ‘Gita School’ as the nearby temple has that offered to children.  If she sends them, how should she follow up with them and instruct them in the Truth?  (I don’t know if this is the same class or different, but she also has a friend who sends her children to a “slokas class” and was wondering if she should encourage/allow her children to go, and if so, how to follow that up.)

–it is the best opportunity for the children to learn about Hinduism from the Hindu themselves.  I think in such Gita classes they help the students to memorize slokas from Gita and they may even teach the meaning.  But giving correct interpretation to such meaning on Gita is a complicated process.  Each one will give her/his own interpretation.  However it is better for your friend also to learn the meaning from any standard translation (R.C.Zehner (Oxford University Pub), Dr. Shakuntala Rao Sastri (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Pub. Or best one is Franklin Edgerton (Franklin Edgerton,Mothilal Banarsidass Publishers Pvt. Ltd.  Delhi, First Published Cambridege, 1944, Reprint: Delhi, 1996.)  Tel her never to read or encourage the children to read ISCAN translation which is corrupt one as far as my understanding goes.

Once the children returned from the Gita class, she can ask them what they learnt and how they try to understand the meaning of the Gita in the light of the Bible and their faith in the Lord.  But for this she herself need to know something about the Gita.  If I were in her place, I would encourage the children to go.  But I don’t know her actual situation, hence my answer is objective one.

She has  been hesitant to go to India, but I have encouraged her that her children need to know their heritage and country and if her husband offers for them to go once a year that she should do so.  (She would be in Bangalore and may be able to meet you).  What would you say about that? 

–she may have some personal reasons for hesitating to come to India.  But is the best option left for their children to lean about their cultural heritage?  If you want me to meet her, then she should plan to be at Bangalore when I am not visiting North India.  I am happy to see her.  However she can also meet Sharala—who is an American, married to a Tamil Christian but who never go to the church and bring up their four children in Indian (Hindu) way of worshiping the Lord.  Sharala has her own small puja room in her bed room (which of course most of the Hindus won’t do). But her in-laws are traditional Christians.

Her mother is very devout and has her time each morning where she lights the lamp, puts the flowers in place, burns incense and reads the slokas.  When my friend was visiting there with her sons, she was very tempted to join her with the children to understand and help her children understand what she was doing.  What would you say about that?

–I would encourage both for your friend and her children to join with her mother in the puja room to show respect for her devotion.  In stead of going there with any curiosity, she should show genuine respect for her mother’s mode of worship.  Then she can also chant a Sanskrit sloka in the same puja room in front of her mother and tell her mother that she would also like to pray for her mother and others to pray.  Then she can use the opportunity to say simple prayer and end with Universal prayer which Brian knows (Sarvesham svastir bhavatu etc.) This will not only help her children to develop some kind of positive understanding towards Hinduism, but also provide an opportunity for her to involve in dialogue with her mother.

For now, that is all the questions she has.  We will talk again early next week. 

Brian and I are having to stay here in the US for an extra 6 months to a year.  We are still helping our two elderly mothers and trying to help our children get their start in life in the US.  We are still very much involved in our city in India and our hearts are heavy that we are not there.  Dharma calls, it seems.

–severing our parents is also a part of our Dharma.  By this your are teaching your own children how to accept such responsibility in their life too.  Any place is a Holy place provided we stand there with our Lord.

Thank you for all your help, Swamiji.  Your insights and pointing us to the Lord are very helpful. 

I look forward to your response.

Shanti!

Linda P

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June 2, 2003

Dear Swamiji,

I have missed not being at the various meetings in our city when you visited and taught the people there. Brian has told me all about them and I am deeply encouraged by all that is going on.

I have a particular situation in which I need counsel from you.

Through a mutual friend (American who lives in India), I have met via telephone a lovely Indian woman who is a follower of J. She was born in America. Her parents are Hindu. She started following J when she was 14. She was afraid to tell her parents until she was a senior in high school (about 17 years old). At that time they were very angry with her for this. She became very much incorporated in the western church and held on hard to her American identity. She fell in love with a believing man, but he decided it wasn’t right for them to marry. Through the trauma of her heartbreak, she decided to get back under her parent’s authority and get to know some Indian men. (She was 30 at this point and a practicing Psychologist). She met her husband in this way. He is a Hindu man but very open to her following J. (while wanting her to be the Indian she is) His main complaint about C-tians is that they destroy the Indian culture (!)

He is a medical doctor and has a prestigious position here in the US. Her parents are leaders and main founders of the temple in their city (here in the US). They have two young sons. She loves her husband very much but feels so badly because the core of her being (her relationship with J) is not shared with him.

In the meantime she is desiring to teach her children about God and doesn’t know how to go about teaching them to be Indian while loving J. Her husband desires her to do the task of leading out in teaching the children spiritually, but she is at a loss. (This is a woman who has been a leader of Bible studies, who has spoken at women’s conferences, etc.) She wants to know how to teach her children about the ‘gita and other stories which are Indian culture, but at the same time the Bible and the truth there. Do you have suggestions which might help her?

I want to be able to help her lead out spiritually in her home, while respecting her husband. What are some ways I might encourage her to do in this role?

(I have thought of her fasting once/week for her husband; and praying regularly for the family)- what are some other things she might do?

