When a Hindu bhakta, living in a multi-cultural society in the West, from South Asia, lamented that now she cannot even openly celebrate her bhakti in Muktinath [Christ], leave alone the burden of sharing the gospel and witnessing for the Lord in the community and society, I initially sent the following brief message.
Later, when I reflected further on this, I realized that the present geo-politics around the world—particularly the “Clashes of Civilizations” among Abrahamic faiths—now makes many feel the same tension. When it comes to India, the situation becomes even more complex, as some Hindus, pointing to these civilizational clashes, question the validity of the message of the Cross, which originally carried suffering and sacrifice out of love for others.
This article is the result of that contemplation and is intended to be read alongside its companion reflection, The True Measure of a Legacy.
Prefatory Note on the Title
The title The Cross That Christ Disowned is intentionally provocative and should not be understood as a literal theological statement that Christ rejected His own Cross or the redemptive significance traditionally associated with it.
Rather, it is a symbolic expression of the central argument of this reflection. The “cross” referred to here is the burden created by the historical failures, contradictions, injustices, and accumulated legacies carried in the name of Christianity throughout the centuries. Many sincere followers of Christ today find themselves bearing not only the cost of discipleship, but also the unintended consequences of this larger inheritance.
Whether one agrees with this interpretation or not, the title seeks to highlight the distinction between the Cross Christ willingly embraced and the burdens later generations have often attached to it. The phrase therefore functions as a literary and theological metaphor intended to provoke reflection rather than to offer a doctrinal conclusion.
My brief answer (which feels like a miracle) to your long question is this:
As someone wisely said, “In the economy of God the sinless must die for the sinful.” We, Hindu bhaktas of the Lord, die a thousand deaths every day because of the unintended failures, mistakes, and the very real wrongs committed by the Church throughout history. Unable to show our bhakti openly within our families, communities, and society, we are forced to carry a Christian cross that is far heavier than the one the Lord asked us to bear. Unlike His burden, this Christian cross is weighty precisely because the Lord Himself will not carry it now; we bear it to fill what is lacking in His body—that is, the Church or mandali—and we do so reluctantly.
Ashram, June 2, 2026
The True Measure of a Legacy
Life is full of irritants, challenges, failures, disappointments, successes, and moments of pride. No life, institution, or tradition is free from contradictions. Yet when we look back, the most important question is not whether we experienced difficulties, but what ultimately outweighs them.
Every human institution falls short of its ideals. Families fail. Communities fail. Societies fail. Nations fail. Cultures fail. Traditions fail. Religions fail. Ideologies fail. None is free from hypocrisy, injustice, error, or historical burdens. The real question is not whether they have failed, but whether their failures ultimately overshadow their contributions.
Yet no legacy should be judged solely by its failures. Every inheritance contains both wounds and gifts, both disappointments and blessings. The more important question is whether there remains something within that legacy that continues to nourish the human spirit, deepen one’s humanity, and give meaning to life.
Ultimately, the true measure of any legacy is not its claim to perfection, nor the absence of failure. Rather, it is whether, after all the struggles, sacrifices, disappointments, and victories, one can still look back with gratitude and say: “Despite everything, I am glad that this was part of my life. It enriched me, shaped me, and gave me something worth cherishing and passing on to others.”
Do not judge your entire journey solely by its failures. Ask instead what weighs more heavily in your heart: the wounds you received or the meaning you discovered; the disappointments you endured or the gifts you inherited. The answer may reveal the true worth of the legacy you carry—and in spite of all the drawbacks, there is something to cherish in any legacy that we must continue to carry on to strengthen ourselves and encourage others.
The Hidden Struggle: When Faith Cannot Be Spoken
This principle becomes especially poignant when we examine how people live out their faith in everyday life. For many Hindus and Christians alike, there is a quiet suffocation—a sense that their bhakti, their sadhana, their spiritual practices cannot be expressed openly.