(She doesn’t speak Kanada – her husband, his mother and her parents are all from Bangalore)

The children are at her parents right now and she knows they will go to the temple. What should/should not be permitted when they are with their grandparents in the Hindu temple?

What attitudes should she portray?

I feel like this woman could be a key to many, many others. I don’t know how to lead her in this, but God has placed me in a position where I can communicate things to her and she will try them.

Please send me any thoughts you might have on things I can do to encourage her to be the Indian and wife she is yet follow her Lord within her context.

Thank you, swamiji. I send my warmest greetings to you.

In His Care,

Linda Petersen

(Brian’s wife)

Dear Linda,

Shanti!

Thanks for asking me these questions.  To be honest with you, all I share may not help your friend as I don’t know anything about the situation in USA.  However based on my experience I would give some general opinion, which she has to adopt according to her situation (as well as need).

To begin with let her not annoyed for children worshipping along with her parents in the temple.  Raman and Bhuvana living at Chennai face similar problem.  But I told them that let their daughter (Arpita) learn all those poems, slokas etc. from his parents.  But I also encouraged them to teach simple Sanskrit poems about our Lord (as this language has a general appeal and respect among the high caste people) as well as pray with their daughter regularly.  But in the prayer also both Raman and Bhuvana use lot of Brahminical Tamil so that Raman’s parents won’t be annoyed when Arpita some times use our Lord Name with  her grand parents.

So your friend also can learn simple Sanskrit slokas about our Lord, not merely to teach her children but also to use in her prayers.  This may also help both her parents and husband to see that she too can worship the Lord in her own cultural and traditional form.

The next important thing for her is to start her own puja room.  Sharala, an American living her at Bangalore (of course her husband is a Christian, but her in-laws are traditional church goers and they are bit upset as her children are not going to the church regularly).  Every day Sharala, morning after taking bath will light the oil lamp and keep the Bible in a special stand (about which Brian knows well).  She need not to keep any idol or even the photo of our Lord, but mere oil lamp, incense stick (if she likes it) and few fresh flowers every day and she can regularly do her morning and evening prayer (just lit the oil lamp, put the flower at the bottom of the lamp, lit the incense stick) by chanting the Sanskrit slokas (about the Lord) and also reading from the bible.  This will also help both her husband and parents to see that she can worship the Lord even in Indian way.  This may even open doors for her to have dialogue with them.  Encourage her to see some of the videos which Brian has with him of our pujas.  If you don’t have then ask Bobby to send one.  If you want you can also ask Sharala about her experience in doing such puja at Bangalore.

Though Hinduism is complex one and particularly those living out side India want to have a common Hindu Identity, Gita is one best scripture for them to appeal as their ‘scripture’.  So ask your friend also to read it.  But all these she should do not to please or convince her husband or parents, but with real longing to express her bhakti in the Lord in Indian way.  But reading Gita is both simple and complicated, particularly in choosing the correct translation.  To begin with I can send my Gita paper for her (as well as for you too) to have some introduction about it.  Franklin Edgerton’s translation is good one.  Or she can buy Zehner’s or Dr. Shakuntala Rao Sastri’s translation.  Or for a beginner Gita Press edition also is good.

AS Brian also knows, it is better not use the Name J and instead she can assimilate herself first to understand the meaning of it in India term like: ‘Muktinath’.  Before I forgot I want to know whether you are registered to the Rethinking Web site.  There you will find several interesting topics for you to read and help such people like your friend.  But you have to register for it and I can ask my friend to do it for you.  Then she, after have a clear conviction with in her about using Indian terms and Name for the Lord etc. she can also teach the same to her children.  This will also help her to communicate to her husband and parent’s about her faith and love for her own culture.  But all these things she should not do for the sake of others, but with a real inner conviction that one could be a Hindu and a bhaktas of the Muktinath.

So to begin with I would suggest her to:

1. Start her sandya (both morning and evening)puja—at least one time in the morning.  She need not keep a separate room for this.  Either in the Living room or in a convenient place (in her study room—definitely not in the bed room) or even in the kitchen (most of the Hindus in India will have their puja place in the kitchen itself).  Just a corner stand in the wall with a small oil lamp and a bible stand is enough to start.  But tell her not to light the oil lamp during her monthly period as it is considered inauspicious.  But she can stand afar from the puja stand and silently pray.

2. Learn Sanskrit slokas both for her devotional worship as well as to teach her children.

3. To begin to read Hindu scripture—better with Gita, Ramayana & Mahabharata (abbreviated ones are available easily even on CD).

I think I gave a very long answer to your enquiry.  Rest after your response.

Dayanand

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From my diary of September 27, 1998.

It is too much to record all about the Conference.  As usual Rick presented a scholarly paper.  Joe moderated the discussions.  Joe also presented his paper.  On the second day Pradip in the morning and I in the afternoon shared, as usual Joe moderating.

One Mr. Anand Joshi a Brahmin “Convert” and retired Air-force officer also asked questions irrelevant to the conference.  But rest of them, as they have a clear understanding asked meaningful questions and led a useful discussion.  Dr. Arles a theologian though came to “learn” in his words, often gave small small lectureres in the name of response.

Joshi came to the meeting with a hope to get recognition to his small book-let which he wrote based on the Gita—completely in negative approach.  In our personal talk several times I proved that what all he wrote and share are wrong.  But he is not ready to accept.  According to him the Gita clearly says that all other gods and goddesses are created being.  So Gita makes it clear not to worship them.  Then coming to Krishna, as he is only an avetara of Vishnu he too should not be worshipped.  Now regarding Vishnu outside Gita he is called as son of Aditya.  Therefore he too should not be worshipped.  But when I said that ‘adityya namah‘ doesn’t mean that vishnu is the son of Aditya. “your whole argument hangs around this one line which is not in the Gita.  Now you want to prove from the Gita that worshipping all of them are wrong—but went away from the Gita.”  Though some time he argued and several time insisted that I am not correct and he is ready to give proof.  So I said,” please do it and leave a copy of your writing and I will read all and give my response.”  He himself agreed that his book is completely negative and explosive and written only for some people.  Anyhow to make the story short before he left, he told Rick that he has dropped his idea of writing any book.  Welcoming change.

Likewise my meeting with Ralph Buldeman of Mission Fronteer was useful.  He asked my permission to publish some of my un-published articles.  So after consulting Rick I copied all my articles and gave him with one condition that before he publishes anything, he should get Rick’s consent as I will be always on the road.

Dow from Nepal was very receptive.  Like wise another YWAM American working among the Punjabies also appreciated my book.  In one sense the Conference was successful.  In my sharing I and Joshi had heated arguments.  To Arles point of Pepsi culture I said that though there are Pepsi cultures thank God that there is no Pepsi Communities.  For me carrying the gospel in each community does not mean supporting cast based communalism.  Though I didn’t shared this point—contextualisation is not my need.  I understood the gospel as a Hindu.  Now I live as a Hindu Christ bhakta and share it with my own people.  So I need not contextualise the gospel.  It is the problem of Christians to contextualise it.

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Thoughts on Relating to the Indian Church

I.  (Selections from a letter against “Churchless Christianity”)

…Hoefer exposes something many have already suspected and stumbled across in one form or another and that is covered in his introductory statement that “the fact is that there are thousands of people (read Hindus primarily) in the cities, towns, and villages of India who believe solely in Jesus  Christ as their Lord and Saviour who have no plans to take baptism or join the church.”  Encouraging as the knowledge is of such a massive body of secret or somewhat secret believers, I find it somewhat disturbing that such a state is being endorsed as an acceptable alternative.  What I am not saying by this comment is that I am sympathetic to an Indian church that is unable to relate to the larger Indian (Hindu) culture, which more or less has driven many of these secret believers to such a course of action. Historic failure of the church to properly contextualise the Gospel has led to this tragic state of affairs.  Nor am I trying to downplay the importance of contextualisation in a strategy for effectively seeing breakthroughs among the castes.  Nor do I pretend that I can authoritatively speak to an Indian situation, and so I do write with a certain hesitation and humility.  But my main concern is this complex issue is theological, not missiological.

               It would be my contention that Martin Luther’s statement that “there is no salvation outside of the church” should not be lightly cast aside.  Salvation is by grace alone, but it also presumes repentance.  Faith and repentance are both initiated by the Holy Spirit but on the human level are ongoing evidences of the fact that the one claiming faith has indeed been regenerated by the Holy Spirit.  That is to say, a saved person has a concern to be under the Lordship of Christ.  The laws of God are no longer considered to be the basis of justification but they are obeyed because they reflect God’s moral character and because we know that such obedience pleases the One we love (Matt. 5:17-20; 2 Cor. 5:9-10; I John 2:3)

               My reading/interpretation of Scripture leads me to believe that all true believers must be baptised and be connected to a local church.  Take baptism.  I’m willing to concede that there may be contextualised expressions of this rite which are acceptable but I feel it is dangerous to make this post-conversion step an optional matter.  There are several exegetical reasons for this.  First of all, Christ was baptised and He commanded His followers to be baptised.  This cannot be dismissed as an early church practice which is not necessarily normative for today.  We are not getting this teaching just from an historical book.  Secondly, the command of Jesus to go and make disciples (the Great Commission) is most fully expressed in the Matthean version.  Therefore I agree with David Hesselgrave (in “Measured by the Master’s Piece, How Well Are We Doing?” in Frontier Mission, Vol. 13:2, April-June 1996, p. 74) when he says that the other versions of the Great Commission must be interpreted in light of the Matthean version.  In that version mission is understood in terms of discipling not converting.  Included in the tasks of making those disciples is baptising.

               It is my opinion, based on some study, that verses like Mark 16:16 and Acts 2:38, which associate salvation with both believing and being baptised, are misappropriated by Christadelphians, etc. because they don’t see that the whole process of salvation is being telescoped and that the early church often practiced immediate baptism after confession of faith (e.g. Acts 16:31ff).  The true baptism is spiritual so that the outward act is a symbol of the inward occurrence at conversion (Romans 6) but the outward act was understood to be proof of repentance.  It was, in effect, seen as the last step of conversion.  It would be unthinkable to the early church to view physical baptism after conversion as optional.  They would have seen no conflict between salvation by grace alone and requiring baptism of all who confessed Christ as Saviour.  So to minimise the importance of baptism is, in my opinion, a dangerous position to take.  It is understandable but not right to excuse failure to be baptised to the difficult cultural and social issues involved (Hoefer, p.16 in Synopsis).  Situational ethics is not applicable to baptism.  How long after conversion that is to take place for me is a secondary issue and one we can leave with the practitioners who have to live with the real world consequences of discipling new believers with no background in the faith.  I am pleased to note that you, in spite of recognising the problems associated with baptism, do not encourage elimination of it as a requirement for Christ Bhaktis (Christ-Bhakti, p.107).