This hesitation is not limited to those living with their parents. Even those living as a nuclear family outside their joint family, yet still within their community, face the same challenge. When they are away from home, living alone or with peers, they can openly do their sadhana—reading Mukti Vani, praying, engaging in spiritual activities. But within the family, they rarely get the opportunity to do that. While the rest of the Hindu members do the puja, go to the temple, chant the slokas and mantras, spontaneously, they remain silent, constrained, unable to participate fully or express their own devotional path.
Those who stay outside but rarely visit their own home or family for festivals or important functions like marriage also feel the same kind of suffocation. They cannot even express their bhakti or their shared thoughts, their sadhana explicitly—particularly when others around them are of different faiths.
What Holds the Bhakta Back?
Several times I have wondered what prevents a Hindu bhakta of the Lord from living out her bhakti naturally and expressing it as spontaneously as other members of the family express their devotion to their own deities.
Is it a sense of shame—as though by associating, if not with Christianity, then at least with Christ, one has somehow abandoned the family legacy? Is there a lingering feeling that one has stepped outside an inherited tradition and therefore forfeited the natural ease with which other family members practise their faith?
Or is it a sense of guilt? A feeling that one is failing the Lord by not witnessing more openly, not taking a clear stand, not boldly declaring one’s devotion before family, community, and society?
I cannot offer a universal answer, because every situation is different. Yet the question continues to return.
Many Hindu bhaktas make every effort to remain rooted within their own cultural world. The Bible becomes Mukti Vani. Jesus Christ becomes Muktinath. The church becomes Mandali. Worship becomes satsang. Familiar language is adopted not as a disguise but as a sincere attempt to express devotion through one’s own cultural vocabulary.
Yet family members usually understand immediately whom these terms refer to. They do not associate them merely with Christ; they associate them with Christianity. In their minds, the distinction often disappears. The bhakta may never attend church, never participate in Christian activities, and never identify as a “Christian convert,” yet the connection is made all the same.
What is even more striking is that this hesitation does not disappear simply because family members already know about one’s devotion. Many Hindu bhaktas whose families are fully aware of their faith still find it difficult to express that devotion openly and naturally within the home. Something continues to restrain them.
Outside the family the hesitation often becomes even stronger.
The same tension can sometimes be observed among those who openly embraced a Christian identity. Some believed that conversion would finally allow them to take a clear stand for the Lord and witness boldly. A few even became full-time workers, evangelists, or preachers.
Yet when they return to their parental homes, participate in family gatherings, weddings, and community events, many discover that the confidence they possess within church settings does not always accompany them there. They may preach publicly elsewhere, yet remain cautious about openly exhibiting their Christian identity within the very communities from which they came.
I have written elsewhere about the experiences of Hindu bhaktas and the cost often borne by parents and families when someone embraces a new spiritual path. Yet the question still remains.
What is it that prevents a Hindu bhakta from expressing bhakti spontaneously within family, community, and society?
Perhaps the answer lies deeper than social pressure alone. Perhaps it touches questions of belonging, memory, identity, loyalty, gratitude, and the burden of inheritance itself.
Whatever the answer may be, the struggle is real. And it remains one of the least discussed dimensions of discipleship in the Indian context.
As I have pointed out elsewhere (see Witnessing What?), it is often the parents and family members who end up paying a heavy social and emotional price for the conversion of a son or daughter. In a similar way, many Hindu bhaktas of the Lord find themselves paying a price for a Christian legacy they neither created nor fully identify with. However much they seek to distinguish Christ from Christianity, Muktinath from institutional religion, and discipleship from conversion, the burden of that legacy continues to follow them.
This, perhaps, is part of the deeper tragedy. The Cross that Christ carried was His own. The “Christian cross” created by centuries of history is not. Yet many Hindu bhaktas find themselves carrying that burden nonetheless—often reluctantly, often silently, and sometimes with great hesitation.
“Yet many Hindu bhaktas find themselves carrying that burden nonetheless—often reluctantly, often silently, and sometimes with great hesitation.”