               Then we come to the issue of whether fellowship with a body of believers is an option.  My reading of Scripture doesn’t leave me with that option.  Verses like Hebrew 3:13 and 10:24-25 immediately come to mind.  Putting oneself in fellowship on a regular basis with other believers is a command.  In at least one case, failure to remain in fellowship with believers is considered proof that the departed brother is not a true believer (I John 2:19).  Then there is the fact that the NT authors wrote their letters primarily to local churches and assumed that discipleship was to take place in the context of fellowshipping with a body of believers.  It is not enough to say that secret believers are members of the universal and invisible church.  If they are truly saved they are, but how can they grow spiritually if they disobey the commands of God let alone bypass the normative means of grace found through identification with a local church?  Finally, the sacraments (understood by me to only be two, unlike the RC seven) are not meant to be enjoyed as means of grace other than in the context of a local church.

               I am not arguing here for an association of secret believers with institutional churches in which the Gospel is not preached and in which believers are not found.  Let them bypass the Methodist church or CNI church perhaps, but let them find another group of believers to link with – or let them form their own!  Such fellowships do exist.  The issue should not be reduced to the ability to find a church that is user friendly for the Hindu or Muslim believer, as preferable as it is to find such a church, but of the greater danger such an isolated believer places him or herself in by virtue of remaining isolated.

               Dietrich Bonhoeffer has some profound insights to make on the place of the church in the life of a believer in his book Life Together.  For example, commenting on James 5:16 and John 20:23, he observes the following: “In confession the breakthrough to community takes places.  Sin demands to have a man by himself.  It withdraws him from the community.  The more isolated a person is the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation” (Harper, San Fransisco, 1954, p.112).

               Be that as it may, certain things, in my estimation of what the Scriptures are driving at, can only occur within an organised or unorganised church (referring to the community of people, not a building, of course).  Love cannot be perfected by the Holy Spirit until we learn to love our brother, whether or not he is spiritually mature, the one whom we have not personally chosen to befriend, but whom God has placed us in the vicinity of and in fellowship with, by virtue of his association with the body of believers with which we have identified.  Young and old, wise and simple, male and female, rich and poor, well educated and illiterate, the full range of people are found in the Body (perhaps not always so in India or in other places) and it is in that context that we learn at the feet of Jesus about servanthood, denying self, and how unity works.  Accountability and balance are found not in individual relationship with the Lord so much as the local church.  Much of the ethical exhortations of Ephesians and Colossians are addressed to “you” in the plural form, whereas, at least in the West, we have tended to apply these only individually.  Furthermore, doctrinal purity is made more possible through the collective wisdom as it determines whether these things be so (Eph.2:11-15).  Additionally, although some of the gifts of the Spirit are meant for outreaching, that is, for Kingdom-building ministry to the world, the bulk of them are for inreaching, that is, for building up the Body.  For a believer to live in isolation from the believing community is to increase the likelihood of him or her facing the Judgement Day like the one talent servant in the Parable of the Talents, having not used his or her gifting, but in effect, burying it (them).  I don’t find the NT anticipation churchless faith.

               Sometimes the Reformers are pointed to as examples of those who rejected the existing church, therefore legitimising our doing the same, in the right circumstances.  I don’t, however, believe this a correct read of Martin Luther, for instance.  Luther worked for reform from within the church.  For him, the only basis on which to reject the existing church was if the Gospel was denied in that church (Luther’s Works, St. Louis/ Philadelphia, 1955, Vol. 41, pp. 231-2).  He instead followed the Augustinian view, as elaborated in dealing with the North African Donatist controversy, that the true, invisible church was mixed in with the visible church and not to be divided, applying the Parable of the Tares (Matt. 13;24-31) to prioritise the unity of the church over the purity of the church.  As Alistair McGrath points out in his book Reformation Thought, it would be incorrect to simplify the Reformation to the interpretation that it represented a triumph of the Augustinian view of grace over his view of the church.  Luther actually remained surprisingly loyal to the RC church, taking the position that there will always be some corruption in the true church.  What happened for political reasons and because of his followers is another thing.  (For further reading on this subject I recommend the relevant sections in Hubert Cunliffe-Jones’ historical theology book, A History of Christian Doctrine.)

               Similarly for Calvin, there were only two reasons for rejecting a church: if the Word of God wasn’t preached and treated as the final authority, or if the sacraments were not rightly administered.  Since the RC church did not meet with this minimalist definition of the church, evangelicals were free to leave it and establish their own.  If my reading of the Calvin and the Reformers is correct, it would be unthinkable for him to avoid fellowship with a local church purely for contextualism reasons.  He would say that believers who avoid fellowship with other believers in the sense of not attending the nearest church meeting his criteria are guilty of serious sin, I am convinced.  And he would have harsher words of condemnation for those who encourage this who should have known better (Luke 17:1,2).

               I suspect, therefore, that Luther and Calvin would have problems with some of Hoefer’s thinking such as when he pits the Kingdom of God against the church (Synopsis, p. 27).  The Kingdom of God is not synonymous with the church, granted, but, as George Ladd articulated it so passionately a generation ago, it is the clearest expression on the earth of God’s rule.  This seems to be the thrust of the NT too, where letters are written to churches, for the most part.  We should not lightly dismiss the visible church, therefore.  I am also alarmed with Hoefer’s attributing of Christian practices of worship solely to Semitic cultural forms (Synopsis, p.29), thus freeing him to endorse the monastic and individualistic forms of worship of secret believers.  To get into this in any meaningful way would require a lengthy dissertation on hermeneutical principles, but suffice it to say here that we should be very careful about taking the cultural dimension of revelation too far (the error of liberalism) in our concern to avoid wooden literalism (a fundamentalist error).  The idea of corporate worship in the NT has theological significance (e.g. I Corinthians 12; Ephesians 2-4) and so was not practised by the early church just because the first Christians were Jews who were used to meeting in synagogues and as a convenantal group.

               Surely one of the problems of Hinduism is that it is a very individualistic philosophy in spite of the communalism found within families and castes.  One’s personal experience of god-realisation cannot be questioned.  The diversity of Scriptures and ways of attaining moksha are macrocosmic examples of this individualism.  How ironic in a society so rich in standing for and demonstrating corporate identity and culture that the Indian church should have such a weak theology of the church.  Robin Boyd has clearly documented how numerous Indian Christian leaders/theologians have felt free to remain largely autonomous from the organised church, like Chenchiah.  Within my organisation I have observed an ambivalence to the local church which is not just the fruit of being in a parachurch organization.  It is not without basis that people like Ebenezer Sunder Raj lament the lack of loyalty parachurch organizations have to the organised church.  Some of it is for pragmatic reasons but some of it is because of a faulty theology of the church.  It seems to me that this is where church planters and missiologists must have the courage to take the hard way out and instead of attacking and bypassing the evangelical church in subtle and not so subtle ways, choose to reform from within and feed their converts to these churches where possible, even if it may risk extraction of new believers.  Avoiding extraction should not be our ultimate goal in evangelism.  It is a worthy goal but may have to be sacrificed in some cases in light of higher goals, as outlined above.

               In light of what the Bible teaches about the Church, only most superficially touched on here, it is my view that Hoefer’s promotion of churchless Christianity is in error.  We sympathise with much that Hindus have to put up with in terms of thoughtless rejection of all that is Hindu and in the fact that much in the Indian church has been Westernised to the point of alienating the Hindu community needlessly.  And therefore we agree that our devotion and faith is rooted in Jesus Christ, not in Christianity per se.  But let us not forget that Christ is the Head of the church and therefore we cannot be loyal to Him if we are not loyal to His church.  The church will only be spotless and without wrinkle when it is raptured, and so let us be careful that we don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.

Sd……………..

II.  (A Response to the Points Above)

…You introduce the discussion by raising the issue of ‘the validity of churchless Christianity’.  Then you say you are ‘disturbed’ that it is being endorsed as ‘an acceptable alternative’.  I am afraid I find these comments skewing the discussion before it starts.  Perhaps I misrepresented Hoefer.  He met and experienced the validity of the personal faith commitment of many of the ‘secret believers’.  But his book was little more than a desperate plea for Christian people to wake up to the reality of this thing and make some appropriate pastoral response (no sign that that happened).  He flatly contradicts himself by saying in one place that God has done this and it will go on with or without us, and in another by saying that without shepherding it will not become the ‘movement’ that it can so potentially become.  This surely cannot be considered calling this phenomenon an ‘acceptable alternative’. 

You want to deal with the issue theologically rather than missiologically, but this is primarily a pastoral issue.  It reverberates with freedom of conscience issues, pastoral authority and its abuse questions, the Galatian heresy, raising human tradition above the word of God, etc. 

But first your theological discussion.  On baptism there is not much to say.  Do you think Hoefer would disagree with you?  He always counseled baptism.  When someone is not ready, what is our pastoral response?  Shake the dust from our feet?  This is the only question to discuss, along with how much we should harp on baptism with such a person and how much on the ‘weightier matters of the law’. 

‘Whether fellowship with a body of believers is an option.’  First comment, applying 1 Jn 2:19 to the people in Hoefer’s study is illegitimate.  Second comment, the pastoral issue above if someone refuses.  I do not, and do not think Hoefer, justifies private faith by appealing to membership in the universal church.  But I must say I have some major questions and problems in the way you refer to the ‘local church’.  This becomes most apparent when you say that the sacraments ‘are not meant to be enjoyed as means of grace other than in the context of a local church’.  This last comment is a fine piece of western ecclesiological tradition, and I myself stopped administering the Lord’s Supper before my ordination when I considered that my church disapproves unless ordained.  But there is no way the Bible lays down a law that sacraments belong in the local church; where and how does Luke indicate that Philip and the E. eunuch is a rare exception never to be followed by another?  From the principle of ‘decently and in order’ we stress local church; but let us not over state the case.