Beyond the Family: Workplaces, Schools, and Society
This constraint extends not only within the family but into workplaces, schools, colleges, and any other situation where a Hindu bhakta lives but feels restricted, constrained, unable to spontaneously express—or even simply live out—their bhakti.
The same dynamic affects Christians as well. In group discussions or travel situations where people are forced to share their views, they must take safe ground. They say, “I like Christ but not Christianity.” They separate Christ from Christianity because the moment they speak openly, they are labeled, cornered, and misunderstood.
One young man, whose parents are evangelical, told me:
“Now when groups discuss these things, I feel quite cornered. They know who I am. When they are talking, even without directly involving me, I remain silent because I know how I will be perceived.”
Christ vs. Christianity: The Cross We Cannot Escape
Here lies a crucial distinction: Christ came to carry the cross of sacrifice, suffering, and redemption. That was His mission.
But the “Christian cross” that Christianity/Churchianity and the Church later created—the cross of institutional power, domination, labels, inherited conflicts, and worldly identity—is another matter altogether.
Yet we cannot escape this entanglement. We cannot simply say, “I am willing to carry the Cross of Christ, but I refuse to carry the Christian cross.” In the eyes of society, the two have become inseparable.
Many Christians themselves have long recognized that distinctions must sometimes be made between Christ, Christianity, Christendom, and what some critics have called “Churchianity.”
By Christ, they mean the person and teachings of Jesus himself.
By Christianity, they mean the faith that emerged from those teachings.
By Christendom, they refer to the vast historical, cultural, political, and civilizational structures that grew around Christianity over the centuries.
And by “Churchianity,” they refer critically to those situations in which institutional interests, denominational loyalties, power structures, or religious identities become more important than discipleship itself.
Whether one accepts these distinctions or not, they help explain why many sincere followers of Christ struggle with aspects of the Christian legacy. Their difficulty is often not with Christ himself, but with the historical, cultural, and institutional burdens that have accumulated around his name.
Even a Hindu bhakta whom I know, who sees himself only as a disciple of Muktinath and not as a convert, who calls the Bible Mukti Vani and uses Indian terminology throughout his spiritual life, faces the same problem. The moment people understand whom he is speaking about, they immediately connect him not with Christ but with Christianity and even with Christendom.
The distinction that is clear in his own mind disappears in the minds of others.
The Name That Became a Cross
Peter Perumal shared a painful truth.
His father, Nam Perumal, and his mother became followers of Christ. Peter was born into the family after their spiritual journey had already begun.
His name itself tells the story of two worlds: Peter and Perumal.
One Christian. One Hindu.
Yet the bridge became a burden.
“My parents thought they were giving me a meaningful name,” he said. “Instead it became a cross.”
His colleagues see the name and immediately categorize him. Peter marks him as Christian. Perumal marks him as Hindu.
Before they know him, they think they already know who he is.
The name intended as a gift became a burden.
The cross that Christ disowned—the cross of labels, inherited identities, and the reduction of a person to a category—became his daily reality.
What We Must Carry Forward
In spite of all these burdens—the silence, the suffocation, the misunderstandings, the judgments, the labels, the tensions of family and society, and the weight of history itself—there remains something worth cherishing.
Every legacy contains both wounds and gifts.
Every inheritance contains both burdens and blessings.
The question is not whether we face difficulties. The question is whether those difficulties become the final word.
The Cross that Christ carried was the Cross of love, sacrifice, and redemption.
The cross that Christ disowned was the cross of power, domination, exclusion, and division.
The cross many people carry today is yet another cross: the burden of being misunderstood, misrepresented, categorized, and silenced because of identities they did not create.
Ask yourself:
What weighs more heavily in your heart—the wounds you received or the meaning you discovered?
The disappointments you endured or the gifts you inherited?
The answer may reveal the true worth of the legacy you carry and guide you in what must be carried forward.
We all feel constrained sometimes.
The question is not whether we carry a cross, but what we carry forward from it.
Ashram, June 3, 2026
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