Let us not understand ‘local church’ according to our own heritage either.  Do you really think there is much commonness between first century meetings and those in the west today?  Has the west done such a good job ecclesiastically that it has the right to set the pattern for future developments?  Has it not made such a total mess in this area that they should cover their mouths and listen and learn even from new believers?  Your whole argument, which looks clear and simple, turns to fog and confusion when you grant that there are churches and there are churches, and you do not want nbbcs to associate with dead institutions.  Now let us jump to the closing exhortations: Christ is the head of the church and we are not loyal to him if not loyal to his church; which church is this?  Your whole statement can easily be stood on its head: we cannot be loyal to Christ and at the same time be loyal to apostate Christendom and its institutions.  Both are true and the dividing line between them is not easy to draw.  Please tell me (seriously, not rhetorically) what comes first into your mind when I quote “Christ loved the church and gave himself for her”; first to my mind is Methodist church, Presbyterian, Baptist, etc.  And I myself love these institutions and the traditions and history they represent, but I do not think Christ does in the sense of Eph. 5:25.  There is no way in the world Paul had this in mind, nor suggested that Christ loved these ephemeral and deeply mixed institutions.  This verse refers to people only; people in ‘community’ (not in the Indian social sense) indeed, but only people.  I am afraid your letter shows inconsistency in reading back later ‘Christian’ concepts of ‘church’ into the NT.

More importantly, where I see your letter in very serious error, is that you have isolated one aspect of Biblical teaching to the great neglect of other teachings.  Yes, the believer cannot and must not live alone in isolation from other believers.  But he relates not only to the body of Christ.  He (she also, please excuse my chauvinism) also relates to his family and society.  How have you managed to hijack into your letter the assumption that the body of believers relationship overrules Biblical teaching on the family and society?  We have nothing close to a Biblical absolute about church on Sunday morning in a particular building (don’t say you’re not talking about this; you’re talking about the church in India and this is what it means).  We do have an absolute on honouring father and mother.  When the so-called church (and ‘believers’ are far worse in this example than nominals) insists that a person disrespect parents (change name, change diet, cease wearing red dot on forehead, etc.), how dare you say that this must be submitted to?  You are absolutely condemned according to Mk. 7.  If you think this theoretical you have no idea what is happening in our circles.  I Cor. 7:17ff gives us rules laid down by apostolic authority in all the churches; rules regularly violated by “good Christian evangelists”; and no high caste person can become a church member (a verse on this concept, please) without contradicting them (this is not only a social but a legal fact; we can discuss it if you wish); we have nothing anywhere near as absolute on ‘fellowship with the nearest body of believers’, yet you want to shatter 1 Cor. 7 commands in favour of your supposed biblical teaching. 

This goes for baptism also, which is a clear command; how can you assume baptism overrules honour father and mother?  Especially in light of alternatives that break this either/or stalemate, how can you say that the church’s ‘either’ is higher than a non-church-based (pre-bodylife; see below) water sacrament while honouring parents?  You ask ‘How can they grow spiritually if they disobey the commands of God let alone bypass the normative means of grace found through identification with a local church?’  ‘A local church’ is the first problem here; second problem is that the first disobedience is to parents and I have seen and am seeing the psychological chaos that results from shattering God’s creative order in submission to church shibboleths; the prime means of grace as understood by all Protestantism is the written word, and few churches are administering that in anything near an adequate way on top of all their other problems.  Should we not have the humility to think it possible that a whole other pattern of body life might develop in this radically other context?  How dare we assume that a Sunday morning centred ‘body life’ that we know to be outrageously weak and often an empty charade of biblical teaching must be the definitive pattern here?  Ask what I have in mind as an alternate pattern and I say ‘nothing’; let us watch and learn and make humble suggestions according to the dim light we possess.  (Hoefer in his response to churchless faith is clearly playing Peter in Acts 11:17; I fear your letter and the school of thought it represents looks far too much like Acts 11:2.)

‘Avoiding extraction should not be our ultimate goal in evangelism.  It is a worthy goal but may have to be sacrificed in some cases in light of higher goals….’  Shame on you; do you really think we have a goal of avoiding extraction?  We have a goal of teaching people full obedience to the full counsel of God.  When the institutional church, evangelical or otherwise, makes that impossible they are not a higher goal that we must submit to!  We submit to God, Bible, parents, body of believers.  The latter is most certainly not highest.  When you refer to the ‘greater danger’ a believer is in by isolating himself than there is in disobeying the third commandment abandoning his people and submitting to the church you are arguing in a vacuum that misses the true picture.  What an outrageous danger to do what you are counseling!  The only valid answer is to cut the Gordian knot and refuse to accept this as an either/or situation.  This is clearly Hoefer’s position, and is far superior to yours.  Fellowship must be provided and developed for these people; to condemn them or call them to church are both wrong.

May I remind you that I arrived where I am today due to pastoral pressures.  After the first notice of how irrelevant we are to Hindus, I started discussing in depth with every high caste convert I could find.  (I already had a Parshallite paradigm in mind, so no great discovery of a new pattern was necessary.)  The pathetic stories heard, and usually over trifles rather than over the gospel.  I am still at this; last week I spent over an hour with a girl now married to a tribal background believer; we did not agree in some things and I could not speak as freely as I would have liked since primary concern had to be her own personal situation rather than theoretical paradigms (yet she is in touch with others from her background and needs a better paradigm in dealing with them), but she was glad to talk to someone who listened and understood; she said that her own husband cannot understand her family and their viewpoints, what hope for other believers?  Your letter seems to suggest that we ignore the churchless believers and put our energy into educating the church so it will properly handle these people; that is the strategy of the past century: change the church so it can deal with Hindus, yet the church is worse today than it was a century ago; and, as some have suggested, the most unteachable people in India are the evangelicals: God has spoken, we know what he said and what he means, let’s get on with the job.  I had two hours with a group of developing leaders a few weeks ago and in response to a serious question I as carefully and sensitively as possible gave what I believe to be the right biblical answer and the group response was laughter.  You teach such people; that was a pearls to swine situation that I will not again walk into.  Are our churches or is anyone acknowledging that just maybe it has things wrong and needs to reconsider?  No; we are smug in our triumphalism and certain that proud Brahminism is the entire problem.

Hoefer sees, or hopes he sees, in churchless Christianity the birth of a truly contextual ‘church’ in India.  If you can think that from A. D. 40 to 312 the church grew with the sacraments administered by local churches and believers joining the nearest fellowship group, all decently and in order, feel free to believe it.  It seems to me there was horrendous confusion, heresy, etc., and within it and coming out of it was God’s plan and purpose.  How can we want to regulate the growth of the gospel in India?  We are stifling, not regulating; the more regulations the more wildfire breaks out.  What is our duty in such a situation?  Stand with the institutional church if you wish; ‘reform it from within’ is a great idea but historically cannot be defended as a viable option.  I can only meet the situation looking for good people to support who will find other good people and work to see a truly biblical movement develop.  

I fear you are drawing the wrong lessons from the situation you outline of Chenchiah and parachurchers, etc., neglecting the church.  You blame the Hindu context, and this is a possible factor.  But never rule out the wisdom of the simple person and the direction the Spirit gives His people.  Just as validly we can argue that these phenomena show that the church as constituted in India is irrelevant and a historic error, and the people of God know this in their experience even though they cannot articulate it and cannot defend the thesis before august 70^o F. theologians writing from western libraries.  (I am afraid I find Luther and Calvin almost completely irrelevant to this discussion.  They had no missiological understanding and theologised in a monocultural situation.   How they would think and act if alive today is entirely speculative.  And how ironic that you refer Lk. 17:1&2 to me!  ‘Physician, heal thyself!’  This was the basis for one of Subba Rao’s outrageous diatribes; let me quote: (my quoting got carried away as I had to give context, both good and bad: see the end of the letter).)

Have you read Harvie Conn’s ‘Eternal Word and Changing Worlds’?  This I would put out as the theoretical foundation for our applicatory efforts in light of Hindu contexts.  To make assent to a list of propositional doctrinal statements the test of validity in a person or fellowship is really nothing other than syncretism.  Greek concerns with ideas overwhelm biblical holism.  So we reject the syncretism of western Christianity and seek to be relevant to India without syncretism; here is a so-called church with a foreign building, foreign administrative structure, insistence on violation of biblical commands, etc.  They affirm some words that are relevant and biblical in western contexts but mistakenly absolutize those words for this rather different context.  It is my duty to join them?  Should they not remove the plank from their own eye before dealing with the speck in mine?  So you don’t find the NT anticipating churchless faith; do you find it anticipating bishops in robes laying hands on new believers?  Pentecostal shoutings against idols and jewelry?  Blind following of traditions and responses to Hinduism passed on since generations?  Extraction evangelism?

We am not lightly dismissing the local church; rather, weightily dismissing it in its existing manifestations.  It seems to me Hoefer is right that ‘Christian’ worship follows primarily Semitic cultural forms.  Thankfully, in terms of the Hindu context there are plenty of relevant forms (personal and congregational) to biblically adapt (as many to drop).  Hoefer is surely right that the church will never change and become contextual to India; only new ‘church’ movements arising within Hindu communities (and Muslim) will achieve that.  This is what Hoefer and I look for; churchless faith is a pre-bodylife necessary stage of development (forgive that convoluted term, but ‘church’ miscommunicates and ‘community’ is worse still).  It must grow into biblical bodylife, but that means relating to family and society in a biblical rather than contra biblical way.  Thus I am most certainly ‘sympathetic’ (anyone not sympathetic to this should explain what they are; antithetic? apathetic?) to churchless faith; it is a first huge step in the right direction.  For this to be immediately shepherded into existing church membership is a radical step away from biblical faith and obedience.  For it to remain in this pre bodylife stage is for it to remain a dim (and unbiblical) shadow of what it might become.  So the need is discipleship, which means pastors and teachers. 

Please note that Subba Rao, for all his problems, was not a churchless believer even by your definition; he had a body experience and fellowship groups begun under his influence continue to meet.  He was more open to faith without body life than you or I are, but he does not fit Hoefer’s paradigm.  When you suggest that churchless believers should form their own fellowships you are only saying what we believe and seek to practice.  But note that Paul did not instantly form fellowships.  What happened in Athens?  Where there was quick growth there could be organisation.  To appoint elders is silly if there is no body.  Where growth is slow we can only be patient, not force false institutionalizing (esp. not for the sake of statistics for the sake of funds). 

Well, with that last paragraph I can end up (you will say I’m becoming too Hindu) saying that despite all the rhetoric and disagreements above, we actually are in full agreement!

Our small group of new paradigmites met a few weeks back and we are attempting a search for churchless disciples (I asked someone to find a new and better term) in northern and central coastal A.P.  This with the goal of discipleship and empowering for ministry as possible.  We decided not to meet again as there are better ways for that group to gather; our next  meeting will be intended for sympathetic church people, hopefully to make them yet more sympathetic and sensitive to special situations (ideally to identify people who can be sympathetic disciplers of our churchless friends).

Sd…..

“Gurudev! Where Can I Get So Many Mill-stones?”

(selections reproduced (fittingly) without permission)

(opening paragraphs)

“O my dear Jesus!  Have you not given heed to the accusations hurled at me by the hunting priests known as Padres, who pose as your Ambassadors and claim to uplift fallen humanity, as if they have descended from your heavenly abode for that purpose?  Or, are you tarrying in all patience till the day of reckoning to separate the wheat from the chaff?  What you preached was one thing, what they preach is another thing.  What you demonstrated was one thing, what they demonstrate is another thing.  We dare not question them lest they trample us with their endless doctrines and dogmas.  You too were once a victim of such a religious fanaticism.

“O Christ!  Are you not aware that the Philosophy of Love you preached and the great magnanimous life you lived for us for an example have spread abroad and, in the process, assumed a new unworthy form emerging as Religion?  Embracing this phantom with an immersion in water and a change of name and of harmless customs brings us a promise of heaven.  Rejection casts us into a hell of fire and brimstone, weeping and gnashing of teeth.  This is our clear lot according to their verdict.

“O! Light!  But how can this be?  Why did you come into this world at all if water can give us salvation?  Were there no ponds, rivers and oceans to give us salvation before you came?  Could you not have given us from heaven a direction to plunge ourselves into water and enter heaven so easily?

“O Gurudev!  Did you not tell us in plain language that total renunciation alone could qualify us to become your disciples?” Etc. Etc. (it gets worse, as also better)

“The chosen few had appointed some small fry to look to the petty ‘table service’.  Now these small fry has (sic) usurped the rights of the chosen few to look after your work and have mushroomed into missions, religions, and vast unwieldy departments and have become formidable obstructions in the way of your own ‘chosen little ones’.  What to do?  Not that we do not know the ‘Millstone’ and the ‘Deep Sea’ treatment which you prescribed for such.  We do know it.  But my dear Jesus Christ! where are we to get so many millstones?”  Etc. Etc.

Your comments on a practical pastoral response to such a man will be highly valued.  Also, please, some exegetical comments on whether the context of Christ’s ministry more supports my making Subba Rao quote this passage at you, or you suggesting that John Calvin would quote it at me.

III.  (Comments on the suggestion that Hinduism is too individualistic)

This is a wrong understanding and an over simplification of Hinduism itself.  For example in Vedic times, a householder could not perform yajna with out the co-operation of his wife to attain heaven.  Generally both the husband and wife and even children are sharing in the virtues and vices of the other.  Likewise a King also shares one sixth merits of his people for protecting them and look after them to follow their respective dharmas and he will incur in their sin also if he is not punishing them for breach of their respective dharma.  That is why in a Hindu Kingdom a King is considered as a deity.  Except in the case of a Sanyasi, the whole life of a Hindu Society is a corporate affair striving for dharma, artha, kama and moksha.  As far as my knowledge goes no single samskara (which has both religious and social significance) in a Hindu Society is performed keeping any individualistic philosophy.    For example the son is called putra as he is delivering his father from the hell called put.  A bit of research and taking few references from Kane will prove this.  Comparing Hindu’s puja both in the temple and house with Christian’s worship under a roof in the name of church is a poor understanding of both of them.  Even in this area also the Hindus also have what we call as corporate worships in their temples; bhajans, kirtans, Satsanghs etc. etc., of course with their own ideologies.

               The so called individualistic philosophy in Hinduism is really one’s personal freedom which he can enjoy without any threat from a hierarchical system like church.  Both in the area of religion and society an individual has his own freedom to express his views (Gita 18:   ), but he can exercise it within the limitation of his own sampradaya.  Any breach of his sampradaya both in religion and social level will call for his excommunication.  For example a Vaishnavite has the freedom to worship any form of Vishnu’s avatara.  But he cannot become a convert to any other sampradaya.  The best example is the famous Tamil poet Kalamegam.  He was a staunch Vaishnavite.  But when he become a Shaivite, then he was not only excommunicated from his community but also called as a heretic by the Vaishnavites and even he was not allowed to take food in a Vaishnavite’s house, which provoked him and wrote few poems criticizing against Vaishnavite sampradaya.  This we may say as an old story.  But even today in a staunch Vaishnavite house or community such things are happening.  When Mani Iyer married Anandi, an Iyangar girl, the former had to receive some basic initiation (of receiving mudra [mark] of sangu [shell] and chakra [wheel] of Vishnu) by marking both his right and left shoulders by the latter’s acharya before he could take part in their community meal served during their religious and social functions. When one Vaishnavite was told that he has some dhosha  in his life which can be removed by performing a pooja to Dhakshinamoorti.  But he could  not do it because being a Vaishnavite he cannot worship Shiva in the form of Dhakshinamoorti.  Finally the Vaishnavite community suggested him to do the pooja, but after performing it, advised him to remove and throw his jenuive (holy thread) and put new one after performing some prayaschita.  Because the sanskar of jenuive is both a religious and social sanskar through which a Brahmin is allowed to become a full fledged member of his community with his birth right to participate in all its activities.   Thus the so called individualistic philosophy in Hinduism has its own limitations and interpretations. But the tragedy particularly in the Western world is that as they have only a bookish knowledge on Hinduism, so they easily read and impose their own “individualistic philosophy” on the Hindus.